Prologue
Today was a day!. It was a day full nothing!. A day that was as empty as air, as empty as one’s mind while thinking nothing!.
Although, air IS full of something!. Nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases!. And I highly doubt that it’s possible to think about nothing whatsoever!.
So, to contradict what I said earlier, today was full of numerous things!. Not that I noticed any of them, though!. I was too busy being cooped up in my own little bubble, mad at the world!. Too busy ignoring everyone, too busy keeping to myself!.
I am Shy Girl!.
This is the only name that people know me by!. They don’t know that my name is Meg, they don’t know what I like to do, they don’t know what type of music I listen to!. They don’t know anything about me!.
I’ve been new to this school for a month!. You’d think that by now, at least the teachers would remember my name!. But they don’t!. Often times they call me “Stacey”, or “Ashley” or something!. Maybe that’s what they wish my name were!. Those names are memorable!.
I have no friends, I am alone in the world!. Maybe if I’d be more open to people, maybe if when someone talked to me I didn’t just stare at them and wait until they went away, I’d have friends!. But that’s what I do!. I don’t talk to anyone, I doubt anyone knows what my voice sounds like!. I don’t partake in any after-school activities or anything of the sort!. Straight to school, straight home!.
Sometimes it bothers me, sometimes it doesn’t!. For example, it would be nice to have a best friend to talk to about how much I hate everyone at school, at home, how much I hate everyone in the world!. It would be nice to talk about guys and what’s going on in school!. But I have no one!.
I am Shy Girl!.
1
“Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him!.”
- Chinua Achebe
I walk through the halls at Addam’s High School unnoticed!. Untouched by the hands of concern!. I walk alone!.
I know that I sound like some depressed chick who never gets out, but that’s not the case!. I couldn’t be more happy being by myself, all the time, everywhere!. But maybe that’s just because I’ve never known what it’s like to have someone there!. My parents were never there for me, they still aren’t!. If I hung myself right in the entrance of my room, they wouldn’t notice for at least three days!.
Which, if you think about it, is kind of sad!. Sad in the sense that I’m so avidly unnoticed that my parents wouldn’t even recognize my death!.
But it also hold appeal!. For example, if I ever wanted to sneak out at night, I wouldn’t need to worry about being sneaky and quiet and whatnot!. I could simply walk right out the door!. No one would see!.
Of course, I’m just busy watching my feet, counting my steps, as I run into someone!. Someone I’ve never seen before!.
Now you’d think that since I rarely, if ever, talk to anyone, I wouldn’t know who half of the people in my school were!. Wrong!. So very, very wrong!. I know exactly what’s going on in this school!. I know who’s dating who, who got pregnant last weekend, who got completely wasted at the party last Saturday!. I know everyone’s names, first and last!.
You notice a lot of things when there’s nothing else to distract you!.
Which is why I’m surprised to see this face looking at me, apologizing profusely for having caused me to lose my books!. Black hair, pale skin!. A face I did not recognize!.
I bend down to pick up my scattered books just at the same moment that he, too, bends down to help me pick up my books!. I notice something on his hand, a black mark!. The closer I look, I recognize that it is a name!. “John,” it says!. I am confused!.
I beat him to picking up my things!. I stand, as does he!. He apologized once more, before sticking out his hand and asking me my name!.
What am I supposed to do with a hand!? Shake it!?
I guess that he’s new here at Addam’s High!. Everyone who’s been here knows not to ask me questions if they want them answered to any extent!.
I do not bother looking at him any more!. Instead, I turn and walk around him!. He follows!.
“Um, hello!? My name’s Brandon!. And yours is…”
Walking faster!. He is definitely new!. Although I doubt that he will be known as Shy Boy or anything close to that!. He will end up going along with a group of some certain, I’m guessing the punks or the hardcore kids based on what he’s wearing!. He will forget ever running into me, ever seeing my face!.
Which is just as well, it’s what I would want!.
I know that it is exactly 27 steps from my locker to the Science room!. On the 25th step, I leap the last two in an attempt to be rid of him, this “Brandon!.”
The bell rings, signaling that you’d better move your butt to your next class before the principal catches you!. I am already in my seat!.
I have no time for friends!.
I am Shy Girl!.
