Falling

7

The next morning, I awoke with an instant sense of dread. 'Today's going to be a terrible, terrible day.' I thought. I just knew it, despite not having any evidence to back up my claims. You know that feeling when you finish taking an exam, and you know whether or not you did well? That's what I felt. Today was going to be horrible.

When I walked through the entrance, I spotted Ben and Gus talking to each other, segregated from basically everyone else as usual. They were probably having a delightfully insightful conversation about who the fastest walker was or who could wear the most hats at once. You know, the important things. I walked up to them, not because I wanted to compare head accessory capacity or walking speed, but simply because I had nobody else to talk to. I mean, I was grateful for those two, but I sometimes wish I had more friends. How did all those kids manage it? Having twenty friends apiece, yet I was here with my nimble three. Loyal, no doubt, but I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to experience it, you know? Being at the forefront of a massive social circle, being the center of attention, something like that. The high school experiences they show in movies...where people go to huge parties every weekend and where nobody seems to give a fuck about their post-high school lives.

Anyways, I walked up to those two not particularly in the best of moods. "Hey, buddy!" Ben exclaimed as he saw me. That guy was just way too energetic in the early morning. Was he high or something? "Dude!" Gus was somehow just as peppy. "Did you hear about that news story?" I looked at him quizzically. If he wanted me to understand what 'that news story' meant, he was going to have to be slightly more specific. "What news story?" I replied, tiredness creeping through my voice. "Donald Trump is actually a 17 year-old woman!" Seriously? How could anyone ever believe something that absurd? "Gus, that story's from the Onion. It's not real." Instead of accepting his stupidity, he just smiled at me. "Dude! You're so right. It's not real at all. It's unreal." He was such an idiot. I turned to Ben, trying my very best to smile even in my worst of moods. "How do you put up with this shit?" I asked, purely out of curiosity. His face was one of confusion "Why? What'd he do?" Had Ben just been daydreaming these past few minutes? God. "He thinks articles written by The Onion are real." At this, Ben sighed. It was expected from someone like Gus, and we both knew that. He was a smart guy, but he had his idiotic moments. And by idiotic, I mean ask-a-girl-out-while-wearing-dungarees idiotic.

Anyways, while conversing with those two, I was also trying to spot Lacey anywhere. Had she skipped school again? I mean, she'd done it before after her break-up with the world's biggest asshole, but this time was different. If she really had skipped school, there was a pretty high chance she'd done it because of me. Because of what happened that night. Did she hate me? Did she not want to be friends with someone who wanted more than just a friendship? I had so many questions, but no one could answer them. No one except Lacey herself. I left my two friends unnoticed, and went around school looking for her.

She wasn't in the library, she wasn't standing by the lockers, and she most certainly wasn't with Ben and Gus. If she was at school, she would be avoiding me and talking with my only friends wasn't really the most effective way to accomplish it. I went around the entire school three or four times, and even went in the now-abandoned Red Zone. It was this room where someone had come into school and murdered a student back in '94, and the student's blood went all over the walls. No one had bothered to clean up the blood since then and it freaked everyone out. Understandably, no one wanted to hang out at a murder scene. So yeah, I even went there and still found nothing. After about ten more minutes of hopeless searching, I decided to give up and accept the idea that she skipped school because of me. She hated me, didn't she? I tried to get rid of any thoughts-- at all-- related to Lacey, but I just couldn't get her out of my head. Despite my inner struggles, I tried to push her to the back of my mind for now and focus on my very important first period. I had a physics test. Why on earth did I take physics? It seemed as if this subject was for people smart enough to handle it but stupid enough to take the class. I had this test on quantum shit, and I wasn't ready at all. I mean, usually, since I had virtually no social life, school and revision took up most of my time. However, this past week I'd been a little distracted. Just a little. I guess that's one of love's side effects; the person you've fallen for is all you can ever think about throughout the whole day, no matter how hard you try to push them out of your mind and thoughts.

I'm going to try and avoid anything to even remotely do with the physics test. That thing was such bullshit! How were we supposed to answer questions on stuff we hadn't even learned about? (I tried to ignore the simple theory that we had learned all this in detail in class, and that it was my lack of revision for this test that was the problem). I was almost sure I was going to get an F, and I wasn't exaggerating. Literally an F. I had left half the test blank, and the answers I gave were also probably wrong. All I could do was pray that it was at least an E. At least. I was starting to understand why my mum was so strongly against anything to do with girls until after I had graduated high school. I mean, it wasn't like I was anyone's boyfriend material, but once you get hooked on a girl it's hard to stop those thoughts occupying your time.

Just then, I saw her. We brushed shoulders, each going separate ways through the narrow corridor. "Lacey!" I said, a little too loudly. She glanced back, and hurriedly speed-walked away, presumably until she was as far away from me as possible. I'd gone from her best friend to someone she didn't want to be near in the space of two days. How was it even possible to fuck up that badly? Even Gus' dungarees-promposal wasn't as big of a fuck up. She'd just ignored me after I called her name twice. Understandably, she was probably still pissed at me for what I tried to do that night. And the way she'd walked away from me...it hurt. She wanted to get away from me. How was someone like me supposed to get out of the friendzone if I wasn't even in it anymore? It hurt like a punch in the stomach, this sharp yet searing pain of knowing that you've got an almost certain chance of not being able to charm the girl of your dreams. I felt like I couldn't achieve love unless the person I was with was Lacey, which I knew wasn't true but I wasn't willing to accept any other outcome. That's another side effect of love...once you fall for someone, you become so closed-minded that the only partner you ever want in your life is only that one person. But it wasn't happening now, and I was sure of that. I had to move on somehow...forget about my love for her, squash it into a small piece and hide it in the back of my mind.