Shoulders slightly hunched, a short haired girl in a loose sweatshirt and jeans pulls a duffel bag out of the trunk of a car before slamming it with just a little more force than was necessary. She turns to a boy who's leaning uneasily against the vehicle, saying, "Don't worry, I'll be fine. That's why I had you drop me off in this parking lot, instead of the next one up towards the highway. The people here are generally families, not teens."
The boy didn't look convinced, but embraced his friend anyway, muttering, "If you have any trouble, just give me a call. I know how parents can be." He shuddered a little from the cold before waving goodbye and hopping back into the car.
The girl shouldered her two bags, shuffled precariously under the unbalancing weight, and hopped up on the sidewalk. Smile tight and movements rather disjointed, she waved as the car pulled away. Her gaze didn't break until the car was finally out of sight, watching it so intently that she didn't noticed she was taking up most of the sidewalk.
She dropped the two bags on the bench and flopped heavily next to them. Cradling a battery-dead cell phone in one hand, she started pulling change out of a pocket, trying to scrounge enough to make a call. Just as she was standing to go to the payphone, a minivan pulls up. She drags the luggage towards it, quickly shoving it in the trunk amongst bags of groceries.
She disappears inside the car. The mother behind the steering wheel turned, pinned her eyes on the girl's hair, and exclaims in an overly emotional tone, "What did you do? You look like a boy!"
The girl, whose smile had been genuine, cracked to a new, forced plastic look as she said, "Hi, mom. It's just hair."
