Encounters

Beginning | Grey

I remember only parts of my first year. Majority of my subjects. Some of my classmates. Couple of teachers. I only actually remember one person I sat next to. It was this guy who seemed to have declared himself 'popular' almost immediately. I didn't really care back then nor do I still. However, I still remembered sitting next to him.

I didn't always sit next to him in maths. In the beginning, Ms Ivory had seated everybody alphabetically so that she could learn everyone's name easier. I didn't mind it as I was fortunate enough to sit next to someone I knew, a quiet kid who didn't talk that much. I remember trying to talk to the guy, Cyan, a couple of times but I just gave up once I realised that he might be uncomfortable talking to me. I wasn't offended, it wasn't that he didn't like me (I think) but because that was who Cyan was (I hope).

Midway through the year when Ms Ivory decided she knew our names well enough, she 'shook up' the seating plan. Which had ended with me sitting next to him. I remember not thinking much of it at first, he was new to me and I was new to him and we would just end up ignoring each other for the rest of the year.

He knew the routine. I knew the routine. This wasn't a new concept never heard of before. I frequently practised it in my other lessons and I'm going to take a lucky guess and decide that it was the same for him. That didn't happen though.

It was awkward at first. We made small talk, asked each other questions and made jokes. We'd even copy each other's work whenever we couldn't be bothered. But we weren't friends. He was my maths buddy. So only friends in maths.

A key conversation that sprung up a lot was if we were able to recognise film quotes. I don't have vivid memories of these interactions. I remembered that I pretended to not know anything about what these weird sayings that continuously went out his mouth and he fell for it. At first I was shocked because these weren't even uncommon film quotes and any first year student could pick up and identify the film.

Then it became funny as these quotes  were becoming more and more well known but he never picked up that I knew all of it.

"Fern," he looked at me in my eyes with a dead serious face. "You jump, I jump, remember?"  I had perfected the art of not grinning at these and just gave him a confused face.

"Why? What is this? Why?" His face had sank (haha) with the idea that I didn't get it.

Then at the end of the year, we got to choose where we sat, or to put into better perspective, who we got to sit next to.

I went for the obvious choices, my friends Amber and Violet. And he went for his friends. And we were no longer maths buddies. We were more than strangers but acquaintances weren't the right word and neither was friend. I don't know what Greyson was to me.