"My sister, when she was born, she had blonde hair," said the girl sitting next to me, twisting in her seat to talk to a friend. "Now she has brown hair. That's weird, right?"
Tuesday.
"How old are you?" asked The Boy Who Invited Me To Sit There of the Chinese exchange student.
"Uh, eh, seventeen," he said. There was some ruckus over the age of his girlfriend.
"That's okay," The Boy Who Invited Me To Sit There assured him, with a wave of his hand, "I can do twelve, I can do twelve. This is America, after all."
Friday.
On Fridays the school serves us corndogs for breakfast.
I do not eat breakfast on Fridays.
Monday.
English presentations. Four girls lean against the whiteboard as a shoebox diorama with play-doh figures in it sits on the teacher’s desk beside them.
A girl with empty eyes goes first—she looks sad and lost, and I imagine that no one notices. I follow her words as they all work to unfurl her poster.
A girl with glossy teal fingernails goes next, reciting from memory until her “um”s and “like”s become cause to ask for assistance and she begrudgingly fishes notes from her backpack. I stop listening around now, plan to find information elsewhere if I have to. I can’t see her eyes due to makeup and her nails distract me to no end, and when she smiles it doesn’t seem real to me.
I wish I didn’t think this way, like everyone I meet becomes a character I try to pick apart, not imagining people complexly because all I can see are the shadows they cast. Like what I see is black and white when surely,
hopefully gray is what ultimately prevails.
I can’t follow the rest of the presentation, an overview of Upper Hell in Dante’s Inferno. I rub at the blister on my thumb and consider how wrong I might be. I bite my lip.
Ye Old Initials tells us more and I scrawl ideas next to thoughts, juggle worlds as the girl next to me asks to borrow my notes and I oblige. In the hallway after class I study the pretty tulle skirt of another girl in that group, think that I have never spoken to her and wonder what she thinks of it all. She works in the office and I have never seen her smile, can’t remember what her voice sounds like.
I rest my books against my chest as I wait for my Economics teacher to open the classroom door. The cute, nerdy boy who sat behind me in English last year passes by. He wears plaid today and I wonder, like always, if he ever finds me in hallways too.
And I wonder—how do you do it? They are locked doors and I am fumbling with—maybe the wrong—key.
Tuesday.
We are moved into the room next door and presenters rotate. The second presentation involves getting into the groups, and I am guided into a group that includes a tall guy with definite puff levels and some semblance of perceivable knowledge. I think, quietly, that I would like to be his friend.
How to go about this is beyond me.
Wednesday.
The smattering of us without waivers line the walls of what is usually the volleyball practice area directly behind the bleachers in our shiny sports complex thingamajigger. Students in groups are sneakily tricked into sharing personal facts about themselves, and for some reason it makes me smile.
The groups are in circles, small voices rising from the quiet until, every so often, there is a burble of laughter.
And here I am, detached. I am more comfortable this way, finding words and observing moments that are not strictly mine. I am more comfortable borrowing memories, filling my blank space with this--with this.
Thursday.
With minutes to spare, music is blasted from speakers in the auditorium. A math teacher demonstrates a dance, slicking his hair back dramatically and bopping up and down with mad skill, and a group of students take the stage. They dance ridiculously and it makes me smile. It feels like recently I have made myself a character in my own life and I stand still watching people and lives move around me.
Like I have no place grasping for happiness when they all have their groups, their lives. I struggle with wants and their rationalizations; wanting to say words, move forward, carve some space for myself that isn't cold. Say words to the boy I would like to know and he doesn't respond and I tell myself that I don't need drama or wondering when I am just some girl and they all have their places.
Wednesday.
Cute Guy sleeps on the floor at the end of the gym, next to a girl with pretty red hair who I believe to be in a nursing program many students are in. She bends her knees close to her chest and rests an open booklet against them, reading.
A few teachers sit on folding chairs nearby, at the entrance of the space. Most of the others not participating line the next wall, three of the six wrapped in jackets and in various stages of repose.
The person nearest to me is about ten feet to my left, his head resting on a drawstring backpack, and I remember that he is one of the pranksters in my English class, a member of The Infamous Group Of Boys.
Friday.
Pep rally. I stand on the bleachers, periphery as the group I am attempting to cling to fill the seats just below me. The crowd of seniors stand on the seats themselves, the rows, and roar as we compete for the Holy Spirit Stick.
