With Love, Juliet

2: The "Lose Some"

Notes: Juliet's second day introduces her to more people and teaches her who to avoid.

Dear Granny and Grandad,

When they say the second day is always a little bit worse than the first? They're right. And everything I said about Peter, I take about half of it back. The other half is because I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me.

And the implication that American stereotypes weren't real? Generic "sports guy" is. I made the mistake of bumping into American Sports Guy(tm), Flash Thompson (and oh my, did he make sure I knew his name), or more he bumped into me. I hadn't even started the day, I was getting books from my locker, MJ and Harry hadn't even shown up yet, that's how early I was. This whole dude somehow managed to take up enough of the corridor to shoulder-barge me in his stupid American Sports Guy jacket. The rest of the interaction went loosely as follows.

"Do you mind?" (I had barely woken up, and was embodied by pure rage. I'm surprised these words came out of me too.)

"Keep out of my way unless you want to be further in that loc—" (At this point he turned around ready to shove me inside the locker and immediately all the anger I had was replaced with anxiety. I can only assume he realised that he didn't know me, and I am a girl.) "I thought you were Parker, my bad. Name's Flash, Flash Thompson."

To clarify/defend myself, I only really went along with everything else because upsetting Sports Guy is never a good idea. He asked my name, so I told him, he then had one of the usual reactions in assuming I was lying, before asking if I was French. I'm not sure he fully understood or believed me after I spent a good five minutes clarifying everything, but he was content to get on with his day and I was overjoyed to let him. I think Harry must've seen the end of the interaction because the first thing he asked me was if I was okay, Peter looking mildly unimpressed when I'd reassured them that I was fine, just annoyed. If you thought the stereotypes weren't stereotyping hard enough, from what I gathered, Flash has been Peter's bully for years, basically since they've known each other. Now I can only assume Peter resents me because I wasn't a target, not really, and he hoped Flash would pick on someone else. I can't really blame him for that, no matter how much the idea sucks.

But I don't even know if that's accurate yet, so don't let me live by that assumption. One day I'll stop overthinking everything, but today is not that day. Let me get onto Literature class before I get way too caught up thinking about Sports Guy in none of the ways he wants me to.

The full extent of being English is finally being exploited for entertainment, and I'm not even that annoyed at it. We finally started reading the play today, and obviously my teacher knows my name, so immediately got me to start (even though Juliet isn't in the first scene but whatever I guess). I have never witnessed a grown woman so entertained by the way someone talks. I think it was an obsession with me being from the same country as Shakespeare, "talking like he would have" but I guess it came with its positives because I'm pretty sure she can't say no when we get to Juliet's scenes and I inevitably ask to read all of it. Maybe even get up at the front of the room and act it all out like I used to when I was a kid. If I could I'd get it filmed, I miss performing for you.

A love for my accent wasn't all bad though, I think it might have made me a new friend. And yes I'm recording every instance of that because I still expect it to be way harder than it is, and am waiting for the aggressive wake-up call of realising that these people don't enjoy my company as much as I'd hoped. Dodgeball has nothing on that fear.

Sam Alexander, the man with no last name as I'd impulsively joked (he found it funny, it's okay) had approached me after the class on the basis that he didn't think we'd met. I then told him my last name and he instinctively did the same I guess. I will never forget then saying "was there a last name in there?" and immediately waiting for the ground to swallow me whole. By some miracle I got a laugh instead, a compliment on my accent again, and a generic "see you around" so I guess technically I don't have to see him again? Or can at least he can decide that?

Maybe moving here by myself has been harder than I expected, I could really use your wisdom about now. 

Oh! Before I sign off, I got the news reporter's name! He goes by J. Jonah Jameson, do look him up if you get the chance because I feel like you'll get a good laugh out of some of his content. I might see how many of his reports are available online myself actually, get an idea of what he's about before I mentally prepare myself for tomorrow. Feels like a long week already.

With love,

Juliet