I was the new kid at the school. In my hometown there were two high schools but five middle schools.
The districting lines were irregular and irrational. Two schools fed directly into one high school
and two directly into the other. My
school was split unevenly. Out of an 8th
grade class of three hundred or so, all but twenty went to one of the high
schools. I was one of the twenty that
went to the other.
And so I found myself pretty isolated those first few weeks
of high school. Everyone was making new
friends with the confidence that they had their old circles to fall back on. It was obvious, even to me, that the people I
hung around with merely tolerated my presence out of pity. I ate alone in the cafeteria.
Junior high is purgatory for the socially awkward. And occasionally those who have spent a long
time in purgatory are blinded by heaven when they first see it. I had been alienated in the last three years
to the point that I viewed all attempts to reach out to me in high school as baited traps:
older or more popular people trying to have fun at my expense. I drew into myself, making the occasional
cynical retort and gaining a reputation as the weird kid
with braces at the back of class.
We met that first year.
You had just moved from Romania
the previous year. You spoke three
languages and were studying a fourth and you spoke every one of them with music in
your voice. We had three classes
together that year. I was assigned to
the seat behind you and made those same cynical comments, sure that you simply bit
your tongue and tolerated me like the others.
One day I said something that you laughed at. You laughed so hard that you turned around
and faced me, just to let me know how much I had brightened your day. Even now, I still
remember the twinkle in your blue eyes.
I stopped seeing you as a potential enemy, and began, for the first time, to see a potential friend.
The next year we had our first class of the day
together. You had a friend there and so
did I and so we kept to ourselves mostly; only acknowledging that we knew each
other and little more. You were bright;
very bright. I look back and wonder if
you really needed that help with your homework when you sat next to me outside
the classroom door, waiting for the teacher to show up.
We became closer. I
sat in front of you next year in math class.
I still mouthed off to teachers who were frustrated by my seeming
willingness to "waste my potential". You
heard this and told me I was being a bad student and to do my work. But I saw you smiling at me every time I
didn't. We'd leave class and you'd take
my arm as we walked down the hall. One day you whispered quietly
that you liked me. I remember my exact
words even as they make me cringe at my inability to rise to the situation:
"Everyone likes me".
Senior year came. I
had managed to break out of my shell with a few people and gained enough
confidence to consider myself a well-liked person in the school. School dances scared me, prom terrified
me. I worked up the nerve to ask you to
prom the very day you told me who you were going with. You invited me to go with your group: a few
of our mutual friends. I showed up
alone. You showed up with your
boyfriend. I spent all of prom in a
melancholic daze, talking with the other guys there who hadn't quite figured
out why they had come either—watching you laughing at his jokes and dancing
with him (though how you managed to dance to rap music I don't know). I went home early.
I IMed you today; I don't know why. You responded. You poured all your problems out on me and I
valued every digital word. You're having
trouble with your dad and starting college and buying books and your driving
ticket and still living at home and not-being-able-to-do-anything-but-study. I respond the best I can;
I've never been much good at these situations but you thank me for being such a good
friend anyways.
Sometimes, all you can be is a friend.