F i r e f l i e s

Chapter Two-- Little White Lies

Little White Lies

“Feelings can be like wild animals—we underrate how fierce they are until we've opened their cage.”

                                                                                      -       The Sunflower

            Mondays were always the worst. I had lived in little Washington, Illinois for nearly eight years, and in that town, everybody knew everybody and their brother.  Yet, somehow, I managed to keep Jacob a secret from everyone.

            Usually, Jacob would stay home while I went to school, and do whatever it is that Jacobs do. Clean, watch television, go on walks. He would occupy himself. However, sometimes, he would come to school and just… watch. He was fascinated, somehow, about how the secondary school system worked. He would sit in a desk for hours and just listen in awe to what the teacher had to say. I found it odd that Jacob was so intellectual and smart, if he’d never been to school a day in his life.

            Having Jacob at school with me was normally never a problem. He simply kept himself invisible to everyone excepting me, and I refrained from looking at him or talking to him. However, there had been a few incidents in the past when I had talked to him, simply out of habit, and had received several perplexed glances from fellow students, so I was pretty sure most of Washington Community High School was convinced that I was crazy.

            Most people at the high school had a group that they hung out with, specifically. Cliques, groups, you name the,. There were the popular ones, the stoners, the gothy-emo-people, the average Joes, the nerds, the rejects, and then there was me. I was the person who didn’t fit into any sort of category. I drifted, for lack of a better term. The people who were my friends one week could be mortal enemies the next. I’d had a fair share of experience in cliques, and still didn’t feel that I belonged to any of them.

            Perhaps I was simply destined to be a Lone Wolf.

            With Jacob, there was not really a reason to have many friends. I didn’t get along with people well. They annoyed me easily, and I just didn’t enjoy their company. I had no desire whatsoever to be part of a group of people. I was perfectly fine on my own.

            However, the Monday after my biannual checkup, I met a boy named Connor Mosby. And it all went downhill from there.

            It was a particular day that Jacob decided to stay home, and at lunch, as usual, I was seated my own table, by myself, as I always had. I picked at my salad daintily with my fork, when I suddenly felt someone sit next to me. Looking over, I saw a blonde boy who looked about my age, with green eyes. New kid. He flashed a bright smile, said, “Howdy, I’m Connor!” and turned to his food. I looked and saw that his tray held a bottle of water, carrot sticks, and a veggie burger.

            I nearly choked on my salad. “Are you a vegetarian?”

            He nodded, smiling proudly. “Been going for five years now. Are you?”

            I nodded too. “Two years.”

            His expression softened. “Keep it up, it’s worth it!”

            Thus started the conversation on Animal Rights, which led to violence, which led to war, which led me to learn that Connor, like me, was a pacifist. The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know. We talked all through lunch, in the hallway on the way to class, and then after class, and then after school had gotten out.