Too Young to Care

Chapter two

Lunch period came fairly quickly. The first day of school is always a drag but it always seemed to go quickly. I've always been told senior year is just that, a blur. It was almost a welcoming thought, the teachers were already piling us with homework. Not that it mattered to a lot of people, but it mattered to me. Not going to college was out of the question.

The day had been fairly uneventful. Besides maths I had at least one person to sit next to that I was on good terms with, so it looked like I wouldn't make any new random friends this year. As I was fairly shy this suited me. Even speaking with Mike made me feel awkward, even though he turned out to be nice and we had things in common.

At lunch I decided to sit in the art classrooms with Lisa, Gemma and someone else from our group, a girl named Megan.

Megan was a very girly girl. She dated around, but she wasn't known as a whore. She didn't sleep around. When she lost her virginity to her first boyfriend the entire school knew, but that was it.

That being said, Megan wasn't scandal free. She had somehow kept her boob job under wraps, which I don't know how. She had always been well endowed but after one spring break she came back with jumbo sized jugs, yet no one's tongues were wagging.
I'd never asked her about it, but it was weird.

There were no boys I really hung out with at school, there certainly weren't any in our group. Growing up all my friends were guys, but after moving to the Bay Area from Los Angeles in sophomore year and well and truly starting puberty I found I was shy talking to guys. We did have one guy, Josh, in our group. I'm not sure what happened to him, he didn't come back to school for Junior year and I hadn't heard about him since.

I was on friendly terms with a few guys, some of the football players were nice to me, but it was never anything more than passing conversations.

Megan was sitting in a chair next to Lisa who was busy sketching something, but would offer input in each conversation, usually not taking her eyes off the sketch. Gemma and I were sitting on the table, eating our sandwiches with our legs resting on some chairs below the table.

"So yes, the people in detention are just as dopey as the ones from last year." Lisa finished, after Megan had asked her if there were any bad boy hotties in detention.

"Mike Pritchard has a crush on Gemma." I announced, taking a big bite of my sandwich, not even bothering to find a way to weave the fact into the conversation.

I grinned as I realised I had grabbed everyone's attention and they all had to wait for me to finish my mouthful before I could continue.

I chewed a little slower to keep them hanging on.

"Isn't he one of the smokers that hangs at the back of the pitch behind the shed?" Megan asked curiously, the one who seemed the most interested.

"Sounds like my kind of guy." Gemma grinned.

"I don't know his story. We started talking in maths class, he's nice. He asked me to get in with Gemma." I explained, watching as all the girls held onto every word I said. It was a nice feeling, I was never ignored, but I was never centre of attention either.

This was one of very few times people really cared about what I had to say, the only other time I could think about was in sophomore year when I pathetically hid a hickey.

"Oh my god! Are you going to go out with him?" Megan asked her.

I watched Megan carefully. She was smiling on the outside, but to the trained eye I could see envy flash in her eyes, and her excitement was completely fake.

Last year a group of people in my English class joked that a popular guy, Callum, had a crush on Megan. He was actually seeing someone from another school named Megan, but they joked it was our Megan. The rumour quickly spread like wildfire and our Megan lapped it up. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was all a joke, so thinking Callum had a big romantic crush on her, she approached him in front of the entire school and asked him out. It didn't end well.

I could tell that Mehan was jealous of Gemma right now, but hid it well. In all fairness she was handling her envy well.

"I dunno. I need to speak to the guy first. For all I know he could be a total doofus, if he likes me so much why haven't I known? Usually I can pick up on these things." Gemma responded, and I could definitely see thought on her face. She was thinking about all of her interactions with Mike.

"Aw, give the guy a chance. It's not too weird you haven't noticed his crush on you, have you noticed him at all these past few years or has he been completely invisible to you?" Lisa asked Gemma, not taking her eyes off her sketch.

Gemma stayed silent. I could tell she had most likely just realised she couldn't think of any interactions and thus, it was possible she could have overlooked a crush he had on her.

"Yeah, you bitch." I teased, throwing the remaining parts of my crust at Gemma.

Little did I know that across the school yard Mike and his best friend Billie Joe were having a very similar conversation, and these two conversations taking part right now would shape up most of my senior year social life.

***

The first week of school went as fast as the first day. Usually school was okay for me, it was the weekends that sucked. In junior year I worked Saturday and Sundays at a grocery store. None of this cute check out chick stuff. I didn't bag groceries.

Instead I worked in the deli section. So not only did I use a scary machine to slice highly processed almost jelly-like meats, our deli had a seafood section attached and I also got the joy of scooping out fish guts too. I prefered deli to check out, if you ever had to work after a night of drinking there was always lots of food available.

Luckily for senior year I decided to cut one of my shifts and only work Saturdays. I was happy with the pay cut, my weekend meant so much more to me.

I was on my break in the break room eating a yoghurt I had purchased when a fellow co-worker strolled in. She smiled and waved at me, before pointing at the duty manager who was taping up a new display on the notice board.

"What's that?" She asked the both of us, as if I knew as well.

"A list of guys you've slept with." The duty manager gruffly responded with, before turning his back again and going back to creating the display, which looked to be some kind of points rewards system for employees.

My eyes bulged out of my head and I had to suppress a laugh. Kelly had a reputation in this store for her questionable romp with another co-worker. The rumour went that she tried anal with this guy and ended up shitting on his dick. I found the most fucked up part though was that she was the one that got laughed at, but he walked away scot free because he was the guy. He was the one who had someone else's shit on his member.

Kelly just laughed it off and sat next to me. If that duty manager said that to me he'd be hit with a sexual harassment claim to corporate so quickly, but I guess that's why no one would ever speak to me that way.

"So, I heard that Michael Pritchard has a huge crush on Gemma. Do you know if she ended up going out with him?" Kelly asked me.

Kelly also went to my school and was in my economics class. I hadn't spread the whole poo story at school, I wasn't that mean. Besides it would be obvious if I did tell people that it came from me.

"Don't think so. I haven't seen him since he told me. He missed a class, and the other one he was late to and had to sit next to someone else." I responded.

"No offense and all, but what does this have to do with you?" Kelly asked me.

I studied her face. I could tell she didn't mean to be rude. Kelly was a bit of a ditz and could say things that came across as mean. This was her way of asking about my involvement that could have come across as a sarcastic statement that I was self involved. No biggie.

"This is middle school shit all over. For some reason Mike has come to me and wants my help with his crush, whilst Gemma wants me to get more information and refuses to talk to him directly." I groaned, making a face into my yoghurt for added dramatic effect.

"That is so middle school. They'll probably make you ask each other out. Pathetic." Kelly laughed, before swiftly changing the topic and talking about a crappy customer she had to deal with.

Kelly's statement however stuck in my mind as a smile spread across my face. She had given me a great idea to try.