Take Me

Chapter Eleven

"I used to wonder if it was God's plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world."             

- Lana Del Rey       

♔ Chapter Eleven ♔

Darby was one of those people that could talk to anyone. In history, first period, he got along with everyone on our table. He had this way about him of making everyone perk up and come out of their shells, because he was so confident and careless that somehow, everyone else around him was too.

"I'm Darby Darling," he'd told the the two kids that we shared a four-person table with in history class. He even made quiet Kenya seem comfortable sitting with us for once, and she hardly even looked at us during lessons.

I didn't know why he wanted to be my friend, or why he wanted to sit on my table, but I was glad he did. I mean, we were the table of nerds and shy kids at the back of the room that the teacher usually piled together because of pity. Why he wanted to sit with us was a complete, mind-boggling mystery to me, because he had the mindset and the appearance to be popular, and he was blowing it just to be my friend. In a way, that made me feel pretty shitty about letting him.

"This is Bobby," I'd told him, as the two of us took our seats. We'd managed to arrive relatively on-time, but Mrs. Doorsdale was usually late to her lesson, so we were left waiting on her. I introduced Darby to Bobby, the geeky kid that hid his blushing red face behind big, squared glasses. His eyes were an engorging blue, magnified only slightly by his glasses, and he had a tufty head of messy blond curls.

Bobby and I would usually talk during history, mainly because Kenya didn't contribute to conversation at all. I didn't like speaking to most people, but Bobby was an exception. I'd always seen him as being on the same level of lame and awkward as me, so it was relatively easy for us to find common ground. We were both shy too, so the conversation was always light and sweet, and most of the time about Doctor Who. He was probably the closest thing I had to a guy friend, or even a friend at all, since Hebe hadn't spoken to me in days.

"Hello, Darby Darling," Bobby said, not making eye contact. Bobby and I shared that trait. We were too shy to look people in their faces. "Nithe to meet you." He had the most adorable lisp in the world, too, but that only made the bullying worse for him. I, unlike everyone else, actually liked his lisp.

"You too!" Darby exasperated, like the glowing ball of bright yellow sunshine that he usually was. I envied his happiness, I hated it.

Darby reached out and grabbed Bobby's hand, shaking it furiously, almost ripping the skinny boy's arm from its socket with his raw enthusiasm.

The both of us seemed surprised at how easily Darby could touch people, how randomly and rudely he liked to invade people's personal space. And this was Bobby Benjamin he was touching. Bobby Benjamin who hated all forms of human contact, ever. Total germ freak. He wouldn't even lend me a pen if mine ran out, he'd get so paranoid that I'd infect it. But that was more likely to be because I liked to chew on my pens, and Bobby noticed, and stared, and hated it, and told me how much he hated it.

Usually, Bobby would rather dive backwards and run away than let someone touch him, but he didn't. He seemed comfortable with Darby touching him. Which would normally seem unusual, but it didn't, because it was Darby.

"I'm new. Duh. Who's this one, then?" He pointed towards Kenya, who pursed her pale lips and kissed her teeth in response. Her eyes narrowed in on him, silently judging him like she usually did.

"Kenya," I told him. "She doesn't speak. Well, not to us, anyway."

That was when Mrs. Doorsdale decided to pop into the room, her hair all blown backwards from the wind, completely unprepared for the lesson, as usual. Her hands flew straight into her fiery red locks, shuffling them between her fingers as she sat behind her desk.