One September Day

I, am awkward, I concluded. This is a typical thing for a 17 year old girl to conclude. And on that bright sunny day, on the fifth of September in my third block English class, that conclusion had not changed. I noticed a boy, and I'm pretty sure he noticed me to. He kept glancing back in my direction which I didn't really quite understand too much. Because you see, I am not a lot to look at. I have this longish dirty blonde hair and I wear band tee shirts and blue jeans and I'm just not someone cute boys stare at, or anyone for that matter. And he was cute. He was new to, either that or I had just never seen him before. He was tall, lanky, and had white blonde hair that was short and straight, sweeping just above his right eye. I am awkward. I mumbled to myself, and I then returned to draw on my arm. It was a person today, a black figure with a thought bubble that included made up words, abstract. Everyone started to get up out of their seats, so I also concluded that the block was over.

The blonde boy approached me. I did not understand why he was approaching me either because I am not someone people approach. I don't talk to anyone. The girls think I'm a drug addict and the teachers say I'm depressed. I say I'm awkward. I keep to

myself.

"Hey, I'm new and I like talking to interesting people. You look like an interesting person."

He said this kind of quietly and while he looked down at his feet. I almost wanted to take that offensively, but I knew that he did not mean it meanly or offensively, so I just concluded that he was awkward to.

"I'm not that interesting, but you can talk to me I guess."

I said back to him looking at my feet to. I don't quite know what our English teacher thought of us, two kids talking to each other but not really and instead socializing with their own feet. Becoming increasingly self conscious of what my English teacher thought of me, I walked out of the classroom, this boy quickly followed.

"I need friends, would you like to be my friend?"

He asked shyly, before we parted ways. I looked at him and smiled because this was not an abnormal question to me. This was a perfectly acceptable inquiry to a new person and I understood exactly the reason for the question and why his cheeks were as red as apples at that moment.

"I think I would. My names Juliet, yours?"

I said, now looking at him in the eyes, which were a soft, blueish grey color.

"Casper. Here, write your number on my hand, we'll talk tonight?"

His eyes brightened as he extended his hand, hopefulness encased his voice, and I wrote my number on a pale strange boys hand who I barely new in the middle of my High school hallway.

The rest of the day was a blur, as I pondered over why that boy had spoken to me. But I shrugged it off and focused on algebra and then thought about the boy again because who needs algebra? And then my eyes wandered to the walls. And I thought to myself how if walls could talk they would have a lot to say. I thought about this for a very long time.

That night the boy and I text messaged quite a bit, and I feel like I know him better, so I'm going to call him Casper now. I liked Casper. A lot. He understood how I didn't like talking a lot because sometimes I said things that people shouldn't say to other people and he said that it was okay because he did it to. We talked about the world and why it spun and why we existed and I went to sleep smiling. I had never done that before.

The next day he sat next to me in English. I don't think our English teacher liked that very much. We giggled and threw things at each other and we kept a chart on who got the most over the nose glasses glare. He won by two points and I had to buy lunch. I grabbed two trays of pizza and sat next to him at a secluded table outside. We sat in silence for a while. Conversation pieces floated about in my mangled mind about sports and weather and tv shows, but the silence grew longer and socializing opportunities faded.