Morning announcements used to be a time where I would listen and watch eagerly and attentively to all of the notices being talked about. There were so many opportunities being broadcast across the screen that I was so intrigued about. That spark has burnt out. Now the morning announcements are a time where I can catch up on homework I didn't bother to finish or just zone out and not think of two weeks ago when Darcy and Manny reminded me of my place as an outsider. And that was in my own house, nonetheless. That had to be the most brutal diss towards anyone. A person's house is supposed to be a place filled with love and security, not one of hostility and reminders of where they fit into in the hierarchy of their school. I'm too out of place to even be a loner. I'm in my own dimension where everything is warped beyond comprehension. I don't feel real or human. I feel hollow like there's something inside of me that got ripped out by a hook. The worst part of it is that I was so damn oblivious to the whole ordeal. There are so many instances that I can think of that could be the time of when it happened but I can't pinpoint it.
"Tickets go on sale for the Grade ten semi-formal sponsored by the student council today during lunch," Liberty informs us as we try to fight the urge to doze off. Wait a minute, there's a dance going on? "Tickets are ten dollars for those who are flying solo and fifteen for those who are going with someone. You may bring someone from another grade as your date as long as they have their student ID with them. Remember that this is a semi-formal, so please remember to wear the proper attire. Please bring your ticket and your student ID to the door at eight on Friday night for a great time."
Great time? You absolutely have to be kidding me. Dances usually consist of people dancing awkwardly in outfits that they blew an enormous amount of money on that they would only wear one time. Usually, someone takes the liberty of spiking the punch so everyone can get intoxicated and wake up with a hangover the next day. All in all, dances are usually a humiliating experience and everyone wonders why in the world they wanted to go in the first place. And yet, everyone goes to the next one regardless. It's a vicious cycle they've locked us into so we can fund our school.
"Why such the sour face, Santos," JT leans across my desk like a prized ham on a dinner table. "Is it because that boyfriend of yours currently has the kissing disease?" He smirks at Manny while she rolls her eyes and continues to sulk. I try to pretend that I don't know that JT is the centerpiece of my desk.
"Mr. Yorke, will you please get off of Emma's desk," Miss Hatzilakos asks with a slightly stern tone lingering in her voice. I swear I had no clue that JT was on my desk. I was too enthused with the bland pattern painted across the ceiling tiles. Now the centerpiece has been stolen by a guest. Manny continues to look like a lemon drowning in her own citric acid.
"You know what, Yorke, you're lucky you have a girlfriend or you would have been paying someone for a date," Manny spits at him bitterly. They're on opposite sides of my desk. They're in trenches, manning the insults that they want to fly at the other. My desk is no man's land. No one dares to go across it or to get my involved. I'm hollow. I can't help.
Toby turns around in his chair and faces us. He reminds me of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland sans the pipe. My whole life has been one distorted dream complete with enough twist and turns to fill several drug induced novels. Lately it's felt as though I'm no longer in existence. I'm merely floating above my body and watching it go through the motions with a piece of duct tape over my mouth. The switch on my mind and conscience has been switched to off. Emma Nelson is no longer in service. Instead she's being powered by an artificial source.
"Well, I happen to have a date so I'm officially off the market," Toby states with the same grin plastered across his face. This is not Toby Isaacs. Toby Isaacs has been more shattered than me. He's looked like a zombie walking down the hallway with a glowing neon sign hanging above his head that said "Save me". It had been no secret that Toby locked himself away for quite a while. No one had heard a word from him at all. The only way we found out tidbits of information about his life was through Snake and my mom. His step mom and dad had been sending him to see a psychologist to help put him back together. Now he's rebuilt and better than he was.
"Darcy said yes," Manny questions with curious eyes. "Good for you, Tobes!"
JT glances at him like he just won an Oscar, "Well, congratulations, man. You were able to woo Miss O'Sullivan." Toby attempts to look like it's no big deal. He's someone who woos girls on a daily basis. However, he stares down at his sneakers and resembles an apple right about now. The bell chirps through the school and that's our signal to get up and shuffle tiredly along to our first class of the day. We're all worker ants marching to our destination to get food from a picnic spot to feed the colony. We have to work together yet alone. Our ability to get through the day without falling apart is dependent on ourselves but is influenced by the other ants. It's hard to seal yourself off from the world while being a part of it.
