Faith approaches my right side and interlocks her fingers with mine. For some reason, this veers my thoughts to the peculiar girl I sort of met in that cafe the other day. I shake those thoughts and try to keep up with Faith's conversation.

I see the girl in the hallway. I didn't know she went to the same school. She closes her locker and fumbles with the binders in her arms. I suddenly realize that I might be staring again and decide that I should probably go meet Faith at the science hall.

The last bell rings. I practically run out of my math class and happen to see the girl again. She sits on a bench outside the front doors, a gold-colored headband holding her red-brown hair out of her eyes. I decide to gather some courage and push open the glass doors. She doesn't shift her gaze from the crowd of people as I approach. Instead, she takes the blue notebook from her bag and, turning to a blank page, begins to write, her hand and wrist sweeping across the page.
"Hello," I say as casually as possible.
A small gasp escapes from her mouth and she slams the notebook closed. The girl turns to me and bites her lip before looking down at the cracked concrete.
"I'm Neil. What's your name?"
She doesn't look up at me.
"Elaine."
"Nice to meet you then, Elaine. Did I scare you... or something?"
Elaine's eyes meet mine.
"No," she says slowly as if in realization of the fact.
"I keep meaning to ask you- well, in the cafe the other day, were you alright?" I swallow, hoping she doesn't think I'm too weird for dwelling on what happened.
She makes a noise that kind of sounds like a chuckle. Then, a serious look crosses her face.
"Yeah. I'm always like that. But not for the reasons you think."
I ponder this for a moment.
"I really didn't look in your notebook. Honestly," I say quietly, hoping she will believe me.
"I know," she says lightly, casually, almost before I can process it.
"What?"
She stuffs the notebook into her bag and nods.
"I know," is all she says, again before walking off.

"Is she new?"

Faith nods in Elaine's direction when she follows my gaze in the cafeteria.
"I don't think so," I say quietly. "I think she's just.. one of those kinds of people."
"Well, I like her hair color. I wonder if that's natural."

I see Elaine in the library when I look up over Julius Caesar. She stands, her fingers gliding across the spines of a few books in the non-fiction isle.

"You really don't mind tutoring me?"
"I like literature," I smile.
"You're the first," Elaine says, raising her eyebrows.
"Faith is actually much better at this tutoring stuff than I am," I admit. "But I am happy to fill in. It's not very often that she gets sick."
"I've never met her," Elaine says, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "Mr. Lewis recommended her to me last week."
"She's nice. Smart. Funny," I say.

"Can I ask you something?" a soft voice says.
After a long moment, I look up from my stack of exam reviews at Elaine.
"You seem frustrated," she says.
"That's not a question," I say returning my attention to studying.
"That wasn't my question," she says quickly in response.
"What is it?" I ask, my tone a bit harsh.
There is only silence until I look up at her.
"Seriously. Can I ask you something?"
"Yes," I sigh, finally.
She looks at me for a long while before responding.
"When you look at me, what do you see?"
My jaw hardens a bit at this and my lips tighten into a thin line.
"Why are you going there?" I ask flatly.
"You said I could ask you-"
"I didn't say I would answer," my voice rises.
She looks agitated for a split second, then turns away, shaking her head.
I take a deep breath, feeling the air hit the bottom of my lungs before exhaling forcefully.
"You want me to tell you?" I ask tersely, my voice growing louder. "Fine. I'll tell you. I see your quiet smile and deep brown eyes that seem to stare into my soul especially when I don't want them to. And your hair that looks more red than brown in the sunlight. And the way you always bite your lip and- and I see a girl that I think I love. I see you, Elaine. That's what I see."
A silence fills the space between us for a minute as I feel the conflicted heat rising in my chest.
"No, you don't," she whispers.
"What?" I ask her, confused.
"You don't see anything!" she screams at me and storms off, slamming the door behind her.

I throw the blue notebook at her feet and the pages fly open.
"What is this?" I yell at her.
Elaine closes her eyes.
"Seriously, Elaine!"
She sighs a long sigh. The kind that makes her bangs flip up from her forehead.
"You shouldn't have hit your own mother," she says quietly.
I am livid, filled with anger, embarrassment, hurt, and shame all mixed together at once.
"How do you know about that? How could you possibly have known?"
She opens her eyes to stare back at my own.
"You hit her," she says through gritted teeth.
"How do you even know about that? It was a year ago!" I whisper, my breath as hot as my face.
"I told you not to read it," she says simply, calmly, in fact.
"Who told you? No one else knows about it! And why did you write about it in that notebook of yours?" I shout, the confusion and anger swirling around in my head.
"No one told me," she says.
"Then how did you know?"
"I knew."
"How?" I ask, fuming.
"When I looked at you, I saw."

