Group Dynamics

"This," Dobbin says, handing a piece of paper to the girl who sits across from me, "is not a love poem."

She reads it and her eyes widen, a hint of amusement in her voice as she says "wow, man, that's... not creepy, but dark. Dark."

He takes it back from her, chuckles "yeah" and it makes its way around the table.

The boy who sits to my left, the only thing keeping me from having to ignore Dobbin with a passion every day, has a bowl cut that falls almost to his eyelashes. He reminds me of a little boy, his face cherubic and voice quiet but eager. He gets the page next and I read over his shoulder.

"I mean," says Dobbin, and I can hear the laughter in his voice, "gosh, it is dark. I don't really feel that way..."

There is enough blood gushing from veins and lines like "I cannot keep hold of love" and, oh, "she thinks she has felt my pain" for me to find it all vastly amusing.

I doodle on scratch paper as worlds spin around me; the boy sitting next to me asks me what I'm drawing 1, 2, 3 times.

"Is that a cage? Are you going to put a cat in the cage?"

"I'm just doodling," I insist. "I'm not drawing anything in particular."

The boy sitting next to me worries me. Beyond being a useful candidate for blocking my view of Dobbin, I have become fond of him in a way that one might be fond of a small child or little brother. Last week he nearly fell over himself trying to help me research my Psychology paper--

"You need a laptop."

"No, I don't."

"You need a laptop."

"Why would I need a laptop?"

"For research!"

"I don't need one."

He left our patchwork grouping of desks after this, returning with a laptop from the cart. He slouched close to the screen, fingers poised to type words into the mighty tyrant that is Bing (which he insists is better than Google--pah!).

"What do you want to type in?"

"I don't need help. Shouldn't you be writing your own paper?"

"Well..."

I am, tentatively, concerned.

One could say I have prioritized. Dobbin is in this group, as well, but rarely bothers me these days. He's annoying, absolutely, and I often think he's trying to dig at me.

But whatever.

And really? "She thinks she has felt my pain"? "I cannot keep hold of love"?

Lols.

To my right, at an angle, sits a guy who aspires to be a train conductor. Some symbols are tattooed on his wrist and he practices slacking as an art form. Across from me is a girl I know from last year. Her hair is cut distinctively, two long pieces at each side of her face; she invited me to join their group at the beginning of the year. She enjoys singing, Jesus (which surprised me, somehow), and is edgy in a way I can't quite distinguish. She wears clunky boots a lot (I am ace at this description thing).

The boy next to her works at a hamster farm. He's a big guy, very huggable looking; his guitar case is shaped like a coffin. I don't know much about the boy who sits next to him, at at an angle, besides the fact that he writes stories and, of course, sits next to Dobbin himself.

I don't know where I fit in this group, if I fit, but they have never questioned my right to be here and fitting isn't an issue I had considered before this moment. I just am. Maybe I'm nothing special, nothing glittering, but I am here... and I am okay.

This morning I was talking to the quick-speaking, oft unintelligible boy I know in Physics as we fiddled with library computers and a worksheet.

"You know," he said, voice high pitched and gesturing with his index finger, "I'm going to be named most important person ever to go to this high school."

I smiled. "Can I be the second most important person, then?"

"No," he said, "no you can't. Because you're not from here. You have to be here... be here your whole life. You haven't."

I smiled again, grateful for these words. "At least you're honest."