Cafeteria
"Hey there, what have you been up to?" Lisa asked as she slid into the chair next to me.
"Nothing," I said, trying to hide my surprise at how she looks. She was wearing a nice, tight blue and white sweater, and her bare thighs swung out of the end of a short skirt, but the big shocker was her face - the long black hair which had swept down to her shoulders for so long was gone. Now it bobbed up and framed her face at the bottom of her ears, exposing her narrow, thin neck. No makeup hit her natural cheekbones, her thin lips, or her black eyelashes. She looked so naked that I almost dropped my sandwich, but I forced myself to look at my plate, trying not to stare. How could she not know how this would affect me? Just look at her! But I coolly said, "what have you been doing?"
"Oh, the usual," she said nonchalantly.
"Ah." A pause. Fuck it. "No, what's with the change?""
"Oh!" Lisa said, looking down, as if noticing her appearance for the first time. "Do you like it?"
"Like it? Uh, yes. Yes I do."
"Really?" She looked at herself again, this time with a small inward smile. "I like it. I think I needed a change. This is more me."
"More you?"
"Yup. Just got sick of the old me. But i'm sorry, I really can't talk now. Got an important class in fifteen. Call me tonight, okay?" She kissed me on the head as she headed out the cafeteria door.
"Okay. Tonight," I called back. My mind spun. Holy shit. What the fuck just happened? What could have inspired her big change? She was so Lisa before. Now... well, what did she become? Only now did I realize that something might be wrong. But now I felt out of place, like I didn't even know her; like I hadn't even been friends with her for two years. I wanted to get up and run to her, run as fast as I could go, go with her to where she was going, to ask her who she thought she was. I wanted to find out who she was. I wanted to tell her how much I wanted to find out who she was. But all I could do was sit there, in the middle of the dining hall, thinking of all of the things I wanted to say to Lisa with a half-eaten sandwich in my hand.