It's off to gym class I go to play tennis outside in the chilly April morning air. Of course before I can play tennis, I must subject myself to the humiliating events of changing in the locker room. It's not that I actually let people's opinions of what I look like get to me. Okay, maybe sometimes I do. The locker room is one of the most unwelcoming places for girls laced with insecurities. It's a place where you can see other girls' oh so perfect bodies and compare them to yours while they compare theirs to someone else. The days of feminism and non-Spice Girls driven girl power are over for me. Honestly, being a teenage girl is one of the most grueling experiences of my life. I just want womanhood to be thrust upon me so I can stop having to deal with the almost cats I call the girl population of Degrassi Community School. I just feel out of place with them. I have since the beginning. When they were off saving money for a designer pair of jeans, I was off trying to save the environment. Now when they're being normal and hanging out at parties on Friday night, I'm watching crappy television with Matt. It's not like I want their brainless and social hierarchy driven lives but I feel like such a stranger in a world I'm supposed to be a part of. Is it good to not be a cookie cutter girl or should you strive to be pretty and perfect and normal? When you're in high school, the answer to that question is the latter. Contrary to various cliché teen movies, high school is probably the worst part of anyone's life despite their position on the social scale.
As I pull the combination lock off of my locker, Manny comes hurling in just as the late bell sounds throughout the school. I'm tying my shoes as she attempts to open up her locker and somehow manage to get changed in five minutes so she won't be counted as tardy. It's amazing how she's been there for about a minute and my presence isn't really noted. Maybe we only really do care about our own well being in the end. I mean, when you think about it that way, it seems as though everything I fought for is completely and utterly pointless. If we only care about ourselves in the end, then why do we strive to attempt to help others with various organizations? If our own well being is our only concern, then what the hell is the point of helping other people?
I finally tie my shoe and am ready to go out and line up with the others in my gym class. However, for some reason or another, I'm compelled to wait for Manny. It's what best friends do and as the role of her pseudo-best friend, I wait for her and risk a possible tardy on my record.
"Manny, hon, please tell me you don't already have a tennis partner," a vexing familiar voice rings out next to me. I turn my head and see Paige in her oh so glamorous gym style. It seems as though she broke loose from the athletic section of a catalog complete with a hair and make-up job fit for a model. Lucky for me, Manny knows the unwritten law that your best friend is automatically your tennis partner. "I would totally appreciate it since you're probably the only one in this entire class that can hit a ball with a tennis racket."
"Oh, sure, Paige," Manny says politely. Paige is a witch who cast a spell upon Manny. Now in Manny's world, I'm just another face she passes in the hallway when Spinner's arm is around her waist and Marco and her are having a grand old time chatting. Paige skips off towards the door that leads to the gym. Manny takes out her hoop earrings and then finally decides it's a grand ole time to acknowledge my presence only about a foot away from her.
"So, Paige is your tennis partner, that's…great," I roll my eyes. "Just make sure she doesn't break a nail or she'll go nuclear."
She returns the eye rolling, "You still act like Paige has the depth of a kiddie pool. She's actually kind of cool when you get to know her." Oh, so that's why you and Darcy talk and snicker behind her back like there's no tomorrow? I nod in some sort of agreement as we end up walking to the gym together yet not together. We acknowledge each other's presence yet we act like the other is a stranger.
The bright lights of the gym shine down on us as chatter fills my ears. Everyone seems to be partnered up with tennis rackets and balls as they chat away with their partners. I feel like a fish that's lost its school and is swimming through the warm ocean waters on my own. Mr. Armstrong marks our presence down in the grade book a we saunter into the gym. I look around and see that almost everyone has a partner. I can't go on Noah's Ark because I don't have my partner and we're supposed to go two by two. JT and Danny Van Zandt are currently assaulting each other with their tennis rackets. Ashley Kerwin and Heather Sinclair are chatting away happily as Paige and Manny glance over at them in anger. And the loitering duo known as Sully and Alex are laughing at something that is quite unknown to me at the moment.
I feel a tap on my shoulder, "Hey uh, it seems as though you're in need of a partner." I twirl around and am faced with the guy who sits in back of me in History. He brushes a chunk of golden messy hair out of his face and sticks his hands into the depths of his black gym shorts. "I'm Nate, by the way. I think I sit behind you in fourth period history."
"Uh huh," I vaguely nod. "Sure, uh, I'll be partners with you."
He smiles softly, "Great! Hey, don't you work at Hollywood Video on the weekend?" We walk together to the equipment stranded in the middle of the gymnasium as Manny sort of eyes me oddly. We wrangle up our tennis rackets and balls and just kind of stand there, awkwardly. I've never really had a conversation with Nate practically ever unless it involved me asking if he had his homework or something of the nature of History Class.
