Chapter 6: An Observation on High Schoolers

6
An Observation on High Schoolers

Lying is my specialty.  But lies don’t give freedom. They merely provide me with an underground safe room from destruction.  Alas, it’s not a very pretty room.  But that’s how I like it.

Like how walking in to Ms. Stevens class late is not a pleasant experience.  But my story about puking all morning will have to suffice for now.

.    .    .

You learn many things about the human race just by sitting in a corner watching your fellow High Schoolers dilly-dolly with each other.  The way they react to each other, who they choose to flirt with, who they choose to laugh with, who they choose to avoid, who they choose to hurt.  The way they stand with their food tray, scanning the cafeteria in composed panic, until they find their click.

I arrive as early to lunch as possible, always choosing the seat to the right corner of the room.  The white paint on the brick walls: chipped and peeling, revealing an ugly grey plaster beneath.  I make out a few shapes in the fading paint.  One shape looks like an Octopus.  Like Leo, Savvy’s stuffed octopus he used to bring to school every day.  Everyday, until Conner found it.

Conner sits by me.  As does Sheldon.  Mikayla.  Joseph.  Mika.  Jessica.  My entire table is filled in a matter of seconds.  Grace sits closest to me.  I hold my breath against the fruity sent of her breath.  She proceeds to tell me something “super funny” that happened between her and Sheldon, gnawing her fruit loop between words.  Why does she talk to me?  Why do any of them talk to me?  Am I fun?  Good looking?  I only leave a comment in their conversation once every so often, when I truly feel the need, and every time, my comment sends half the table in hysterics, and the other half pausing their conversation to be a part of the joke. 

I don’t laugh.

I have as much pride entertaining this crowd as a babysitter has pride in entertaining 5-year-old’s. 

Why did things change?  Perhaps they’re rewarding me.  Rewarding me with attention.  Now that “that weird kid” is out of the picture.  That weird half blind kid, who believed in Santa for a little too long, who stuttered in conversation, who brought his stuffed octopus to class.  Being his friend must have made me weird too, right?

Then that kid gets a bullet in the chest, and I get attention.  My reward.  As though I shot him myself.