The First Time. 🇺🇸

Chapter Three.

My eyes flutter on the feet of the chairs that face me.I usually do not look at anyone in the eye. And nobody really seems to pay attention. I think they are convinced that I am uncomfortable or just very shy in the middle of the crowd.
This simple idea makes me smile.

I have never feared a conversation or an altercation, on the very principle that I could easily win it. But rather, because it would be technically impossible for me to forget this feeling of superiority and that helpless look of my interlocutor.

I have been that kind of person. Ready to crush the others shamelessly. It was so simple to live that way, until the day when your whole life is nothing more than wounding and betraying.When I moved, I promised myself to stop torturing my classmates. Stop storing proofs, words or anecdotes to use them later.It was a very altruistic way to become mature.I still had time at 13 years old.
I had arranged my demons as far as possible and I ignored them every time this sensation reappeared.
But, It's with a smile on my face, reflecting the darkness that remained in me, that I settled in front of Laura. She always sits in the same place, and I follow her without complaint.

My meal tray is almost empty yet, and nobody is surprised anymore.Only a piece of bread and an apple, throne in the middle of cutlery.Laura begins to silently eat her starter, a kind of molasses of tricolor vegetables.

The silence between us has nothing weighty, given the constant hubbub of futile student conversations.
Despite my 13 years, I do not have and I have never had the same interests as my generation.My memory is, may be, the cause. Repeating tirelessly the same stories and gossip without getting tired, would be too painful for me.Laura is a good company for these things. She eats in silence without a look for me, and that at each meal since several weeks.Only the subject, Kentin, is invariably interesting for her.
The sound of his chewing annoys me, but I take advantage of this almost silence to inventory the last memories floating aimlessly in my mind.
One of them complicates me the task.
It concerns the habits of one of the technical agents of the college.I see him pick up trash, and to pick up a shiny object into his dustpan.My memory is perfectly clear, and I can easily see that it is a mobile phone.

The situation is not really original, dozens of phones must arrive at the lost property office every day.Except when one carefully observes the tense and suspicious face of the man. The glances that he throws to the right and left in picking up the little jewel of technology teach me that he will never bring him back to the reception.He had not seen me observe it, and I can not blame him. My eyes had to pass on him only half a second.But Enough to record it, for my strange spirit.I get annoyed to notice that I was curious again, instead of looking down. 
My quirks again start so easily.

At the time I will have classified this information as sensitive and usable, but today I'm another person, and I put it in the shelf, regrettable.

I created this side of my mind as a forbidden section, where I forbid myself to let leave the information. They can enter but not leave.I finish classifying course information quickly before returning to Laura
The latter has already started her dish. His fork is in the air, filled with unappetizing lentils.His lips move and I put a few seconds to return completely to the situation.Axel and Allison are with us. They seem animated, and I sigh when I hear the umpteenth dispute of the couple. Neither seems to realize that they are, but Laura and I, as indeed the whole school, has already put the word "couple" on their relationship.
Allison gives me a smile without much conviction when I turn my head towards her.I have nothing against her, she is rather like us, botched, trashed or damaged. To tell the truth, there is only Axel who is well at this table, at least I believe him.

 I do not know much about his life. He laughs a lot.

Basically I am convinced that he wants to give us the smile, as a challenge he has imposed on himself.

I do not hate his company, sometimes I play his game, laughing at one of his puns.Thanks to him, I have a whole shelf of jokes. Maybe she will serve me one day, who knows.Axel is quieter than usual. While he speaks much more than me and Laura together, but his voice is more monotonous and slow. Before, the old me, would have pulled the worms of the nose, persuaded to be able to need some day.
Instead, I smile at him without really looking at him. It is so easy to decrypt someone's expressions when we have a full history of examples and databases.I always did that with my brother. Every expression reminds me of a memory, and I can understand the consequences even before he thinks of it.
For that it took me years of practice.Having a database requires a long time to be able to be perfectly sure.In spite of me Laura does not become too much a secret for me. It does not have a very large prism of expressions, and I have, without wanting to, retain the most frequent.
Conversations were about the future school trip. A week skiing.A sort of awakened nightmare for someone like me, and surprisingly, Laura seems to be in my opinion.I was sure that spending a week with Kentin nearby could seem idyllic, for her.

My mother absolutely wanted me to go, and I had a hard time finding a valid excuse in the last few weeks, until they announced to me, the perfect reason, a new move .I did not really see it coming, and I did not really know how I felt about it.The information had been classified without feeling. I wanted to come back after about that, to look and think, more specifically to probe what this news gave me as feeling, but the days had passed and I had not done it yet.

The conversation stops when they begin to eat their molten chocolate cake.

I hesitate to leave the cafeteria to go one of my favorite places, where nobody thinks to pick me up.I do not know if I got up at the same time as the thud of the door bell, sounded.My eyes went to the newcomers without thinking.At first glance, I knew they were the famous group in exchange coming from another high school.

But it was not the only thing ...