The Adventures of a Scrawny Musician and a Compulsive Liar

2. The Proper Way to Eat Fruit

“You gotta tenderize it first…” Nathaniel murmurs as he rolls the orange in between his pinkish palms. Placing it back into one of his hands, he begins to repeatedly thump the round orange globe until he’s absolutely sure that the insides are a juicy, pulpy mess. Taking a mechanical pencil out of his pocket, he pokes a hole at the bottom of the orange. Then, he squeezes the insides of the fruit into his mouth until all that is left is a limp, empty shell lying in the dead grass.

            Then he notices the three pairs of eyes all trained on him.

            “Dude… what the fuck?” Evan’s the first to speak.

            “What?” Nathaniel’s brow furrows in confusion.

            “You literally beat the orange and ate its insides.” Isobel remarks.

            “Oh… that? That’s just how I eat fruit.” Nathaniel goofily grins. He reaches into his pocket and takes out his usual staple food, the Twinkie. Biting off about half the cake at once, he leans back and moans. “Now that… is good shit.”

            Isobel shrieks in anger and snatches the rest of his lunch from his hand, throws it on the ground and stomps on it with the rage of a thousand bulls at a thousand red capes. Finished, she walks over to Nathaniel who flinches with each step she takes forward. “Nathan, dear, you’re going to stop eating this processed crap and are going to start eating real food like a good growing boy, okay?” Her sickly sweet tone drives a dagger of terror into my stomach. Nathaniel doesn’t move for fear of his life. “Okay?” She growls. At that, Nathaniel nods so furiously that his head appears to be on the verge of snapping off of his neck. “Good boy.” She smiles, pats his head, and prances back over to Evan who’s turned a dangerously pale shade of white at seeing his girlfriend metamorphize into a horror that could rival Linda Blair’s demon alter-ego in the Exorcist.

            “Sweetie, can you pass me my bag?” Evan practically shoves it at her. She glares. He winces.

            “Here.” She tosses a health bar of some sort in Nathaniel’s direction. “Eat it.” Nathaniel hesitantly unwraps it and bites a chunk off. He grimaces in disgust.

            “This tastes like—”

            “EAT IT.”

            He shoves the whole thing in his mouth.

            “Yay.” Isobel grins widely.

            “So…” I start slowly backing away. Evan sees what I’m doing and begs me to stay with pleading eyes. “I have to get to class, guys. See you later.” I walk away before they reply. Walking down the concrete hallways, I crane my head to look overhead where plants poke through the overhang, growing from the dirt stuck in the filthy rain gutters. Suddenly, I feel a gust of wind pass me on the right. Looking forward, I spot Alyssa walking in the opposite direction, already a few feet behind me. Normally, I’d ignore her and walk away, but today, I feel like doing something different.

            “Alyssa,” I call, attempting to catch up with her. Her long skirt swishes around her legs as she walks steadily farther and farther away from me. I jog past red brick walls and olive green doors that mark the classrooms and catch up to her. She looks toward me, startled, with her disheveled blond hair once again obscuring most of her face before breaking into one of her trademark wide smiles.

            “Oh. Hello, Laurence. It’s nice to see you again.” She adjusts the strap of her brown leather bag on her slender shoulder. “What do you need?”