? ? ?
I walk home today!. Half the week I ride the bus, half the week I walk home!. It just depends on my mood that day, I guess!.
It’s maybe ten or eleven miles from the high school to my house, but I walk fast!. It still takes me a good three and a half hours to get home!.
Today is slightly nice!. It’s hot and humid, but the breeze is cold!. The sky is overcast!. Perfect weather for walking home!.
Several buses pass me by!. 101, 76, 28!.!.!.how do buses get their numbers, anyways!? Do they number them one by one, or do they just select random numbers for each bus!? A question I have always wondered!. I also wonder, what if they ran out of numbers!? What if you got up to 999!? Would you go into half numbers, 21!.5!?
These are the questions that I think while walking home nearly every time I do!. Either that or I think about the future!. Out of high school, what will I be like!? Will I still be so un-open to others!? Will I still have no friends!? Will I carry on the title of Shy Girl!?
My mind is running a hundred miles a minute as I walk into the driveway!. It stays lighter out longer this time of year because of day-light savings time!. It’s just turning dusk as I search for my house keys that I keep on a chain around my neck!. It’s close to seven o’clock now!.
I enter my home, not bothering to call out my presence to anyone!. I doubt they’d even hear, even if I screamed at the top of my lungs!.
I see a note on the table in the kitchen!.
Your father and I went out to eat!. Money for pizza by the phone!.
I’m slightly touched!. They remembered my existence!. At least enough to leave a note and money for food, something they’ve never done before!. I wonder why they seem to slightly care all of a sudden!.
I look at the calendar, and see that the date is April 30th!. My birthday!.
I had forgotten today was even my birthday!. Maybe that’s my parental units were being acutely kind!. That brought down my mood slightly, I don’t even know why!. You’d think that I’d be happy, they’d remembered my birthday!. But instead it just made me feel more alone!.
They were gone on my birthday!. Eating out!. Without me!.
I ordered a small cheese pizza from the Pizza Hut in town!. When it arrived, I gave all of the money my mother had left me to the delivery guy!.
He counted it out, whistled and said “I don’t know if I got enough bills to make change for this, sweetie!.” I had just given him fifty dollars!.
I shrugged and mumbled, “Keep it!.”
The smile he gave me was so tremendous, I thought his cheeks might brake off!.
“Thanks, lady,” he smiled!.
I nodded, took my pizza, and closed the door!.
I opened the box and was suddenly overwhelmed with the heavy aroma that a pizza gives off!. Before I eat this, I think, I need to do something!. I open a drawer to my left and take out a birthday candle and stick it right in the center of the pizza!. I light it!.
“Happy birthday to me!.”
2
“For a moment, nothing happened!. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen!.”
- Douglas Adams
I was asleep by the time they got home!. I only woke up because I could hear them arguing outside the house, looking for the key to get in!. This is what my parents do, they argue!. “Argue” would be the nice way to describe it!. Arguing is what people do when they disagree about something!.
They do not argue!.
They fight!.
They’ve only gotten physical a few times!. Nothing major, but it was enough for me as a kid to hide out in my room until it was over, and then some!.
They’ve never hit me, though!. So you don’t have to worry about child abuse or anything!.
Besides, I’m never in the same room long enough to give them time to hit me!. I hide, not wanting to be apart of it!.
I suppose you could blame my parents’ fighting on the way I act around people!. Although really, that’s preposterous!. I would know if I acted that way because of them!. Believe me, I know!. I act the way I do just…because!. People ask stupid questions, people say stupid things, and people do stupid things!. Like getting attached to someone who will clearly do nothing but hurt you later!. Or they’ll do something stupid like ruin their life when it was completely unnecessary!.
The human race, as a whole, is just stupid!.
God must have done a pretty bad job at making people!. I mean, if he’s supposed to know everything, then wouldn’t he have known that Adam and Eve were going to screw up!? Couldn’t he see into the future and see what’s happening to the world today!?
Animals are becoming extinct, women are being raped and murdered, kids are getting sold into drugs!.
Stupid!.
Which is probably why I’m an agnostic!. They believe that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists!.
Because if God is supposed to be so high and mighty, why did he do such a good job at screwing stuff up!?
