It was nice to no longer have to avoid Chris and to no longer be alone at school. Whenever possible, he sat next to me during class, he joined me at lunch, and he dragged over his equipment with my father's help.

Sure, I didn't quite understand how exactly his plan to give me hands worked, but my parents jumped on the opportunity, setting him up in one of the spare rooms.

I think the whole discussion went on for maybe two minutes in which both of my parents thought, "Relatively cheap prosthesis! Sign us up!"

We would spend about an hour everyday in that room while Chris fiddled with his machine, measured my wrists and forearms, and drew up rough sketches of what he wanted to do.

They would inevitably end up in the trash, but even after he really didn't need me for anything else, I sat down there with him to watch him puzzle over the trial of giving me hands.

"Natalie invited me to dinner," Chris said one day, reaching up to stretch his arms. "Apparently she drew my name, and I'm afraid she's going to try to convert me."

I crinkled my nose. "I drew her name, and every time I try to talk to her, she blows me off. I'll come with you to dinner."

A smile stretched across his face, and I basked in the warmth of it before returning it with a grin of my own.

"I was hoping you would say that. How well you think you could stay on a motorcycle if I strapped you on it?"

"You better not crash," was all I replied, pairing it with a cheeky smile.

Natalie had chosen Maybelle's, the only restaurant in Brookview unless you counted McDonald's. Chris and I arrived before she did, and we settled ourselves into a booth.

When the waiter came to get our drink orders, she still wasn't there, and I pondered this as I watched Chris stick my straw into my water for me.

"She did say five o'clock?" I asked, and he nodded to confirm the information he had given me earlier.

By the time we ordered our food, Natalie still had yet to make an appearance. It was nearly an hour past the time that she had said she would be here.

Finally, she showed up, right after Chris had helped me strap my special spoon onto my wrist. From the looks of the barely-decent blue knee-high dress she was wearing, her ideas of dinner had clearly meant date.

"You weren't invited," she snarled, ignoring the person sitting next to me to hone in on me. "I would prefer if you leave my presence immediately."

"I invited her," Chris quickly answered, "and she stays or we both leave."

Natalie huffed unhappily but sat down across from the two of us. After she was silent for several moments (which was the longest I had ever heard her go without speaking), she looked at the two of us and asked, "Why did you bring Raven along?"

"I drew you for the project," I said, ignoring the fact that she had posed the question to someone else. "Despite what you seem to think, I'm not here to challenge you and I most definitely don't want to pretend that we're going to become best friends after one day. I just want to talk and try to understand why you dislike me so much."

There was another awkward silent pause, and I stirred my soup, staring into it as if it could give me the answer to everything.

"At first," she said at last, "I didn't like you because you hadn't grown up in this little town. You had seen more than the same five hundred people everyday, and you were a novelty. Then, after I realized you were missing your hands, I started to pity you.

"I became your tormentor because you were missing pieces of your body and your parents weren't swimming in money, but you somehow seemed happier about life than me. Tearing chunks out of you and making you feel pain made me feel better about myself. I became addicted to your pain, and once I became more popular, it was easier to isolate you."

I had suspected that, but it hurt more to hear it out of her mouth than it did in my mind. Unable to lift my gaze from my soup, I blinked frantically as if it could dispel the coming tears.

"Raven, I never should have done what I did. I should have stopped the moment I realized that I was making you as empty as I was," Natalie whispered. "I should have realized that a person missing their hands would have a hard enough time making friends without me interfering."

Chris's hand moved onto my thigh, and he gently patted it as if he could sense my distress. With a shuddering breath, I turned my head and buried it in his shoulder.

"It took you seven years to come to this understanding?" He asked, wrapping an arm around me. "Even though you said you realized what you were doing to her, you not only continued but you tried to steal the only person that she had ever loved. I came to Brookview because of Ava, not to become new meat in a town for a teenage girl."

He would have continued, but I lifted my head, despite the fact that I wanted to remain hidden, before Chris could end up hurting Natalie in a scarring way.

Her dark eyes were swimming with unshed tears, and I felt my heart open up to her. I reached my left arm across the table, and after only a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her fingers about my stump.

"If Mr. Thompson hadn't assigned us this project, I don't think that the two of us would have had this chance. You've hurt me in ways that I don't think will fully mend, but I want to get to know you better. I want to see the person beneath every mean comment and the shield of hurt," I managed before I had to take a deep breath to force away the knot clogging my throat. "I have no illusions that we'll walk away from those years of hurt immediately, but I'd like to be considered your friend one day."

She granted me a teary smile. "Thank you, Raven. I don't deserve this kindness, but I appreciate it."

"Everyone needs a second chance at one point or another in their life. Make sure you use it well," I answered.

Dinner was less tense after that. Chris dropped his scowl, Natalie seemed to realize that he wasn't ever giving me up, and I felt the most like a normal teenager than I ever had.

I may not have hands, but once people looked past that fact, they seemed to realize that an actual person lived in this body. They forgot that I happened to be different from them by one minor fact and became content to laugh and smile with me.