(More Than) One Way

(Excerpt)
Sarah is probably my best friend, but sometimes she does this thing where when I'm telling her something, she acts like it's irrelevant. And when she does it, I kind of feel like shit because sometimes I'm telling her something really fucking important or I'm opening up to her about how much my parents suck and all she can muster is a half-assed 'oh'.

On days like this, I usually don't feel like talking to anyone because I kind of feel like a small ball of nothingness that probably doesn't matter, so I pull out a book. If I can, I'll go into the stairwell and be alone so I can feel like shit and probably think too much, all by myself. There are times when I feel like Sarah is really the only person I can actually talk to because I have kind of a screwed up family I don't like to talk about and my other friends usually don't take me seriously 'cus they think I try way too hard to be smart and funny and stuff so when Sarah leaves me to fend for myself, being alone is probably my best bet.

So there I was, reading 'Good Girls' by Sara Shepard, when I see a tall figure shadow over me. I look up to see Leighton in all his glory standing there with his stupid annoying lopsided smile acting all cute and shit.

"What'cha doing?" He asks me, finding a spot to sit on the ground next to me. I roll my eyes so he wouldn't be able to notice how nervous I was and replied "um, reading?" in a clipped voice that had a 'duh?' undertone to it. He laughs as if what I said was funny, although it really wasn't all that great and all I could hear was the pleasant sound of his laugh echoing throughout the stairwell.