Chasing Cars

Chapter Eleven

"I have an idea," Amy said, her blonde hair swishing wildly from side to side as she looked from me to Sue over and over again. I glanced up at the newcomer, irritated that she interrupted a very intense scene in The Kill Order.

After sharing a look with me, Sue turned her attention to Amy and asked what idea she had. "We should do a presentation for all the homerooms about physical and mental abuse, you know, for Mental Issue Awareness Week!"

Mental Issue Awareness Week. The week everybody hated, even the ones with mental issues. The week was supposed to remind people that you don't know what's going on in another person's life, so you should try to be as nice to them as possible. The problem though, was that nobody really cared.

Amy was the school's student counsel president, and she could choose whomever she liked to do her homeroom plans with her. And of course, she chose us. Amy was a clingy person. She thought we were her friends, but we weren't. 

"Uh... I can't, Amy. I have things to do," I said, looking at my tray. That was a lie, I had absolutely nothing to do, but there was no way I was going to present to fifty homerooms about abuse. No way.   

"Yeah, same here Amy. I have to go to work." Sue said, stirring her gray spaghetti around her plate. This too, was a lie. Everybody knew that Sue didn't work. Well, everybody except Amy Pine. 

"Oh," Amy's face fell a bit. "Well I guess I'll have to find someone else." Thank God. "Sorry Amy, maybe next year!" Sue and I said at the same time, just like we did last year...and the year before....and the year before that, too.

I was about to go back to my book when the presence of someone else distracted me. Once again, I looked up, expecting to see Amy again or maybe one of the football guys, come to pick a fight. Instead I see Andrew.

He slid into the spot next to me and set his books down on the table. "Hey," I said, giving up on the idea of completing my book's interesting scene and looking around for something to use as a bookmark.

I tore a shred of paper out of Andrew's notebook. "Thanks," I said, shoving it between the flimsy pages. "No problem," he answered, giving me a suspicious look before moving his things slightly to the right, and away from me.

"Oh it's you," Sue said, looking up from the spaghetti swirls she created with her fork. "That looks disgusting," Andrew said, pointing to the food and pretending to choke before dramatically falling out of his chair.

I leaned over and looked down at him, where he lay with his eyes shut on the floor. "You know, you're laying right on the piece of moldy cheese we avoided when we got here," I pointed out. At that, his eyes shot open and he leaped up from the floor as if he'd just seen a spider.

There was the cheese, squished now, on the ground. It began to run like an egg yolk. "That's revolting," Sue scrunched her nose. It was a disgusting site, really, but the three of us were mesmerized by the cheese taking on a liquid form. 

"Imagine touching that," Andrew whispered, as if the trance we were all stuck in would be broken if he raised the volume. "You were laying on it," Sue pointed out, swinging her fork towards his and accidentally flinging spaghetti sauce onto his shirt.

"No!!" he wailed, looking at the red stain. Sue tried to hold back a laugh, while I just raised my eyebrows and leaned back into my chair. "Turn around," I told him. Still whining about the speck of sauce on his shirt, Andrew turned around to reveal a huge green-yellow stain on the back of his shirt.

Sue couldn't hold it back now, so her laughter burst out of her mouth like a cannon. "What?" Andrew asked, looking back but unable to see the stain. "You...might wanna change," I advised him, giving him my best oh it's bad look. "Maybe I shouldn't have come to your table," he muttered before quickly disappearing into the halls.