Lamia's Dream

Chapter 4

En route to my usual seat in math class, someone grabbed me.

“You’re sitting by me this period,” Samantha said.

I forgot we had this class together.  Ms. Arundel only assigned seats to trouble makers.  In addition, she was old and somewhat senile.  I doubted she would notice.     

“Um, this is new.”

“Yeah, after lunch today, I would think you’ve never seen or spoken to a girl in your life.  You do know what a girl is, right?”

“Have you met my friend, Jack?  I think you guys would hit it off great.”

“Riiight,” she said.

More students filled the room.  Monty, the guy who usually sat next to Samantha, walked past us; shooting her an inquiring look.

“We’re matching, today.  How could I not let him sit beside me?” She reasoned with a flash of her white, perfectly-aligned teeth.

I wore a navy V-neck shirt.  The base color of Samantha’s dress was navy but there was an ornate white pattern running across the front.  On her wrist were two bangles, one in each color. In addition, we both had the same brown complexion, hers a shade darker.

“Something good I can say about you is that you don’t go on and on about yourself, like Monty does.”

“Do you always talk trash about the guys you talk to?”

“Yes.  You do such stupid things how can we not?  Our stories about lunch with you will be legendary.”

My lower jaw dropped and remained suspended in the air. 

Samantha laughed.  “Relax.  Valerie is very protective of you.  She’s not going to let any of us say anything too mean.”

I recovered and tried not to smile, grateful for the encouragement. 

She grinned.  “You’re so simple.”

“Is that bad?”

“Hmm,” she said, as she ran her index finger around her full lips, “no, simple can be good.  Anyway, time to start coaching while we have a few minutes.  What do you do for fun?”

“Umm, just hang out and stuff.”

“Wow, could you be any more obscure?”

“Well, that’s what I do.”

“Ok, smart guy, what do you do when you hang out with your friends.  And if you say stuff…”

“We… we play video games.  Or watch really bad movies to make fun of them,” I confessed.  “I waste a lot of time on the internet with dorky stuff.  And I follow a few Tumblrs religiously.  I don’t really have anything exciting I can say.”

Samantha chuckled.  “We don’t need exciting.  We just want to know more about you.  Really, if you live in this town, there’s not really much you could do that would excite us.  We’ve heard it all before.  Mountain climbing and white water rafting?  Lynn had one of those two boyfriends ago.  You volunteer at the homeless shelter?  That’s Valerie’s former M.O.  Into spoken word?  I could probably outperform you.  You play guitar?  That sounds like every one of Alex’s boyfriends.  Ever.”

“That sounds like a pretty impressive lineup,” I admitted.

She rolled her eyes.  “Do you think you’re the only guy who plays video games, Miles?  For some reason or other, we typically end up with jocks.  Do you know how many of them play video games?”