zentropy | mileven.

¹⁾ we're going to be friends

[MIKE POV.]

❝ we don't notice any time passed, we don't notice anything ! ❞

━ CHAPTER ONE.

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IT'S BEEN a while since we've been like this.

with each step we take it's like I can hear the thumping in my chest getting progressively louder, which confuses me, because i never used to get nervous around jane like this.

i first met her back in the sixth grade.
my friend group: lucas, dustin, will, and I had all known each other since kindergarten, and had stuck it out through all of elementary school, and were determined to continue the tradition in middle school.

it was choir class when I first saw her.
that first day of school, somehow my schedule had gotten mixed up and I'd landed in the choir elective instead of the band elective, but being the newbie that I was, I wasn't going to make an ass out of myself and speak up. so I just stayed quiet, and went where I was told.

sitting in the very front row was a girl of a short stature and a tiny frame, with her hair slicked back and what looked like charcoal smeared underneath her eyes. a tiny wrinkle rested between her brows, and her arms lay crossed against each other lazily.

she was what they'd call a freak.

"she looks like a panda with that black around her eyes! no, a raccoon!"
"what a poser, thinking she's not like the others girls to look so punkish like that."
"she must think she's so cool going around like that, how embarrassing"

to be honest, I was scared of her.

but then again, I was also what they'd call a freak. my limbs were too long for my body and the playground bullies made it apparent that my face resembled that of a frog. I was constantly called too skinny and too often than normal I'd clumsily land on my face due to my two left feet. not to mention, I didn't care about things that other kids did. I cared about my friends. about video games. my family. my grades.
was that so bad?
apparently so. I was what they'd call "a pussy", a new nickname to go along with frog face that troy and his goons had newly branded me with on that first day of middle school.

so in a way, I understood her. I resonated with her. I suppose I even sympathized with her.
so I wanted to be her friend.

through all of that makeup, she was easy on the eyes too. but that didn't matter.

I went up to her that second day of the sixth grade with my palms clammy and a lump in the back of my throat. she was scary, and she looked mad all the time, but somehow I couldn't help but feel like we were the same. in a way.

"hi."
"what do you want?"
I gulped, my cheeks getting hotter and my hands getting sweatier as the feeling in my toes had fled and attacked all of my nerves instead.
"I just wanted to, um, say hi-"
"fuck off."

we didn't talk for the rest of that year.

once in a while id see her in the hallways. I'd smile and she'd roll her eyes, or I'd wave and she'd laugh at me in a condescending tone.

I didn't understand why she hated me so much.

and then the seventh grade rolled around.
that year changed everything.