Weekends

3- Experiments and Extroverts- B

Fifteen times. That's how many times that I had been made fun of that, and it was only fourth period. None of my teachers or peers understood why I couldn't bring myself to speak, and I was taunted mercilessly for it. Some of my teachers would even tease me.

Chemistry class was usually bearable, though. I could breathe in that class. My teacher understood that I didn't talk and defended me when necessary.  The only problem with that class was the labs. Don't get me wrong, I loved performing experiments and dissections, but we were assigned lab partners every year. I, the boy who doesn't speak, was forced to collaborate with another student that day. Usually, I would work by myself because there was an odd number of people in the class, but someone had just transferred to a different school, leaving me with their old partner, Dallon Weekes.

Dallon was one of the popular kids, so I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of being partnered with him for the remainder of the school year. He was one of the most popular people in the entire school. Everyone loved him, everyone envied him, and everyone would defend him at the drop of a hat. "I'm Dallon," the tall boy said as he took his seat next to me. He was dressed in a black sweater with a white polka-dotted button down underneath, the collar poking out. His hair was messily styled, and his eyes looked at me, expectingly. "I'm Brendon," I scribbled down on my whiteboard. "I'm okay with you not speaking, so don't worry about that," he assured me, seemingly supportive. I nodded my head. "So, how is this going to work? I've never made a water purification device before." I laughed slightly at him. He was trying to make things less awkward, and I really appreciated it.

We had to set up a distillation apparatus and purify tap water. It wasn't necessarily hard, just tedious. Disregarding the inconvenience of me not speaking, the lab went as well as it could've gone. He was very patient with my poor social skills, and I was able to keep up with his quick thinking.

"Shit," Dallon spoke. "What?" I wrote. "The bell is about to ring, and we're not done," he explained. "Ms. B can probably write us passes if you don't have anything important next period. She does that for me all the time," I assured him. "I'll go ask." Dallon stood up and walked over to our teacher's desk. "Miss, Brendon and I haven't finished yet. May we please have passes to stay for next period?" Ms. B shook her head and explained that she had a meeting next period. "Could we do the lab report at home?" Dallon asked. "Only if you work on it together. This is not an individual assignment." I could feel my heart drop. Were we going to have to spend time together outside of this class? I was already afraid that he didn't like me.

"We could Skype later," Dallon suggested as we finished up with the packing up our equipment. I nodded and wrote down my Skype name on my whiteboard. "Okay, I'll call you around six," he suggested, copying my account name onto a piece of paper. I was about to draw a smiley face on my whiteboard but decided that it probably wouldn't be appreciated.

I watched as he slung his backpack over one shoulder and walked out of the classroom. His collar was folded down, exposing his collarbones slightly. I felt a pit form in my stomach at the thought of that boy not liking me. He was the one person in this school that mattered, and it surely didn't help that he could destroy me if I so much as breathed the wrong way. The way that he looked at me when I started scribbling down my response was so supportive. It was like he didn't care that I wrote instead of speaking.

The rest of the day was spent with me shielding myself from attention and dreading the video chat that Dallon had scheduled. I was terrified enough of seeing people like him in school, let alone seeing to him outside of school and doing a project with him.

Six o'clock rolled around pretty quickly, much to my dissatisfaction. I opened Skype on my laptop, and waited nervously for the call to pop up on my screen. His profile picture appeared on my screen as he requested to add me. I clicked 'approve' and felt my heart racing. My computer began to ring as his call came through. I took a deep breath and answered.

"Okay, so we can probably get this done in a half hour if we work fast enough." Dallon spoke quickly as he rummaged around in his room to find his chemistry binder. "I don't know how to start this," I wrote. He raised an eyebrow and sighed, which I noticed he did a lot. "First, you need to say what we accomplished during the lab," he began. I quickly worked on my report as he kept speaking to me about his day and asking about mine, but more about him since I was writing the report and couldn't really write a response to him.

"How much do you have written down? It shouldn't really take too much longer. I have notes if you-" I held up my three pages of notes. "Awesome," he smiled. He seemed excited to be talking to me. It felt new but not a bad and anxiety-inducing new.

"Do you want to hear a joke?" I grinned and nodded my head, though I was slightly taken aback by his lack of hatred toward me. "What did the buffalo say to his son before he went to college," he asked, fighting back his laughter. "I don't know. What?" He bit his lip to keep from hysterically laughing at his own joke before even telling me the punchline. I could see why he was in the beautifully popular group at school.

"Bison! Get it? Bye, son and bison," he began laughing at himself. I felt myself laughing too. "Ah, that's a good one," Dallon said, wiping laughter tears from his eyes. "So, how's your report going," he asked, still recovering from the laughter. "I just finished it." He nodded as I printed it. He told me about how he was thinking about starting a library cleanup once a week because he wanted to use his popularity for good. I adored that. I was so confusedly happy. Then, I heard my dad come home.

"Hey, I have to go. I actually really enjoyed this," I told him. His smile faltered a bit, but I pushed it aside. "Okay, well, I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" I nodded. "Bye, Brendon," he smiled as I waved and hung up the phone.

"Brendon, why the hell aren't the dishes done," my dad stormed into my room, the door slamming against the wall. I started writing on my board. "I don't know how someone so fucking stupid and useless could have come from your mother and I." I felt my lower lip begin to tremble as he mentioned her. It hurt. He knew that. I shrugged my shoulders and let my head fall, wishing to be with someone like Dallon instead of the man standing over me.