TIWIS

ALPHA: The Day We Met... 1.2

I went first, to my locker to drop my backpack inside before I went to the cafeteria.
In the cafeteria, I went to my usual table at the left corner of the room, void of any attraction what so ever. I sat alone, staring at my plate in silence, playing with my lunch, rather than eating it.
As I was in the middle of scattering my lunch, the strangest thing happened yet. Someone had walked to where I was sitting, and there was no food, insect or some weird chemical or slime on my head. I continued playing with my food noticing the person will do his or her business and go, not even daring to look up. To my horror, he — as I soon realized — sat down beside me, bringing all the unwanted stares I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid.
He looked straight at me, definitely expecting me to look up, and I did. He was smiling at me as if he were someone I’d known all my life, and then he suddenly said, “You know you owe me an apology, right?” I almost choked on the pea I was about swallowing; coughing loudly, doing the thing I detested the most, drawing attention to myself. As annoyed as I was at him for making me do that, all I could manage to mutter was a “huh?”
Damn! I am so pathetic.
I looked at him expecting him to laugh at how stupid I was behaving or even smirk at his friends, as merely the sight of him almost made me die, but all I got was nothing. Absolutely nothing! He just sat in front of me clearly expecting an apology for a crime I had no idea I had committed.
Was I dreaming? Was this dude really standing in front of me? Ohh… this must be a dream, and the ‘hello’ that was coming from somewhere in my head must be my mother trying to wake me up. The hello became louder and louder. Finally, I woke up; just it wasn’t from a dream but from my thoughts. Hell! He’s still here. Does he not know how things worked around here? And an apology? Really? What for?
I raised my head up a bit to see he was still staring and waiting for that apology. I carefully glanced around the room and saw the most eyes I had ever seen in my whole life, staring at me! This was bad. I was already turning red and shaky. And what’s with this apology?
The nerve! I began getting annoyed. Does he really expect me to apologize for something I don’t know I did? I don’t even have an idea of what I’m supposed to be apologizing for.
“We –well?–well how? –how do you? –What?!” I finally stuttered out.
“My apology,” He said.
I sighed and then said, “Yes I know, but what apology?”
“The one you owe me”, he replied.
“H–How–I’ve Never EVen met you before,” I said as calmly as I could muster.
Just then, the bell rang, calling all students to resume their classes — talk about ‘being saved by the bell’. I didn’t have a class at that time, but it seemed that he did because he called on someone to give him a sheet of paper, then he wrote something on it and passed it to me muttering something that sounded like, ‘damned bell’, before he hurriedly left the cafeteria. I crumbled the paper and went back to playing with my food, not daring to look up at the eyes of my fellow students that couldn’t just stop staring at me. I could have sworn it wasn’t real, that I had imagined it all, but the crumpled paper in my hand with a strange handwriting proved me wrong. Really, who was this dude and who did he think he was. I continued thinking aimlessly until the bell shocked me out of my mini–trance. I must have been doing some drawing because my sketch pad was out, so I hurriedly packed everything into my backpack as I hurried towards the library as I had detention with Mrs Doris, the librarian (for something I obviously didn’t do — but who listens to the nerd).
As I entered the library, the librarian with as stern, ‘YOU’re LATE’ greeted me. Quickly, I put up my innocent face and went about the usual apology I gave to the adults whenever there was a need to do so which usually went like, “I’m so, so, sorry. I promise not to do it again. It’s just that I got carried away by the way–”. And that was it. I never get to finish it because no one ever wants to hear my excuse, and according to Miss Berran, ‘they were Bor–ring’.
“—no time for excuses, JUST get to work,” Mrs Doris said sighing. I smiled rolling my eyes obscurely and walked towards the library-restricted area.
Detention in the library was fun. My job was to keep students out of the restricted area, which gave me the privilege to enter myself, and as many people guessed, I read the restricted books. Obviously, what happens when you put a nerd in a restricted area of books?
After about an hour, detention was over and it was time for Music. I muttered a silent prayer to the gods asking for the strength to be able to go through the class without throwing up. And don’t get me wrong, Music was fun, my classmates, not so fun. They make me see reason with why the jocks treat nerds the way they do. Thankfully, I made it through the class alright in my right mind.
The final bell rang bringing the school-day to an end. Now on hearing this bell, I hurried out of the hall not only to get away from my classmates but also to get to the school bus early. The bus usually leaves immediately as the school final bell rings to get gas while the ‘vultures’ are still mingling with each other. So, I try my best to get on the bus while it is going to get gas, and I try to do it before the ‘vultures’ come out of their caves.
Luckily for me, I made it in due time. The bus driver understanding my predicament drops me in front of my street on his way to the gas station. My house was just seven blocks down the street.
I got home in about fifteen minutes later calling out “I’m Home” as I entered. I heard my mother sigh, muttering something that sounded like ‘no friends, always alone, abnormal, inhuman’.
Well duh? What do you expect? And what’s with people wanting other people to be with other people? Like who’s the person that made being alone, abnormal or a crime? I sighed climbing the stairs up to my room to freshen up but as soon as I got to my room, the bed was just so appealing; I laid on it and slept off.
I woke with my mother yelling words at me, which I found hard to piece together. I caught on things like ‘-lazy g-jobless-nothing d-’ and some other things. As I was finally being drawn back to reality I found it was already getting dark and I must have slept for about three hours. I felt my mother’s eyes looking down at me realizing I wasn’t paying attention to her. She reduced her voice and sat on my bed so she could look in my eyes. She stayed there for what felt like forever even if it was just seconds, and then she finally said, “Freshen up, dinner’s almost ready”. After saying that, she left my room.
Blankly, I stood up going to have my bath; thereafter I brushed my hair and went downstairs to find everyone already sitting, waiting for me. Quietly, I took my place on the right side of my father, directly facing my eldest brother and beside me was my immediate elder brother. My father smiled at me asking the usual fatherly things to the family and doing what families do, like talk about their day and how it went, and other stuff. After dinner, I climbed up to my room hearing my mother say, “Bedtime’s twenty-two hundred, I’m serious this time young lady!”
“Yes Mom” I replied walking sluggishly up the stairs to my room.
My room was to me, the safest place on earth. It was just cosy. I didn’t know what was playing but it was a song by ‘The Authors’. I brought out my sketchpad to continue what I had been trying to draw during lunch and to my horror, I found a crumpled piece of paper–as if today couldn’t get any worse–. I took out the paper finally having the will to read what was written in it and what I found really took me by surprise. It was in all CAPS. Angry writing…
“DON't YOU DARE LEAVE SCHOOL WITH MY APOLOGY”
"Opps –” I said to myself laughing, “Oh well, glad that’s over”. I smiled tossing the paper to some corner of my room bringing out my sketch pad to continue what I was drawing. I drew until my mom came in to put off the lights while I reluctantly went to bed.
The next day, everything went back to normal. There were just a few awkward stares, which I could live with. There were no jocks being nice to me just the regular ol’ mean jerks. I walked down the hallway thinking to myself, ‘all was well in the world again’.