I feel like an idiot. I feel so stupid for putting my own feelings on the line for a stupid girl that I have only known for a few months. I blew off Faith, the only girl I ever truly cared about, and now she won't even talk to me. And it's all because of Elaine. She's crazy. I know it. Something is wrong with her.
But, somehow, she knew. Somehow she knows my darkest secret. She wrote it down in her notebook and even put the date on it; the same day when we met in that café. But the problem is that I didn't know she existed prior to that day. We had never spoken before then. How did she know about the worst thing I have ever done 'just by looking at me?' That's not possible and she is insane.

I see Faith in the parking lot. I know she sees me but she turns her nose up and walks toward a group of her friends. My insides turn and I grip my car door handle to steady myself. I feel so manipulated. Someone told Elaine the terrible thing I did and had her get close to me to blackmail me or... something. But who else knows about what I did?  Who told Elaine? And why would they do that? Did my mother tell someone about it? Is someone trying to get back at me? What will other people say if they find out about what I did? I thought that whole thing was behind me.
I don't know anymore.

"Faith, please, you are the only person I have ever truly cared about!"
Silence.
"Faith, please talk to me! Say something! I was so stupid, and-"
"Maybe you should have thought about that before."

"Elaine, we have to talk. Who told you about what I did?" I grab her shoulder.
Elaine turns to me, her face almost somber.
"I walked into the cafe, sat down, and saw you," she says, her tone even.
"Okay? But that's not-"
"No," she holds up a hand. "No, I really saw you. I saw who you were. It normally doesn't happen so immediately, but I saw who you really were. Inside."
I let my hand fall from her shoulder, and take a small step back.
"My mother died when I was little," she says softly.
"What?"
"Yes. She died. And so, when I saw you, the thought of you hurting your own mother made me cry. I wrote down what you did because it was all so overwhelming, and I went to the bathroom and cried."
I don't say anything as I try to process this.
"You hurting your mother wasn't the only thing I wrote down, though. You didn't read the rest. I wrote all of the other things I saw, too. Like when your dad took you fishing when you were younger. Before the divorce. You never told him you knew, but he caught a bigger fish than you did and didn't want you to feel bad, so his fish "accidentally" got away. You told him he was the greatest dad in the world. And for your 10th birthday, you got a new bike, but gave it to another boy at your school who had never really had one because his family couldn't afford it. When you got home, you told your mom it had gotten stolen because you didn't want her to get upset at you," she pauses. "And there was so much more."
I am suddenly aware that Elaine is sobbing, tears streaming down her red, splotchy cheeks as she lowers her voice even more. But I can't bring myself to say anything, so she continues.
"You came home late one night. You had been drinking. You didn't mean for anything to happen the way it did, but your mom was upset with you and you hit her. And there were bruises and-and... you never felt worse in your entire life. You hate yourself for it every day because she has forgiven you, but has never looked at you the same way. And you can't look at yourself the same way, either."
I don't know what to say. There is nothing left to say.
Elaine is not crazy. But I don't know what she is anymore.
I just know that it all hurts.
"Elaine.."
"Ever since I was little, I have seen people differently. I see what makes them who they are just by looking." Elaine wipes her nose with her sleeve. "But only when I really try. Except, with you, I didn't have to try. I saw you even though I didn't mean to. I couldn't control it. I saw everything, and despite the bad, there was so much more."
"You saw all of that.. just by looking at me?" I ask slowly, incredulously.
"Yes, and I'm sorry. I really am. And I understand if you don't want to talk to me any longer."
She waits for my response, but I honestly don't know what to say to her. Not anymore.

I stare at the flooring, the patterns swirling in the dark wood. It could use a thorough sweeping, and maybe a good polishing, as well.
The church choir had been singing for too long, it seemed, and I am ready to go home, but my mother sits beside me expecting more from me than that. I sit up straighter and try to smile, but my head pulsates and my vision blurs. I must have a migraine coming on.
My phone suddenly vibrates in my pocket. My mother frowns and my face grows hot. I pull it out and head for the foyer as fast as I can, ignoring the subtle glares I receive. I close the wooden doors and look down at the glowing screen.
I don't recognize the number.
"Hello?" I answer.
"Is this Neil?" a man tries to clear his voice between muffled sobs on the other end.
"Yes, who is this?"
"Th-this is Elaine's father."

What an amazing gift: to be able to see someone the way they truly are. She described it to me once as a curse. But I don't agree. And maybe if she could have seen herself the same way she saw everyone else, she would have understood that. I believe the only curse about the whole thing is that I will never be able to see Elaine the same way she saw me. But now that she is gone, I understand her more than I ever did. She saw all of the bad just upon looking at me and loved me anyway. Some days were better than others, and she knew that I couldn't see things like she did. But now I do.
She was right, though; I never truly saw Elaine.
And as I sit down on the bench in front of the school, I carefully pull out the blue notebook. I smile to myself, seeing the way her hand swept across the pages as she wrote when I first learned her name. Shaking the memory, I begin to read, hoping to finally see Elaine.