“Lookin’ pretty lonely.”
Wait, before I start this, can I say one thing? Besides the fact that yes, I’m so cliché that I’d start this thing with some lone, dramatic dialogue, isn’t it weird how random decisions can change everything? One thing just leads to another and BAM. Your whole life is spinning in a new direction. It’s like that time I failed this huge end-of-the semester vocabulary test in Spanish. It was so bad, and I…wait. No. No it’s not. It’s actually not like that at all.
Sorry, I’m pretty terrible at this. My new therapist said that I should just start writing and not stop, no matter what direction my brain started going. But I don’t think that makes for a very coherent story, which is primarily what I’m shooting for here. I mean sure, I only started this because the doc said I should, but I mean come on. Who hasn’t ever wanted to write a memoir or something like that? Wait, I’m rambling. Dammit.
This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I don’t want this to seem like a diary or anything, because in my opinion reading stuff that’s written like that just seems weird. It makes me feel kinda creepy and intrusive—like back in eighth grade when we were supposed to read “The Diary of Anne Frank.” I felt pretty bad for poor Annie. I mean Jesus; I’d be pretty pissed if fifty years from now people were actually required to read about the first time I ever kissed a guy, or write essays about my innermost feelings. Yeah, that’d probably piss me off.
Anyway, I don’t want this to read like a journal or anything. I mean, yeah, I guess it kind of is, in a way, except not really. This is more of a recap of stuff that’s brought me to where I’m at now. That is, my state of being and everything. Not like, where I literally am, but why I think the way I do. I mean…actually, I don’t know what I mean. I think I should just go ahead and start this while I have the motivation. So yeah, anyway.
It was lunchtime. I was sitting alone—the first time I had all year. I mean, I guess it was understandable, what with it being my first day at the new school and all, but still. It was pretty pathetic.
The new school was huge compared to my old one, and it was jam-packed with kids. There were literally kids crawling up the walls, I kid you not. When you have that many kids in one building and only three lunch periods, there's bound to be some spacial problems. I had counted on this being the case for when I first entered the cafeteria, and had already planned on what I would say to the kids I was "forced" to sit by. I had even already pictured in my head how they would turn out to be just like me, and we'd all be best friends and live happily ever after in high school. It sounded pretty cool in theory, anyway.
When I walked in though, I was surprised and relieved to see a single, empty table at the front of the cafeteria. Instinctively, I made a beeline straight for it. Even though I'd already gone through all the trouble of coming up with conversation starters, I figured it'd just be easier and more satisfying to spend the period feeling sorry for myself in solace. About five minutes later though, this tall guy that looked a lot like Jesus walked over. It didn't really seem that random at the time.
“Lookin’ pretty lonely,” he said after taking a seat across from me.
I looked up. From where, the table? I don’t know why I was distracted. Probably too busy wallowing in self-pity.
“Uh, I’m new here,” I said, giving one of those fake, half-hearted, why-are-you-talking-to-me smiles. The only problem was I wanted him to talk to me; don't get me wrong, feeling sorry for yourself is crazy fun, but talking to someone when you're feeling down can be pretty nice. But I don’t know why I smiled like that. I remember taking it back almost instantly, regretting it. I went back to looking down at the table.
“Not a prepneck from Briarcrest or something, are you?”
What.
“Uh…”
“Just kidding,” he said, sensing my discomfort. Or maybe he was worried about the confused look plastered all over my face. Sometimes it’s hard to tell between how you think someone is reacting and how they’re actually reacting.
“I’m from the West Coast,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. His elbows had been propped up on the table when he sat down and his fingertips were pressed together when he suddenly extended his hand towards me.
Like an idiot, I stared blankly at his hand for a few seconds trying to focus on what was going on. I really was too wrapped up in that whole pity thing.
“Not that you have to, but people usually shake it,” he said, his face serious.
I laughed nervously, then reached across the table and awkwardly shook his hand. He had a firm grip, and his hands were soft unlike most guys’ hands.
“So, yeah. Welcome to Memphis and stuff.” He went back to pressing his fingertips together and giving me a look that made me feel like he was judging the very inner-workings of my soul.
