The Wallflower of Parkview High

Chapter Thirty Six

In the few days that I've been friends with him, I've got to admit that there were some slight perks that came with being friends with Zander Arador - whether I could control them or not.

The first and most noticeable perk was of course the fact that I got more attention from people (or in Alicia's case, more attention than usual). During the past few days when he had the chance to, Zander would sit himself down next to Alicia and I on our usual bench by the library and strike up a conversation with us. Whenever he did, I noticed that, not just his usual group of friends, but random people around campus, would stare at us (or rather me since, well, I was me and he was Zander) wondering why such a popular person would want to talk to such a shy nobody like me who they had probably seen get screamed at by said popular person a week or two ago. Observing them, I had to admit that I couldn't blame them since if I was one of them and I saw one of the most popular kids in school talking to a shy nobody who he screamed at a week ago, I would find it strange too.

Another perk that I noticed was the fact that most people seemed to tease me and approach me less than they usually did. Yes, I did appreciate this since it made me want to fight off the urge to go to Dad and pretend that I was sick everyday before school, but it also made me wonder - why were people acting like this? Usually when people saw me at school, they would either pretend that I wasn't there, tell me (rather harshly) to get out of the way of something or tease me for either being too weak, to girly, to shy, or for being a crybaby (or sometimes even all of them at once). Ever since Zander became my friend though, most of the teasing went away and people would just pass by me on their way to class like I didn't exist. It was like the second Zander became my friend, there was some invisible force field that was built around me, preventing me from all of this teasing. Was it because they were scared of Zander? I could see that being the case since I'm pretty sure nobody in their right mind would want to mess with the popular kid, let alone his friends. If I was right though, then why weren't people skittering left or right when Zander did so much as walk past them? Also, it seemed like Zander was striking up conversation so easily and casually with basically anybody who was sitting near him just like he did when I first met him. Despite my confusion though, I kind of appreciated this "effect" that Zander seemed to have on most of the students at Parkview High once he became friends with me.

However, as much as I appreciated the perks that came with being friends with Zander, there had to be some downsides.

The first downside was the fact that Damien seemed to be more distant with me. I knew that I should have realized this a long time ago, considering the fact that he clearly hates Zander, who I'm now friends with. However, I didn't realize that it would be this bad. It now seemed like every time I tried to talk to him in class, he would ignore me like I wasn't there or offer me blunt one-worded answers. I also noticed that we were distant evnre through our texts. When I scrolled through our texts, I saw that our last conversation was still the one where he told me that he saw me talking to Zander a few weeks ago. Just looking at the texts made me want to throw up the mac and cheese I had for dinner that night.

I know you talked to Zander in PE this morning

The worst part about all of this was that I didn't even know why he hated Zander - and over me for that matter? Did they even hate each other before I was a student at Parkview High or did they hate each other the second I stepped through those school gates? I just wanted to know why they acted the way they did towards each other around me and all of this just made me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

Also, on the same note, I noticed a slight change in Alicia's behavior the last few days. Everytime that Zander would sit down and talk to us, Alicia would get all tense and would try and avoid any conversation with Zander, instead focusing more on conversing with me. It was like she was sort of...scared of Zander in a way. It made me even more confused since a few days ago, she had told me that she had no problems with me being friends with Zander. Had she lied to spare any conflict between us? Was she actually not okay with me being friends with Zander?