Young Writers Society

Lesson 4: Avoidance

She knew.

I don't know how, but it's a gift that you get when you're old and surrounded by hormonal teenagers for an occupation. I was getting sick, but for all the wrong reasons.

The polygraph in my mouth beeped, calling to its mistress for retrieval.

My cheeks were still heated, so hopefully that would rake me up a few extra points.

The middle-aged tub of a woman, with a love for motivational pins (or so I hoped, otherwise she should fire her costume designer), made quite the task of complying to the device's call. For starters, she couldn't get out of her seat without a grunt. Not like an I'm-so-out-of-weight grunt, but a you're-seriously-gonna-make-me-get-that-thing kind of grunt. Not my fault her desk was on the other side of the microscopic cubicle.

Anyway, after getting her chair unstuck from her purse strap, successfully maneuvering the room while dropping minimal objects obstructing her path, and still refusing to simply reach over the desk for the device, she completed the task.

She didn't waste time to re-embrace the hassle. Not that I blamed her, considering I had sweated off all my detergent.

"You don't have a fever," she declared once seated. I couldn't remember if she even looked at the thermometer.

I nodded.

"Is there anything else you need?" She said after I had continued to sit.

"Guess not," I said, not really sure what else it took to act sick.

The hallways, today, made me want to vomit.

Honestly, I'm not sure why I wanted to go home, considering it had the same amount of people I wanted to avoid as school did. I mean, I guess I didn't have to go home. I could've hung out in my car at some random parking lot and played hide-and-go-seek with mall cops.

Not really sure why I was still plotting that out, considering I was officially not leaving school.

The nice thing about classes was I didn't have to see either offending party. It was lunch time that students were forced to lottery co-mingle. However, I had visited the school nurse before lunch to avoid such interactions, which was no longer an option. So, school wasn't really a nice thing right now.

I stumbled past tables filled with the student body yelling over each others' sentences while trying to force their food down their throats so that they would be done in time for the next hour.It was then that I realized I should've asked for an aspirin.Headaches are a kind of sickness.

Instead, I spotted my usual table near the back almost as quickly as I identified the smiling honey brown eyes that were staring at me, beckoning me to come toward them.

Thanks fever. Where the hell were you when we wanted to play hooky?

I knew he was going to be there. I knew I was going to have to talk to him. Pretend I wasn't an emotional car-crash. Pretend I was okay.

But I wasn't. And he was. And he shouldn't be. And I was not going to do this right now.

Out of panic, I quickly looked around for any other options. Immediately, I spotted a girl sitting by herself in the ocean of lunch tables. She had this gothic thing going on where primary colors were illegal. To keep my image, I maneuvered myself so it appeared that I intended to walked toward her the whole time. Actually, I tripped over someone's school bag and fell into my seat. But I did it with style.

I smiled sweetly and stated with polite intentions, "Hi, you look lonely, and could use a friend. I'm Kamber."

She completely ignored my existence as she continued to chew upon some health-hazard sandwich. She could've at least had the decency to question the weirdo who almost twister her ankle.

"So, what's your name, friend?"

Her response: "You're not my friend."

I frowned, not appreciating her rude abruptness. I'm probably the only person she's ever talked to in a decade and she can't even be my pretend friend. If Duane wasn't such a romantic moron, I would've ditched this goth loser.

"Not yet, but we could be. You can't tell me you seriously like sitting alone?"

No response.

"See, so let's be friends."

"No."

Are you f-ing--. "Fine. We can be lunch friends. We'll get jackets and we'll be chic."

"We're not friends."

I exhaled through the nostrils and reminded myself that I really didn't want to be this loser's friend either. I just needed to sit at this table for one day and then I'll deal with Duane tomorrow. Or think of a new way to avoid him. Or take an acting class for sickness.

"We'll I'm gonna sit here, and we can be non-friends."

She gnawed her bread and cold-cuts.

After cleaning the dirt from my nails and having nothing left to entertain me, I inquired, "How's that sandwich?"

She replied by not replying.

"Is it that good of a sandwich?"

She stopped before she took another bite and glanced at me. "Not all of us are into the whole anorexic fad these days."

I tried not to laugh at the left-field statement. "What's that suppose to mean?"

She pointed to the empty spot before me on the table. "You've got quite a 'filling' lunch there."

I glanced at what she was pointing at and realized what she was insinuating. For some reason, it made me want to defend myself although I knew I didn't need to, but I did anyway, "Hey, I just forgot my lunch. I could probably out eat you if I'd wanted to."

Her words were a mixture between mockery and indifference, "Your boyfriend would probably dump you if you did, sweetie."

I stared at her blankly and tried not to scoff at her ignorant misconceptions. "What boyfriend?"

She pointed to some direction behind me with her thumb as she continued to gnaw her sandwich. I looked in the direction she was inclining and saw Duane glancing at me with an arched mouth, leaning up from his seat, and puckered lip as if wanting to say something but physically couldn't reach me. I should've turned around, but I got this crazy idea of him walking over to me and him telling goth-freak that I was the best friend ever, Bodney meant nothing, and we could eat lunch together. Instead, he sulked into his seat and went back to talking to the other people at my ex-table.

"Go sit by him. He's starting to bug me."

What I wanted to do was gnaw at her until she was in the exact location of emotional distraught as I was. But I was still isolated amongst a sea of pimpled teens. I turned back to my entrapment."Well, as long as I'm not, I shall enthrall you with my company."

She eyed me then, and I was sure she had some sort of witty comeback at her tongue. Maybe too many for her to decide from.Giving up, she returned to her prey.

Tapping my fingers, I tried to think of a good conversation starter. "So, got any boy drama?"

She stopped eating for a moment. "You don't seriously think I'm like that."

It wasn't a question.

"So, what are you then? Clearly a non-friend, and a sandwich mauler, but what else? One of those crazy cult people who cut up cute animals to sacrifice to some god-like demon?" I added a giggle to my quip.

She glanced at me. "And you're one of those vain preppy girls that complain about every little detail about yourself until you're some ideal goddess and when given one little snide comment like 'oh, she's so fat', go ballistic and try to change yourself so much that eventually you come to the conclusion of the trigger to your head."

"You're really not a people person, are you?" I commented, slightly regretting my seat choice.

"You really like to make assumptions."

I grinned a, "Well, aren't you just charming."

She returned to gnawing on her sandwich.

Just then, the bell rung. I looked around and finally noticed the lack of people. Quickly, I glanced toward the back to find that even Duane had left. He didn't even say something to me. I probably deserved it, but he could have at least inquired about my actions.

"Well, you're quite the chatter. I guess I‘ll just leave you forever now."

As I was walking away from the table, I heard her mutter, "Julia."

I glanced back at her in a daze. "What?"

She responded, still concentrated on her lunch, "My name."

It took a moment for me to place the two sources of information she had given me together. When the sum finally processed in my head, I smiled in appreciation. Then, I turned to walk out of the cafeteria and away from the Dark, Food Menace known as Julia.