I didn’t get this guy.
“Thanks. I’d never been here before now…apparently people here have like, a hard-on for barbeque or something?”
I said all of this very quickly, so as to keep my voice even and hide the joke if he didn’t find it funny.
He laughed. Success.
“That and ten-dollar cameo jackets from Wal-Mart that make you look hardcore.”
I smiled, starting to get what he had said earlier.
“So…you guys have ‘prepnecks’ here, eh?” I ask, making air quotes. Immediately after holding my hands up I felt silly, realizing how stiff my shoulders had been. I must’ve looked really uptight. Embarrassed, I quickly dropped my hands back down into my lap.
“It’s a pretty general term for rich kids who go out of the way to act all rednecky,” he says as he rests both hands on the table, relaxing his own shoulders. I hadn’t noticed how stiff his had been as well. “It’s pretty much used to describe every other kid at this school.”
I made a face, less than ecstatic to learn that most of the kids at the new school would be preppy and rich. I don’t like snobs. Definitely not my crowd. But this guy seemed like he might be. There was an almost kind of snobbish air around him, but not enough for me to mind. Plus he seemed pretty decent, especially if he had approached me to talk in the first place. I didn’t know him well enough, but I liked him alright. He seemed like a cool dude.
I felt like being kind of flirtatious. I get that way sometimes, especially when I’m nervous. I don’t know why.
I subtley raised my eyebrow in a kind of seductive way and asked, “Oh? Well what’s the term for kids like you?”
Without missing a beat, he answered, “Boone.”
"Cool name."
"Last, but, you know. That's just..." he began as he stood up from the table, "...how I roll." He finished his sentence while looking off into the distance. Or the other side of the cafeteria; I couldn't be sure. His overly-dramatic display made me snort, which is something I'm pretty touchy about. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with like, my ability to laugh or anything. I'm perfectly capable of it. It's just that sometimes when I don't have a chance to really register something in my mind and really think about laughing, it just slips out. It usually sounds like a horse or a dog, like the way they snore and stuff. At least that's what I've been told. Anyway, it's not too attractive, and it made him kinda glance at me and snicker. I felt really self-conscious about it, so I looked down at my lap while my cheeks started to flush.
"Got one?"
I looked up. His face had softened a bit, and he was smiling—even if it was hardly noticeable.
"I'm sorry?"
"A name, silly."
"Oh. Sorry, I'm Megan," I said, my voice cracking a bit on the last syllable of my name. I hate it when that happens.
Suddenly everyone began to stand as if some kind of silent alarm had been triggered. I don't know how they knew it, but it was time to go. Like I said before, there were tons of kids, and in seconds Boone was lost in a sea of my peers. I got pretty depressed; Boone had seemed like a pretty decent guy and he was the first person I'd talked to all day. Nonetheless I shuffled my way to my next class, taking a wrong turn at least three times. The rest of the day was pretty boring, and no one said much to me. I saw Boone once while passing in the hallway, but what with all the kids, the hallways are constantly packed between classes and we didn't make eye contact. That kinda depressed me too.
As I was leaving school, I saw him hanging out in the main entrance lobby with some other funny-looking kids. I looked over and half-smiled, just in case he managed to catch my eye. He didn't, so I stared at the floor in front of me when I walked past him. Now these were the days back when my mom used to pick me up from school. She'd pull up in this neighborhood right outside the school to avoid traffic, and I'd walk up and meet her. This was, of course, the first day she did this, and the second I got to her car I burst into tears. Not just wimpery tears either—big, fat, crocodile tears. The kind that come complete with a snotty nose and a headache that hurts like hell afterwards. My mom thought that she was embarrassing me and that's why I was so upset. Oh, mom. She cracks me up sometimes. She really does.
I cried most of the way home, and when I finally got there I took some Advil and went to sleep. Sleep really helps me calm down. I guess that sounds kinda funny, but how many people really think of it as a stress-reliever? Sleep can really get your mind off things. When I woke up though, all my worries started leaking back into my head, making me go all teary again. But something else leaked back in—Boone. I didn't know much about him, but I decided right then and there that I would talk to him again. I swore it.
