Blonde.

Her hair was blonde, her eyes grey, and when she'd look at you her pupils would burrow into you with an intense sorrow. Her eyes were moist and the flesh around them swollen, a bit pink as if she had been crying. But she'd smile and you'd know that she was okay and that she was happy and that she'd simply been staring out the window at the sun intensely, dreaming of dusty highways and of going somewhere. She stroked her rippling hair, thinking about France or whatever it was that girls like her thought about and Bradley, bored of class, glanced in her direction. Her name was Wendy and she scratched behind her ear where a cluster of freckles were nestled, dotted there by sunburns and warm summers. Bradley didn't like her. No one particularly liked her but they didn't dislike her either. Wendy was odd, Bradley knew, more interested in random thing like clocks and toe rings than homecoming dresses and good grades. She didn't really have any friends or human relationships. She was just there to be there, a mass of matter in a chair, a thing to take the place of air.
    
   She had leaped off her roof once and everyone said she'd been suicidal but Bradley knew she had probably thought that she'd fly. Wendy had gone to see a therapist after the stunt and when asked of her apparent suicide attempt she only answered "I'm not interested in dying. I don't even know myself. I'm not going to kill a stranger." She had then asked if she could take a mint from the candy dish, which she could, and left.
    
   Bradley knew a lot about her. Her favorite purse was cheap, made of shiny false purple leather and closed by a golden clasp made to look like two kissing frogs. In the sixth grade her cat Mrs. Horse died and she wore black for an entire week straight. She usually wore lighter colors, pastels that were both frumpy and gave the impression that she attended the school for Catholic girls down the street, which sparked her never ending fascination with the parallelism between Pagan religions and Mary, mother of God. Bradley could also tell you the second and third toe on her left foot were slightly webbed, that she lived with her grandmother and that during the summer she laid out on their yard in a bikini that would cause the postman to take his time delivering the mail. She was into Spanish soap operas, growing sea-monkeys, and music. No one exactly knew what sort she listened to except that she was obsessed with Britney Spears. Once, when someone made a joke about this, from across the room she had heard and said "Old Britney. The new Britney has no magic. I only like old Britney."
    
   There were a lot of rumors about Wendy. Some people said she was entirely crazy though undiagnosed. To this she replied "I used to be average, you know, and it made me sad. Like, really depressed. It was just very boring. I think trying to fit in is, like, a waste of who God made you to be. I was so sad. I don't know if you've ever felt like that, you know, like you wanted to sleep for a thousand years or for everyone to not be aware that you exist or something like that. I kinda wanted to die. Wanting that is very morbid but I wanted it when I got like that. That's why I'm trying not to think about stuff and just be who I am and now I'm happy. So if I have to be crazy to be happy then that's okay" Others said she was part unicorn, which was made up in second grade. The rumor was completely bonkers and her most favorite. People also said more cruel things about her though she never seemed to care. She once told Bradley's sister "I honestly don't care what's said about me as long as it's not true."
    
   Bradley's sister and Wendy were once very close and their former friendship (ended over a boy) was the biggest source of Bradley's knowledge of her. His sister told him that she collected Bibles, though not religious, and of her many vintage records kept on top of a mini fridge filled with sparkling grape juice in her room. Wendy also, apparently, when feeding her goldfish would submerge two fingers, the nails a glittery orange, into the fish tank's cold water and she often said that when she grew up she was to be a mermaid-fairy. On many occasions, said Bradley's sister, Wendy could be found crushing a blueberry jolly rancher between her molars, making them sugary and sticky, and seeing how much jaw strength it took to reopen her mouth by breaking the fruity seal. They were needless facts that made Bradley see Wendy as even more random but nevertheless fascinating.
    
   Wendy was tall, her feet small, and her mouth bore extra upper canines behind the first two, a condition she shared with her dead father. She was clumsy and very thin. Previous friends of hers often commented on the way the indentions of her collarbones were like basins and collected pool water during forgotten summers. In gym she played volleyball and was absolutely horrible. She'd never give up, though, saying "If I think I can do a thing or think I can't do a thing I'm right either way. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy so I might as well think I can." Eventually she could. She was a writer, too, and her work had a sense of utter despair and heroic intelligence. A boy in class once made a snarky comment aimed at her poem about a flower, calling it "stupid". Wendy retaliated, of course and said mean things about his sports skills, none of which were true. She felt guilty and after class apologized, a conversation Bradley overheard. "I do stupid stuff", she said, "I make people mad, and then I say sorry. As if that's going to help; I'm so over it. I want to go a long time without having to say sorry because that would mean I had finally gotten control of myself and what I say; Not that I'm generally mean. I'm sorry if what I said hurt you but I'm not sorry I said it if you're not sorry about what you said about my writing because honestly I thought it was really good." The boy then called her a cocky brat and she responded saying "I'm not cocky, okay, I'm just okay with myself. If you loved yourself and what you can create I highly doubt you'd care what anyone had to say about you either."
    
   Bradley himself had ever only had one conversation with Wendy. They were both auditioning for the school play, each of the male and female lead, respectively. She turned to him, as they sat side by side, waiting for their turns, and opened her mouth. "You know, I really like this play. Have you ever read it?" Bradley hadn't. "Oh", she continued, "Well how are you expecting to play someone you know nothing about? You won't know anything about anyone by assuming and hearing. You have to put yourself in their shoes. That goes for real people, too." There was a long pause and then she spoke again "I'm Wendy. I like grass, morning grass. In the morning it's kind of wet, like with dew, and I go out and get the paper barefoot. It feels good. Hey, what's your favorite animal?" Bradley shrugged. "Oh, okay", she said, "Have you ever been in a play before?" Bradley shook his head. He wanted her to stop talking. She didn't notice. "Me either, she said, "I was in acting classes when I was real little. They were fun. It was like I could be someone else. I never actually got the chance to be in a play. I would have been fine, though, playing a minor character or something. My mom let me take a lot of acting classes. Every Sunday we'd walk down six blocks to the theater and on the stage we kids would do silly stuff. Like pretend to be a chair or mirror each other. I could drink out of a steaming imaginary coffee cup and feel scalded. That's the very first thing they teach you. And I can feel the rain, too, when it's not raining."
    
   Wendy never exactly fit in. She didn't want to. She moved away after she graduated high school, off somewhere where lighting up and not blending was a good thing, with her shiny purple leather purse and grey eyes. One summer in particular Bradley drove by her grandmother's house on his way to a friend's, finding Wendy stretched out on the dewy morning grass in a yellow polka-dotted bikini. She was only visiting though and waved when she saw Bradley. She then got up and walked up onto her grandmother's porch, her rippling blond hair covering her shoulders and then turned. She winked and grinned, her smile genuine and unpretty.