Bianca's POV

I had to gather dinner as well, but it's less work than I had to do before because this time I recognized some inedible foods and knew to stay away from them instead of gathering some.

That night I slept well, or as well as I could on the ground, and the next morning I woke up feeling happy. I wasn't exactly sure why, but I thought I'd had a good dream the night before. I wasn't exactly sure what it was about, but I was pretty sure Marcus was in it.

Speaking of Marcus, he woke up next to me stretching.

"Morning," I said. "Sleep well?"

"Um, yeah, I did actually," he replied. "Why?"

"I don't know. Politeness, I guess," I answered.

"Oh. Um, then how did you sleep?" he asked me awkwardly.

"Pretty good, surprisingly," I told him.

"Well that's good," he said.

"I'm going to go get breakfast," I said exiting the tent. I walked into the woods and, for some reason, was happy the whole time I was getting food.

Marcus's POV

Bianca was kind of weirding me out. First, there was her politeness in the morning, and then there was this: she served me breakfast in a plastic bag right to me, got me water, and was just in general helpful. When I asked her about it, she replied with,

"What? Am I not allowed to have a good day?" And then she proceeded to change the ice in my ice pack. Without being asked.

While the change wasn't unwelcome, it was a little weird. It's like in the middle of the night, someone replaced Bianca with her identical, happier twin.  It's actually kind of nice.

Bianca's POV

It was like someone had fed me a bottle of happiness pills.  The good feeling never left me all day.  I continued to help Marcus with whatever he needed, and didn't really mind.  I even read to him from the beginning of my book, which he enjoyed.

That night I lay in bed thinking about my happy mood.  At first, I thought it had been because of the dream, but when I thought about it more, I realized that most of it had been because helping Marcus felt... good.

I liked seeing his smile of gratitude.  I liked hearing him say thank you.  I especially liked his reaction to the book.

Then, I realized something else.  I didn't really hate Marcus.  I never did.  What I hated, was his arm.  He as a person is actually very nice, and is hiding a lot of sadness from all the people who bullied him.  I understood, suddenly, that I was one of those people.  That I caused him, and probably others, pain.  I swore to myself that I would never be that mean again.  Not ever.