Just in Case

School IS my social life

I stay on the phone that night with Justin until two a.m. It was amazing. Once I finally calmed the hell down and relaxed a little I was able to open up. We talked about EVERYTHING. He had been working for Walmart of about six months, lived in a house with a couple of his friends/roommates, had graduated last year (which meant he was a year older than I was). He liked rock and alternative music, and we even had a few favorite bands in common. He had a couple of tattoos and piercings that he had gotten already, including a lip ring that I hadn't seen when he was working. I divulged that I also had a tattoo. It had been my birthday present last year when I turned sixteen. He had been skating all his life, had a great relationship with his dad, was the middle child of seven brothers and sister, was Italian but favored Mexican food. His favorite color was blue and most importantly he didn't have a girlfriend. We talked until I was bleary eyed and he was mumbling half asleep. When it finally came time to hang up he promised to call me on his break in a few hours and ended the conversation by telling me that he had never been so happy that Chel had bothered to ask for his number. I was on cloud nine. In heaven. Smitten would have been the right word. By the time sleep finally claimed me the sun was peeking over the horizon and lighting the sky with the earliest lights of morning. I was exhausted. It thrilled with the idea that a cute guy might actually be interested in me. Of course there was the small issue with the fact that he had no idea what I looked like. He has no idea that I wasn't some super sexy emo skater girl, that I was just me. Plain Jane Amber. I wasn't going to let my mind wander down that road just yet though. I had stayed on the phone with a cute guy almost all night, and I deemed that as a success. I had only been asleep for a few hours when my parents started banging around in the kitchen making the usual breakfast meal sounds as my mom whipped up pancakes and my dad brewed fresh coffee. I had no clue why my parents always insisted on waking up early on the weekends. I groaned and turned my head towards the large window in my room, the opposite direction from the hallway which radiated noise, and threw my covers over my head.
"It's too early for this shit." I crumbled to no one in particular. A few minutes later as I was drifting off into bliss my dad came into my room claiming the breakfast was ready and that it was time to get out of bed. Sighing deeply I tossed my covers off and followed my dad down the hallway and into our kitchen. The smell of fresh pancakes, scrambled eggs and greasy sausage assaulted my nostrils as I sat down at the table. For some reason, as I slid a bite of delicious fluffy goodness into my mouth, my mom's pancakes tasted like pure heaven that morning, and I even found myself smiling and laughing at my dad's lame jokes despite my lack of sleep. And so the day passed lazily and wonderfully. At ten am on the dot Justin called me again and we spent his thirty minute lunch break together, him walking around Walmart, me lying lazily on our back porch swing telling him to do various stupid things in various sections of the store, but both of us laughing. By dinner Sunday evening I had never been more excited to go to school the next day. This may have been my senior year, and I may have been slightly more than ecstatic at graduating and finally escaping the high school drama and moving out, but that was nothing compared the the excitement I felt at being able to see my best friend tomorrow and divulge all the information I had on Justin. He was absolutely amazing and every moment that he wasn't working he was either on the phone with me or sending me text messages. My parents would kill me when we got the bill because text messages weren't something they deemed worthy enough to pay for, but I could deal with that when I got there. In this moment I was air, light and vibrant, and Justin was colors personified. He was red and blue and green. He was white and yellow and orange. He was all the things that brightened my day and I was good at just smearing it around my world like a painting. Consequences be damned. Later that night I crawled into bed slightly earlier than usual and proceeded to anesthetize myself with music videos on MTV. I was exhausted but I'm sure my delirium was not due to lack of sleep. Soon, with the soft glow of the television and sweet murmur of music my kids began to feel heavy as sleep slowly captured me and pulled me into a wonderfully sweet world when Justin loved me for me, regardless of looks or lack thereof and we shared the sunshine together laughing and basking in cool breezes.
