Alright I give you all permission to hate me. I'm so sorry! Over Spring Break, I thought I wouldn't be doing anything but I went over my sister's house and I actually did a lot and was babysitting so I couldn't really write and that's why I didn't update but I'm sorry! But I'm back so yeah, I hope I'm forgiven!
"What do you want to eat?" I said aloud to myself.
I was sitting on my bed in my room writing down questions that I'd be able to write a page long essay on. So far, I had questions about food, TV, and the internet which I could write about but of course wouldn't be Ms. Dawes material. I close my eyes and tried to think of my daily routine and what people said to me.
Waking up, getting yelled at for not being up, going to school, constant banter with my brother, walking around school, coming home, doing homework, going back to bed to wake up and do the same thing over again. I kept thinking about how boring my life was but tried to get back to the point of it.
Finally, I got it.
Since I was a person who was quiet most of the time, people always thought something was wrong and that led everyone to ask the same question all the time, "Are you okay?" Of course, sometimes I got tired of hearing the same question all the time. But that question was more than just a simple question most of the time. Sometimes people only asked it so that they could feel content with themselves on their level of compassion, when it only cancelled the action out. If you only asked someone how they were just to feel better about yourself, you didn't really care how they were and your level of compassion only went down since you were doing it for yourself.
As I wrapped my head around the question, I had more and more ideas to write and I found myself getting more and more interesting in the essay. I wrote down a checklist of the topics that I could write about and I wondered how so much stuff could come from one question.
A knock came at my door and before I could say to come in, my brother opened the door and came in.
"There's someone at the door." He said, pushing and pulling my door back and forth.
"Well did you look to see who it is?"
"No, dad told me not to." He shrugged.
"Oh now you want to listen to dad." I said, as I walked past him to go downstairs.
I figured that maybe my dad had a package or something to be delivered so I opened the door but there wasn't a UPS truck insight. Instead there was a black vintage Mustang in the background of the visitor.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, slightly surprised but also not upset at the same time.
"Thanks, I love seeing you too." He smirked.
"Hey Eli!" my brother called as he saw through the doorway as he walked by.
"Sam! Hey, at least somebody in this house is happy to see me." He said, looking at me.
"I didn't say I wasn't happy to see you," I said, then as I saw his smile, retreated back, "I didn't say I was happy to see you either," then as I didn't know where I was going, I just said, "What are you doing here?"
"Well, if I recall, we're English partners and I quote, as an English partner," he cleared his voice and straightened up his back, putting his head up, "I will not distract you from getting your work done causing you to do it at midnight the night before it's due."
"So what you're saying is you want to work on it now? At my house?" I asked. I knew my dad wouldn't be home and that there was no way he would find out unless my brother told him. But my brother seemed to like Eli so I didn't think that would be a problem. But with all the outlets open, I still felt like I was doing something wrong. I tried to make it seem better by telling myself we were going to do work but I knew eventually, we wouldn't be.
"Did me standing outside your house with my backpack give it away or was it my shoes?"
"I'm assuming your sarcasm levels rise as you stand outside so I'm only inviting you in for the sake of me." I said, stepping back and holding open the door as he walked in.
He stopped as he stood directly in front of me and turned to face me, which could be taken literally as his face was right face to face with mine, and he said softly, "Oh come on, Smitchell, you know you couldn't wait to let me in."
I had to close my eyes and regain my breath quickly as he turned around and walked away to the couch. As he jumped on the couch and grabbed the remote, searching through the channels, I closed the door back and walked over to sit next to him on couch.
"Alright, you said you already had your question, so what is it?" I asked, hoping it wouldn't be all great and amazing making mine look like a flower crumbling in the corner for water.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" he said, proudly and frowned as he turned to look at my reaction and didn't get the same excitement he had, "When you were younger, you would have said a teacher or a vet or a doctor but that's only because you thought you could just want that job and have it. But now, most of us don't know what we want to do let alone what we're going to do tomorrow. In actuality, we all what the same thing. We want to be content with life no matter what we do. We're asked that question so we have some sort of plan that we might want to follow. But to be really successful you don't need a plan, just a direction and a destination."
"Well now, my essay looks like complete shit." I said, leaning back on the couch in frustration.
Eli scooted back and next to me so that we were directly next to each other, our arms touching. I'd normally be nervous but my feeling of not being good enough was sinking in and I could care less about the space between us.
"I'm sure it's not bad." I heard him say, for once with no sense of humor in his voice, "What's your question."
"Are you okay?" I said, and turned to look at him to get his reaction, he raised his eyebrows as a silent sign for me to explain, I turned my head back to look up at the ceiling as I continued, "Alright, well no one is ever just okay. You could be more than okay or less than okay but okay alone is basically no feeling at all. I feel nothing at all is what you're saying when you say you're okay. But we're all feeling something all the time. Maybe happy, maybe sad, maybe even content. Normally, if you aren't okay, when someone asks that, it makes you break down. You were good at hiding your feelings until someone saw you and your feelings and suddenly you become vulnerable." I stopped talking as I couldn't even figure out where I was going, "This is so stupid, it doesn't make sense at all. It only makes sense in my head but I'm sure it sounds all over the place to you and it will to everyone."
"Do you not realize that's what Dawes wants?" Eli asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked, turning to look at him, then regretted in when we were once again a mere centimeter away from each other.
"I mean, Dawes wants your essays to make sense to you and be a challenge to everyone else. That's what makes a good writer. You give the basics to the audience, what they need to know, and they figure out the rest. The more it's all over the place, the better." He said, looking me in the eyes, "That's why she put us together. You're an organized folder, everything in the right place, no folds, no mess, nothing out of place. I'm all over the place, papers falling everywhere, rips, messes and nothing belonging anywhere. We balance each other out."
From here, it's going to get more exciting I promise, I have a lot of ideas and akshjkdshjs just bare with me okay! Okay, don't forget to review! (you can yell at me for not updating too, it's okay)