"Yeah, I do," I answer his question. "I have the day shift on weekends." He nods as Mr. Armstrong tells us that we're now going outside to the tennis courts located before the football field. We resemble ants going back to the anthill with food in tow. Nate and I walk in awkward silence as everyone around us chats lively. We're the pair of socks that got thrown together randomly in the morning rush. It doesn't matter which ones you're wearing because you're going to be wearing shoes over them. You're only going to be wearing the mismatched socks for one day out of your entire life, so you deal with them and don't whine.
"So uh, are you any good at tennis," He asks casually while tossing the ball continuously in the air. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. It crashes to the soft freshly mowed grass before stuffing it into his pocket.
"Not really," I answer with a shrug as we claim a tennis court sandwiched between the one claimed by JT and Danny and the one claimed by Manny and Paige. Manny glances over in my direction with a slight smirk. I can see the wheels turning in her head. Any guy that talks to me who isn't JT, Danny, or Toby is automatically boyfriend material for me. This includes any guy I hate, anyone I haven't spoken to ever, or someone I've only spoken a few words to in the course of my entire life.
"Quick question," He shouts from his position on the opposing side of the court. "You going to that dance on Friday night? I'm not asking like, a date or anything. I'm just seeing who is going, you know, voluntarily or whatever." The ball bounces on his side of the court. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. And now it's being cradled in his hand.
"Probably not," I say. I don't want to go the dance. I don't want to do anything on Friday night. Hell, I don't really want to see Matt on Friday night. I want to kick my parents and my brother out on Friday night and just bathe in the lonely Friday night that is all mine and no one else's. "Why do you have to go?"
"Well, because yearbook club is a fascist cult and not like, a freaking school club or anything, I'm forced to take pictures for the yearbook there," He answers with a groan. "I'm not really a dance kind of person but eh, it's part of the job." Out of nowhere, the ball comes hurling towards me and naturally, I completely miss the thing. It bounces off the wire fence and rolls onto the smooth pavement right back at my feet as Nate has the nerve to laugh at me.
He continues to laugh, "That was smooth. Really smooth." Manny comes sauntering over as she hikes up her gym shorts and fixes her top as she flashes Nate a cheesy smile. Her tennis partner is now currently belittling Heather Sinclair as Coach Armstrong attempts to teach Sully how to hit a tennis ball without potentially killing anyone. Needless to say, first period gym class outside at the tennis courts has become a social free for all. Well, for everyone but my taunting tennis partner. He's kind of glancing at me for one reason or another. It's probably because the tennis ball is on my side of the court and he's wanting to toss it around or whatever, but he's obviously too lazy to get it.
"Is it true that you're not going to the dance," Manny interrogates me. "God, Emma, it's going to be so much fun. We can totally rock the whole girl power thing because we're probably like, the only ones that I know without dates." Well, that's because that boyfriend of yours is currently infected with mononucleosis and I can't exactly ask Matt to a dance he'd probably be chaperoning.
"I don't have a dress," I say. That is my excuse? Why couldn't I say that I had a rare disease that could possibly kill me if I went to a music filled gym on a weekend night? No, my excuse is that I don't have a dress. I've been the queen of excuses and lies lately. I'm so disappointed in myself right now.
She smirks, "Well, that's why we go out and buy one, Em. And we can go to the food court afterwards and get one of those tropical smoothies you like." Those smoothies are my Achilles heel. Why must she find my weakness in the mall? I have the money for a decent dress, so it wouldn't exactly kill me to go the dance. "Plus, I need some sanity there. Darcy's going nuts because Mr. O going to be a chaperone there."
"We're going to the mall after school and you're going to help me pick out my dress," I spit out robotically. "I mean, if that's okay."
"Of course it's okay," She grins. "This is going to be so much fun!" She lets out a giggle before suffocating me in a hug. I feel like the prey of an Octopus even though I can't quite remember right now what they eat. Coach Armstrong is done with his lesson in how to properly hit a tennis ball, so Manny lets me be able to breathe and scampers back over to her tennis court. Nate looks like he's stranded in the middle of the ocean and doesn't know how to get back to dry land. However, he snaps out of his trance and is armed with a tennis racket and ready to defend himself from my horrible tennis skills.
"So, apparently now I'm going to the dance," I inform him as I throw the tennis ball up in the air and somehow manage to have it actually sail over the net. The ball flies over Nate's head like a speeding bullet before dropping about three feet behind him.
He nods, "Oh, sounds cool. I'll see you there then."
I'm going shopping with Manny for a dress that I'm only going to wear once to a dance where Darcy's going to be swooning over the guy I'm kind of going out with behind everyone's backs while she snubs her date. Chances are, my dad is probably a chaperone so making a get away with a certain someone will be mission impossible. I'll be stuck in a room with dancing and possibly drunken hormonal teenagers for two hours.
What have I gotten myself into?