The One

Chapter 4: Clueless II

The second day of the Javits Center trip followed the same procedure. Everyone met up at the train station, arrived at Penn Station, and walked to the Javits Center. I stayed around the few people I knew and explored what the Javits Center had to offer. As a few hours went by, the team finally had a lunch break in the lower levels. Once down there and sitting, that same girl walked by to sit at a table a few from mine. She seemed at ease, but the behavior she had shown the day before made me curious about her. But as I said before, "I don't let a lot of things get to me". I sat with my friends, ate, and returned back upstairs an hour or so later. Once back upstairs, our robot was competing and it was doing great. I never really understood this "nerd" shit, but I had to admit at that moment, it was pretty cool. Especially when it had to scale the tower. In other words, use its arm to climb the tower. A buzzer went off indicating that the round was over and our team, Chaos, scored a lot of points that day. After that, I proceeded to walk around with my friends. As I entered the outside area from the competition, where the escalators were, I saw the girl sitting on the floor with my friend Giovanni. It looked like they were really comfortable with one another. Not caring about the situation, I walked by them with my friends, including Yesenia, until Giovanni invited us over to sit down. I really didn't want to at first, but I also didn't want to be a dickhead so I sat by them. The girl sat closer to me and I didn't know how to respond to it. So like every other awkward teenager, I made little conversation and adjusted to how I was sitting to back away a little. At one point she did lay on my shoulder and got comfortable with me. I know I can be a mean person at times, but at that moment I didn't adjust myself. I let it happen and was being nothing but friendly with her. Making the little conversation as we did, I got up at one point where she asked "where are you going?"

"Back inside with Yesenia to the pits". The pits were also referred to as the robot building area. She looked as though she wanted to come with us, but Giovanni's facial expression made it seem like he didn't want her to leave. So I just said a casual,

"See you later", and left with Yesenia. An hour went by while being in the pits and all Yesenia and I were doing were taking pictures with other people from other places. We were basically trying to flirt with people we found attractive and get pictures with them in the process. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but listen it worked. After being done with that, we returned to the bleachers where the rest of the team was sitting. In the middle of the row, I saw Giovanni with that girl again sitting in between his lap. Not caring, I walked up and sat right next to him watching the other teams competing with each other. Minutes went by and I noticed something that made me close to uncomfortable. I noticed my friend Gio brushing his hands across that girl's face. Her facial expressions towards it looked as though she was ready to fuck him. I should've gotten up, but instead, I just sat there ignoring it and proceeded to watch the competition. All of a sudden, a girl from our team got on top of her and made me feel all types of uncomfortable to the point where I got up and left the area. I wasn't jealous or anything, I was just genuinely uncomfortable being surrounded by that. Hours went by again and I was just hanging out with my friends and some acquaintances outside the competition area. Going back, that girl was either trying to annoy me or talk to me in some way. Being now involved in the situation, I decided to play slap boxing with her. Only five minutes in, I was just hitting her playfully and running around trying to avoid her counter attacks. When I decided to finally stop, she came closer and closer to me. I didn't let her get near me that much though and asked for a truce. I was confused when all she tried to do was hug me. I thought it was a trick so I kept backing up. She kept coming closer genuinely asking for a hug and at one point I did hug her and she did nothing after but smile. I was dead confused and tried to walk away when she followed me. At that moment, another one of the team members, Eli, came by and grabbed her away from me. Confused but relieved in that situation, I went back inside the competition area and got ready to leave with the rest of the team. It was dark and we walked back to Penn station waiting for our train to arrive. Before it did, I was talking with my friends in our circle when that girl asked if we could take pictures. I was too tired to question it at the time so I took the pic with her and my friend Giovanni. The train finally arrived and we boarded. Sitting with my friends, the girl sat by us again. I just wanted to take a nap and not give her any attention at all. She proceeded to take a video of me on Snapchat. I just reacted with confusion and knocked until we arrived back in Brentwood. I got off the train, said bye to everyone, got in my car, got home, and well, you know the rest.

The third day of the Javits Center. One day from all of it being over. I must say it really wasn't what I was expecting but in a good way. We got there early as usual and this time the arena wasn't open yet. So everyone gathered in a circle playing this card game called "Cards of Humanity." I had no clue what the point of that game was, so I just watched for a few and walked over to talk to my friends and some others I met while being there. When the arena finally opened up, everyone flooded inside to take seats at the bleachers. I walked over with my friends and we put all our stuff down before walking over to greet other teams. Hours finally speeded up and "god damn it". I almost forgot. My friend Maya and I had a project due to our Spanish class on Monday. This trip had been so time-consuming that I forgot I had homework outside of it. We decided to go down to the lower levels and do our work on the floor in an area near the escalator. An hour into us doing our work, the same girl was walking near us. It looked like she was looking for someone. I decided to be kind and say, "Hey" out loud for her to hear me. She saw me, waved, and proceeded back to the escalator. I honestly don't know why she was down there at the time, but I had a feeling it was to look for me. Two hours down, we finished our project. We proceeded to go back up the escalator to our team when we saw our friend Yesenia eyeing someone. Not just anyone, but a boy from the Brazilian team. When we saw who she was looking at, we were all like "damn". Yeah, he was that sexy to look at. I honestly wasn't into guys like that, but I still found them attractive, given the certain boy in the situation. We encouraged her to talk to him, but Yesenia is shyer than she appears to be. Being her friends, we knew in that situation that we needed this boy to talk to her. Another hour went by and our team was sitting next to his team. We encouraged her to spring up a convo with him, but it seemed like she already made her move. She got a picture with him when we left her alone and we were proud of her. Being annoying as her friends too, we all took pictures with him and made conversation with him too. We also talked to some of his friends for some time into the competition. With only 2 hours left into the competition, music started to play. I noticed girls from other teams dancing, so being me, I danced by them too. I was getting into it to the point where they were hyping me up and dancing with me. By the end of it, I got some of their snaps and was applauded by them and some people from my team. When I sat down, I noticed that the same girl took a video of me. I was flattered and sat down waiting to leave. I noticed only an hour left of the competition, I noticed my friends playing around the bleachers, so I joined them. Ten minutes into it, that same girl joined us and tried to annoy me again. At this point, I was like fuck it and picked her up over my shoulders hovering her over a garbage can. She didn't struggle as much as I thought she would. A second later, I put her down and just tried to brush off that encounter I just had with her. Of course, out of nowhere, Eli stepped in and got physical with her again. In my head, I thought she apparently has a thing going on with Eli and Giovanni. I really didn't care and brushed it off. Finally leaving the place, we walked back to Penn Station and waited for our train to arrive. We walked around for a bit around Penn station again and that same girl was with my friends and me. We tried to talk for a bit, but it seemed like at that point every time we made an encounter, it just got weirder and weirder. The train finally arrived, we boarded, made it back home, and left the train. Same procedure as before, I got in my car, drove home, and waited for another day of bullshit.