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The next morning my alarm rang way to early and I was tempted to smash the damn thing against the wall. Who ever decided that high schoolers needed to get up at the ass crack of dawn to learn, and be expected to learn effectively enough to produce said knowledge, was out of their ever loving mind. Crawling out of bed I made my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair. I had recently invested in a hair straightener after a trip to New York, and I loved the way it smoothed my untamable hair into something manageable. After I was satisfied that I no longer looked like I had attempted a murder earlier in the morning I went back to my room to throw on whatever clean clothes I could find on the floor of my room. Tshirt and jeans were my usual choices along with a silver studded belt that all rockers wore. I slipped on my DC skate shoes and grabbed my backpack from my parents' office. My mom had already left since she worked over an hour away and my dad was still sleeping. He worked whatever hours he wanted usually which meant while I would be dead in the middle of first period, he would be sitting on the back porch sipping coffee. I snagged my keys off the key ring in the laundry room and made my way into the garage to my car. I had gotten my car as a gift for my sixteenth birthday along with a tattoo. I loved my car. It was a Saturn SL II and my dad had put in a new stereo system and speakers for me for Christmas. I could play my music louder and it would sound way clearer than any of my friends. I pushed my favorite Used CD into the slot, opened the garage door, and twisted the knob to turn the sound all the way up. I had my own personal concerns on the way to school and by time I had pulled into the student parking lot I felt ready to tackle the day. I also couldn't wait to see Carly and tell her all about Justin. Carly had been my best friend since freshman year and she made me believe in the possibility of soul sisters. Carly was my other half and she knew everything there was to know about me. She and I had no secrets from one another and our trust ran deep. While I loved Chel, and would also consider her my best friend as well, Carly and I shared a bond that ran deeper. So deep in fact that we really didn't need to speak in order to communicate. We could hold entire conversations with a single look. It drove Chel crazy and was probably one of the reasons that she and I weren't as close as Carly and I were. Chel tried to avoid Carly and I being together if at all possible with the exception of lunch. We all had senior privileges to go off campus for lunch, but I was the only one of us who'd had a car. Until this year. Now Chel drove her car and I drove mine, but sometimes we would all ride together. Regardless we ended up at the same place, the KFC Taco Bell combo restaurant across the street of the school where we would meet up with our gay friend Marty who worked there and would slip free food on to our trays. We'd all declared our love for Marty at various times of our senior year, but wouldn't see him again after that. Much in the same way I would never see Chel or Carly after my senior year. Either way, I hopped out of my car and made my way to the back of the campus to meet up with Carly at our usual spot. Our high school campus was huge. Our graduating class alone was over five hundred students. The campus was quiet at this time of morning. Carly and I always made it a point to get to school early on Mondays in order to catch up on the weekend events. Her stories were usually way more entertaining than mine. Carly had two older brothers who dabbled in some scandalous behaviors that usually involved Carly. They drank, smoked pot, had girls over, and Carly was charged with being their look out and the keeper of their secrets. However, since Carly also had a serious boyfriend (that's right I was always the third wheel), her and her siblings had recently worked out an agreement that as long as she kept their secrets, they wouldn't tell when her boyfriend slept over and so over the course of this year, Carly had become far more experienced in relationships than I ever had a hope to be. Her stories were usually comprised about what her and her boyfriend experimented with or showing me pictures on her phone of her very naked boyfriend sleeping in her bed. I envied Carly, too, with a level of jealousy that I would never put voice to. She was glamorously tall and rail thin. She played basketball for the high school team and was incredibly popular because she had such an amazing personality that people naturally gravitated to her. Everyone loved her and I wished every day that I could be her. As I rounded the corner to the back corner of the campus I spotted said beautiful giant leaning sharing one of the metal poles that held up the awning that covered most of the walkways around campus. She had recently cut her hair short, up to her chin, giving her a slight boyish look to her already academic frame. She looked up from her phone and smiled at me.
"Hey." She said by way of greeting and I tilted my chin up in response.
"How was your weekend?" I asked.
"Good." She said as she folded her phone down and slid it into her back pocket. "Lenny came over." She said glancing down at me. I nodded. Lenny always came over.
"How are you guys?" I asked.
Carly shrugged. "Good, I guess. He's a little clingy." Boys were always clingy to Carly. She got bored easily with them and would move from one to another faster than I changed my socks. This was one of the very specific reasons I hated her. Boys were lining up for a chance to date her and I was taking out personal ads in the paper.
"What did you do this weekend?" She asked. This was my chance. This was my opportunity to tell her all about Justin, and I wanted to, I really did, but I hesitated. Justin was special, and gossiping about him like we did with Lenny felt wrong.
I shrugged, "We went grocery shopping." Carly laughed and rolled her eyes.
"You guys always go grocery shopping." Carly laughed again but sobered quickly when someone grabbed her attention across the court yard. I turned and saw Chel heading in our direction. Like us, she too sported jeans and a tshirt of one of the alternative bass that we favored. She also sported a smirk on her face as she made her way towards where Carly and I were standing. I cursed myself silently. I should have told Carly about Justin when it was just her and I. Adding another person know to the gossip ring was like adding another artist to paint the Sistine chapel.
