The Third Wheel

:: 10

Today was his first day of school and he was so quiet and shy; I know how he feels, I have been the new girl a few times and it wasn’t always great. We were on break so and everyone wasn’t talking to him so I decided to give him some encouraging words.

“Hey.” I said nicely.

“Hello.” He replied shyly.

“Don’t worry, everyone’s nice.” I tried to make him feel more comfortable.

“So how are you finding school?” I asked a bit curiously.

“It's okay I guess.” He pulled out his phone and began to use it.

Well this got a bit more awkward, “Can you do something for me?”

“Sure.”

“Can you like, start talking in class when you start school officially?” I was hoping he’d agree and luckily he did.

He stayed quiet throughout the rest of the day only speaking a few times- when the teachers asked him questions. When school closed we had dance rehearsal, thankfully I’m terrible at dancing so I wasn’t part of it.

I went to the back of the auditorium to watch rehearsals and a few minutes later Alex came in and joined me because he was new and he didn’t really want to join them. He pulled out his phone again but this time I asked him if I could use it. He willingly agreed and let me.

“Oh…can I see your pictures?” I shook his phone in his face.

“Yes…but I want to delete some stuff first and I promise I’ll let you.” He looked a bit flustered so I just pitied him and gave it back. When he finished he returned it I smiled and just played games on it.

Just before I went home, we had a note we had to finish and he completed it already so I asked him for his note. I flipped through and I could barely make out what his writing.

“Um, I can’t see your writing, how will I finish the note?” I showed him the note.

“Well, you could give me your number so whenever you get stuck you could send me a picture and I’ll tell you what it says.” He suggested.

“Thanks that a great idea.” I put my number on his phone, took his note and went home.

When I arrived at home, the first thing I did as soon as I entered was to save his number on my phone. Once that was done, I started to finish the note. It wasn’t long before I spotted a whole sentence I couldn’t read, so I took the picture and sent it to him.

He didn’t reply after waiting and I was getting a bit anxious, I waited a bit longer and yet there was no reply. My only choice was to call him. I contemplated on what to say if he answered, that alone wasted more time. I finally gathered all my courage and pressed the call button.

After a few rings, someone answered but they didn’t sound like him, “Hello?”

“Hello, who’s this?” A strange female voice spoke up; unknown voices that sounded like kids could be heard in the background.

“Um, I’m Alex’s classmate and I need help, do you know where he is?”

No reply, I just cut the call. Well that was one awkward phone call. My phone buzzed notifying me that I received a message. I checked and it was Alex, thank gosh. He told me what the sentence said and I asked why someone else answered his call.

He said he left his phone in his living room and went to play his game, so maybe one of his siblings answered it. I never knew he had siblings but apparently he did.

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