I hit the ground with a hard thud.
I looked up at the mossy overcast, feeling the air painfully escape my lungs as my hat flopped back behind my head onto the hard asphalt. Days like today, I wanted to disappear. Yeah, I know, high school is hard on everyone. I think that's just something people say to even out the playing field between me, and the guys standing over me laughing. Clearly, high school is harder on me than it is on them today.
I sat up enough to rest on my elbows, realizing I was now dripping wet. Lifting my sleeve up and letting out a disgruntled sigh as the water flowed freely from it, I turned my attention back to the boys. Strewing my backpack about, scattering my school supplies and belongings all over the ground, they laughed. A piece of paper floated from the sky and gracefully landed beside me.
"Stan Marsh
First Period
April third, 2010
Theory of Evolution Essay"
Fuck. I was supposed to turn that in today, in fifteen minutes. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I'm not the greatest student, but I pass at a B average and this is probably going to take my biology grade down to a C. Shit. The last thing I want is another lecture from my dad, especially on the theory of evolution, like he knows anything about it.
I put on my blankest, most annoyed face and looked up at my regular schoolyard bully. Clyde fucking Donovan. You know, even as a fifteen-year-old, I seriously can't even understand why people are assholes. Like really, I've never felt the urge to randomly assault someone and wreck their life. I don't even recall doing anything to the guy, but come eighth grade, he fucking hated me. I don't mean kind of disliked me, or even moderately disliked me, I mean full-out, unrelenting hatred from day one of eighth grade.
After they tossed my backpack into a tree, Craig flipped me the bird and the group of them, including Clyde, laughed and walked toward the school. I just sighed and rolled my eyes, trying to wring the water out of my hoodie. Suddenly I was being pulled off the ground by the collar of my shirt.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" I said hurriedly, confused and a little annoyed.
As my vision normalized, I came face to face with a familiar smile.
"Kenny, fuck off." I said as he set me back on my feet, and shook his hands off of my shirt.
"Ah, I was just trying to help you little nerd." Kenny said, shrugging off my annoyance and folding his arms behind his head.
I rolled my eyes and we both looked up at my backpack dangling in the tree.
At about 6'3", Kenny towered over me. He became less accustomed to his orange jumpsuit the older he got, and started wearing a mesh of reds and blacks and whites. He always looked like some deranged fucking card deck to me. Always a band-t, always some beat-up old black flats, always that mischievous grin that says he's up to no good. He wore his hair long and sort of spiked, and a stupid black dog collar with a bone pendant. I seriously didn't understand what he was going for with that.
Then again, I'm so average any kind of new trend or outlandish fashion statement anyone tried to make just seemed like a cry for attention. Like, "oooh, I'm different and edgy". But it's not just that about Kenny. He smokes, drinks, probably even smokes the J, for all I know. He's also mean and invasive, and a complete asshole most of the time. I would call him a bully, but the way he sees it, only he can bully me, and he only halfheartedly bullies me. He was kind of my bully and my protector. Sometimes I feel like he's just trying to give me shit so I'll act more like him. Tougher.
"Yeah, I can only expect that kind of attitude from the school prude." He scoffed, giving me a shove and walking toward the tree to grab my backpack.
I rolled my eyes and huffed as he swatted it down and tossed it to me. I'm still soaked, my hair is a mess, and now my backpack is scuffed up and filthy. Kenny turned me around and put an arm over my shoulders, walking me into the school. His poor ass always kind of smelled like dirt.
When we got into the hall, I was still fixing my book bag, also simultaneously trying to fix my hair, and also trying to look up and make sure Kenny wasn't walking me into anything. I glanced up a couple times, but I got wind of a scent I could never mistake, one that made me stop in my tracks and close my eyes and for a moment, no one else could exist. No one but her, and the hint of lavender and peach. Wendy Testaburger.
I woke with a slam into someone's locker door.
"Sorry dude, you should probably open your eyes." Kenny said, "You can't see Wendy with them closed anyway-"
I elbowed him, hard. Just thinking shut the fuck up Kenny, she's three feet to our right. She hasn't noticed me, she hardly ever does. Even when I hadn't looked at her, I could pinpoint exactly where she was just by the smell of her perfume. I opened my locker, and stood still next to the door, as if she could hear any and every move I made. I sighed to myself, and opened my eyes to look at her.
There she was. A lilac-colored dress with a matching knitted cap. Brown, calf-high winter boots and cream-colored socks that went just past them. What really gets me though, every time I look at her, is the little charm bracelet she wears every day. Normal people probably don't feel anything when they see other people's jewelry, hell, I usually could care less. But there's one charm on that bracelet, among various shapes and figures, was a tiny seahorse pendant. I had slipped it into her locker back in sixth grade, and watched as she smiled when she found it. She doesn't realize it was from me, and she has no idea just how much it means to me that she wears it every day, but when I see her wear it, I feel like I'm with her all the time.
Even if she doesn't even care.
She doesn't care about me. We haven't talked since we were ten, and even then, all we did was fight. She started feeling too good to acknowledge my existence sometime during fifth grade, and since then, I've had to appreciate her in silence. From the back of my locker door, and only long enough so that she won't notice.
I averted my eyes and started changing books for my next class in silence. I could feel the corners of my mouth bending downward, as a familiar sting in my nose arose. I tried to shake it off, and succeeded. A hard sigh, and the water forming in my eyes and made it's way back into my tear ducts. I gave her one last glace, shut my locker, and walked in the opposite direction of her, toward my first hour class.
I had just about given up on my hair and wet clothes, but made a quick move toward the bathroom, as it was on my way to first hour. Since there was only a few minutes until the bell rang, I was the only one in there, so I let out a sigh and dropped my semi-fixed book bag onto the stone floor. I pulled my hands over my face and rubbed my eyes, shaking my head. This is every morning.
I stopped in front of a sink and looked up at myself in the mirror. I'm so ordinary. I'm smaller than most of the guys my age, only about 5'2", even the girls towered over me, some of them. Wendy though, she was about an inch shorter. Perfect. My hair was kind of grown in, just past my ears, and it had a natural flip. Stony-gray, sleepless eyes. The thing is, I'm not bad looking. I'm just weird, and kind of quiet, and I'm smart. I'm not popular. Wendy is popular. The only thing that stopped me from being popular, the thing that stopped people from liking me, was my utter inability to care, or act like I care, about the dumb things anyone had to say. See, when someone comes up to Wendy and tells her about their day, she is actually genuinely excited. Me? I don't care. Everyone can kind of feel like I don't want them around. But it's not that I don't. I just don't want the people that are around me, around. I want company I can relate to, people who care about the things I care about, people who really get it. Even when I debate with other kids who act like they're smart, their point of view is something I've already looked at. I feel like I'm on step five, and everyone else in on step two, intellectually. I wish it wasn't true, and most of the time I don't mention it, I just stop arguing and let them go on with their day. It gets kind of lonely.
Ugh.
I've been around the same kids all my life, and even though they've grown, I know them inside and out. They're so predictable, you know? I take a look at them, and I'm perceptive, so I can tell when they're all about just by the way they talk. The tokers who just want to forget about life, to the goths who care too much about the dark side, to the preps, who don't know what a bad life is like. I'm not any of those, so where do I fit in? Where do I belong..? In this town, everything gets around, and for once, I just wanted to talk to someone who didn't have it all out of the table. Someone with some secrets. Someone like me.
I saw my reflection jump as the bell rang. I'm late again.
