Biography of Someone Else

Chapter 5: More Interesting Than a Football Game

"Uhhh, what are you doing here?" None of the eventualities in my mind prepared me for this. Doesn't Jae have other actual friends he can sit by?

"Well, last I checked, these football games were a public and indeed popular place to go on a Friday, did they change the rules?"

"No."

"Great." Jae looks a bit different from last time I actually saw him. (Note that I'm not counting math anymore) He looks more confident, more comfortable. He fits in more when he isn't being told to sit in an unknown location in a class full of strangers. For whatever reason it's his jacket that draws my attention. You would expect it to be scruffed up from years of bad-boy antics, but it still looks almost mint condition. Looks like we've got ourselves a careful little cliché.

I try to block him out, ignore him like I'm getting so used to doing in math. But he keeps distracting me; it's hard to block somebody who is admittedly good looking out of mind when they aren't sitting behind you. My mind keeps catching on the way the fluorescent light hits his hair. The way- Oh my gosh, what the heck am I thinking? Why am I even looking at him?

Because he's more interesting than a football game. Great. My own subconscious is against me.

Looking out for your best interests. I am so annoying sometimes.

"So, you come to football games often?" Jae startles me out of my argument with myself and back into the real world.

"No." Jae looks at me expectantly. Should there be more of an answer? I don't like small talk, either get to the point or tactfully ignore it. Normal conversations aren't really a thing I enjoy most times, when I'm talking to Gracie a good response to "How was your day?" is "yellow".

"Care to elaborate?" Would it be rude to repeat my last answer?

"My friend wanted me to come to the game with her and her friend, but I felt like an extra, so I left..."

"Your friend Gracie?"

"Yeah, um, wait, how do you know my friend?"

"I know everything," he says while making a broad gesture with his hands.

"Doubtable. That is pretty much physically impossible, because everything is not known by the collective mankind, so one person knowing everything would be ridiculous."

He laughs. "No need to get all philosophical, it was an expression."

"Sounded like you had yourself convinced it was true."

"I'm sure you'd disillusion me if you really thought that, Buttercup."

I crinkle my nose. "Buttercup? Really? I'm sure you could do better than that, seeing as how you know everything."

"Alas, having the knowledge of everything does become the type of burden one merely carries but never uses."

"Now who's getting philosophical?"

He shrugs. "Can't help it sometimes. Oh, wait, were you talking about yourself?"

"Nah, just trying to enjoy the game, by which I mean I'm trying to unravel what this game really is other than an excuse for boys and men to tackle each other without being reprimanded."

"It really isn't that complicated of a game," he says, and launches into a complex explanation of the rules of football, some of which I figured out and some of which I wouldn't have guessed.

After his whirlwind explanation that makes about as much sense as the game itself, we don't really have anything to talk about, and eventually the short break in conversation becomes an awkward silence that would be weird to shatter.