I crane my neck to watch the student conductors through small gaps between people. Their arms move up and down and just so.
They are smiling. This is why I watch them.
Wednesday.
Everyone cheers as a boy manages to carry three girls at once across the gym.
Cute Guy is roused and moves to sit along the next wall, observing. I click my pen open and closed until I decide to write this sentence.
I lament my lack of proper peripheral vision as Cute Guy catches me glancing his way. It's no big deal or anything. It isn't as if people throw stuff at me or anything.
This happens way too often, actually.
Wednesday.
But still, I shy away from what might be advances. I interpret until my thoughts spin circles around me.
I refuse to sign waivers.
Thursday.
English presentations. The Infamous Group Of Boys present their project; The Boy With The Underpants takes this as an opportunity to dress in a red spandex body suit. It is skintight and covers him head to toe.
I dearly hope you can imagine this.
Standing beside The Infamous Group Of Boys, The Boy With The Underpants does a brief jig before undoing the zipper on the back of his head and taking great (poised) gulps of air. He makes a funny face.
Thursday.
It strikes me, standing outside the school's performing arts center as we wait for the doors to open, how alone I am. A five foot radius stands between myself and any other person. My peers group together frantically, as if being alone is a disease they might catch.
The degree at which I am alone makes me feel antisocial.
Wednesday.
It is another beautiful day, one of three I can recall in ages, all of them stacked together this week. My disbelief grows. The weather is pleasant, so much so that I wish to bask in it, and I have never been on the best of terms with the out of doors.
My peers form groups in the shade and in the grassy-ish courtyard area behind me. The dirt here has the consistency of sand. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is sand. While this has been explained to me as the result of the prehistoric existence of some body of water, I choose to find it ridiculous anyway.
A girl my sister knows passes by and asks me if I'm okay. I am. She leaves, a carton of rice in hand, off to a doctor's appointment.
Thursday.
By sheer luck I land an aisle seat next to a boy I have a passing acquaintanceship with. He's very talkative and it's difficult to process what he means by the words he strings together, but he's nice and finds me in hallways to say hello.
Some might find this annoying, and I've had a share of that sort of relationship, but somehow it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's the fact that he cuts through the layer of not knowing and goes straight to words.
Even if I don't fully understand him, his presence makes me feel less alone.
Friday.
Drumline. They pour down the hall in a steady stream--ba ba ba BAH BAH BAH ba ba ba BAH BAH BAH--arms flailing as they pass. My peers rush to line the walls outside the classroom, to watch, enraptured.
I just sit here.
Thursday.
Stretching hurts. I come up short and want to crawl into myself, more so than I ever have. I feel antisocial.
I feel like hiding.
Monday.
My thoughts slip together like staircases.
Monday.
I want to split words, fuse them together, intertwined tightly—and mine. Strung together with breath.
Thursday.
The speaker is a zany scientist, an expert of drug effects on the brain with many a story to his name. A movie has been made based on his impact on history, and at several points he ferries various brains around the auditorium for our viewing.
At least they're frozen.
Wednesday.
If all goes as it is likely to, half of my face will be sunburned following this ordeal.
I decide that I don't care.
Monday.
Clear skies so bright and chill almost enough to call for a sweater, just, and thinking that everything might be okay because it is pretty outside. Good weather makes me happy in a way I cannot replicate, like some sort of mystery I wouldn’t mind living forever if they would just let me keep sitting here as people call to one another around me, a comforting scatter of noise and sunlight gleaming against parked cars.
It also makes me wish I understood things. Ye Old Initials passes by and I wonder if all these years of teaching have made him happy, though my feeling is that he would either question the definition of happiness or say, matter-of-factly, “of course I’m happy.”
Breeze wafts against my neck and I choke against the smell of cheap perfume, a scented wish gone terribly wrong. I stop to stretch my hand. People group together in pieces of shade, spill against a handicap ramp and huddle around the statue of an eagle (gift from the class of 1956!) centered in front of the flag poles.
It isn’t a memorable space of time, but for this reason I wish I could hold it forever—even Dobbin across the courtyard, today wearing a checkered red shirt. He faces away from me and wanders out of sight, and for this moment it doesn’t bother me. It is one of those moments that I like anyway.