"Hey guys." Chel chirped. She looked from me to Carly and back again. Her mile grew from a simple smirk into a full blown smile. She looked devious.
Carly and I both have her a 'hey' in return and before I could interject my news about Justin to Carly, Michele beat me to the punch.
"So Carl," Chel started. Chel called Carly Carl to drive her crazy and usually it worked. Today, though, Carly just gave Chel a bored, disinterested look. "Did Amber tell you about Justin?" Carly's thin eyebrows perked up at this and she turned to look on my direction.
"Justin?" She asked. I looked back at her. I had no idea what face I was making, but I knew it had to be something between pained and ashamed. Chel chuckled.
"Tell her Amber." Chel said whacking me on the arm. "Tell her how I got his number for you." Carly's gaze landed on me again.
Chel's getting you numbers now? Her look said. I raised my eyebrows in response. You know me, I can't talk to guys and she can. What was I supposed to do? Carly frowned slightly.
"Was he at Walmart?" She asked me.
"Yup." Chel confirmed. Carly glared at Chel, but Chel either didn't care or didn't notice. Knowing where this was headed I interjected my self saying the only thing I knew to get Carly's attention.
"He's super hot." I blurted. Carly's head snapped back to me and I could tell she was interested. I spent the next ten minutes filling her in on how I had gotten his number, and five more minutes flatter that filling both Chel and Carly in on what all Justin and I had talked about on Saturday night and Sunday during his break. Just as I was finishing up my phone buzzed with a text message and I couldn't stop myself from smiling like a lunatic.
Woke up thinking about you, have a good day.
I had hit the reply button and was tapping out a message when my phone buzzed a second time with another message from Justin.
I wasn't thinking of you in a dirty way. I was just thinking about you and how we didn't get to talk last night, which I really wanted to, but it was late and I didn't want to wake you up, but I wanted you to know that I was thinking about you, and I did that, but not in a dirty way just in an I miss you way. I'm going to stop rambling now. Have a good day :)
I smiled even harder. Not only was he super hot, funny, sensitive, and had his own job, but he missed me. We'd only talked for two days and already he missed me. I had just finished typing my response and was about to hit the send button when a third message shot across my screen.
Not that I wouldn't or couldn't think about you in a dirty way. I totally could, but I don't want you think I'm a perv. Which you probably do. Now. Great. I'm going to stop texting you now. Have a great day. If you don't text back because I sound like a crazy person I totally understand. Have a great day.
At his last message I laughed out loud.
"What's so funny?" Carly asked. I showed her the texts. She smiled and gave me a knowing look. You guys speak just like one another, you're totally soul mates. Her look said. I rolled my eyes. I went back to typing out my response as I muttered, "He doesn't even know what I look like." At this Carly whirled toward me,
"What?!" She yelled. Other students who heard the commotion gave us curious glances and I ducked my head dying from embarrassment. Chel stepped in,
"It's true. She didn't come with me to ask him for his phone number. He never even saw her." Carly frowned.
"What the hell Amber?" She asked, and I just shrugged. I had no answers. Carly shook her head. "Well then you guys need to hang out, like, ASAP." She said. I huffed as I hit send on my phone and looked back up at her.
"What am I supposed to do? Ask him out?" The idea of that alone gave me hives. What if he said no? What if he saw me and realized I wasn't his type? Or worse of all, what if he saw me and saw right through me?
"Yeah!" Carly screeched. I cringed. There was no way I could ever do that. Carly launched into all of the reasons why I should ask him to hang out and when I told her I wasn't sure if he even liked me she just rolled her eyes. We parted ways with her making a promise that on much I would be making a date with Justin. She waved as she entered the foreign language building and I continued down the walkway to my literature class. I wasn't going to ask Justin out. I wasn't being stubborn just in the grounds that I was afraid, but also because for once in my life I wanted to be the girl that got chased, not the one who did the chasing. I looked down at the messages on my phone as I made my way into my classroom.
You can think of me how you'd like, I know I think of you in more ways than one. Thank you for making my morning a little brighter. Sweet dreams.
Maybe I could ask him. Maybe I should. I really wanted to hangout with him. I wanted someone like Carly and Chel had. Someone who would sneak over in the middle of the night just to see me, or someone who would wash my hair as gently as if it were glass. Someone. I just wanted someone so that I would stop feeling so alone and like I didn't fit. Realizing how truly alone I felt for the first time made me desperate to belong and I wanted to belong with Justin.