My parents found the key in the crack in the steps by the door!. They stumble in, talking loud, laughing, and have stopped fighting about whatever it was that they were fighting about!.
My mother’s words can barely be considered clear!. Loud, maybe!. But you can’t hear what she’s saying!.
They’re drunk!.
In the morning, they’re heads will be pounding and I’ll have to give them Advil and other medications to make the throbbing of their hangovers die down!. They’ll realize that their car is at the bar they attended last night, having gotten a “safe-ride” home!. They’ll have to take the car at home to the bar to retrieve their other car, and they’ll drive home separately, one of them in each car!.
It has become a sort of tradition amongst them, you could say!. It happens at least twice every two weeks, them going out on Friday night and waking up the next afternoon on Saturday!.
I pull the covers over my head, blocking them out!.
Tomorrow will be another day!.
? ? ?
Today is Tuesday, the second day of the school week!. I get their early today, before most everyone is there!. Before some teachers are even there!.
This is on account of my father driving me to school today on his way to work!. I’m able to get a ride about once during every week, when he doesn’t have to go to work on regular time!. I’m not sure why he doesn’t need to be in early everyday!. All I have to do is be ready on time!.
We don’t talk on the way to school at all!. Not surprising!.
When we pull into Addams High’s parking lot, I get out without saying a word!. I hurry into the building, not bothering to look back!. Although I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry, it’s not like there’s anything waiting for me inside!. I’ll just be cooped up in that building for seven hours, and take the bus home while sitting in a cold faux leather seat all by myself!.
But I move forward anyway!.
Every day it’s the same: I go through each of my classes, numb and confused!. I have no idea what the teachers are saying to us, which contributes to the fact that I’m mostly failing everything!. Everything except art!. Art is when I come alive, when I melt from my block of ice!. It’s the only class in which I let something of myself come through, when I let myself speak!. Only instead of words, I use paper!. And pencils!. And pens, paints, charcoals, pastels, oils…that’s how my voice is heard!.
Not that anyone sees it but the teacher!. Still, it helps me vent!. If I’m angry, I’ll take everything and just mash it all onto one piece of paper!. Relieving!.
The metal doors swing open with the shove of my hands, and I’m inside!. I have entered the jail cell!.
I’m not surprised to see that hardly anyone is there!. The buses don’t get here until later, and people who get rides usually come in at the last minute!. Not me!.
And apparently, not that person down the hall!. Not a teacher, but a student!. I don’t have much for eyesight, I’m supposed to wear glasses or contacts or something, but I chose not to!. I like seeing far away things blurry!. I like not being able to see the board during class!. I’ve grown accustomed to picking people out by their shape and what they’re wearing by the color!. I’m good at that!.
But this person looks familiar!. As soon as I recognize the person, my stomach sinks!. I know that I can’t slink away, he’s already seen me and is coming this way!. I could run down the hall or something, but he could probably keep up!.
He jogs over to me, and I stare at my feet, examining my shoes!.
“Hey, I know you!.” He says it in a friendly matter, but nothing in my head is friendly about it!. He doesn’t know me!. He knows my appearance, sure!. But he doesn’t know me!. He doesn’t know me at all!.
“You’re Meg, right!?” How did he know my name!? Nobody knows my name!. I am Shy Girl, not this “Meg” he speaks of!. In this school, I have no name!.
I stand motionless, not looking up!. Maybe he’ll just go away if I don’t respond!. That’s what I had been hoping, anyway!. No such luck!. He stands there, waiting for an answer!. After a few minutes of dead silence, he continues!.
“I heard you’re new!. Well, not newer than me, obviously, because I’m guessing you’ve been here longer than me!. Judging on how you know your route to your classes so well…” I know he’s talking about when I ran away from him when he first spoke to me!.
“Anyways, I’m Brandon!. Wait, no, I already said that!. Yesterday!. Sorry!. So, am I right!? About you being here longer than me!? Because I just want to confirm that before I go on to make an idiot of myself, asking to show you around or something!. Although, truth be told, I hardly know this place myself!. So I wouldn’t be much help!. So!. Am I!? Right, I mean!?” He sure can ramble, if anything!.
I wasn’t going to say anything, but something inside of me was just screaming to talk, even if it was just one little word!.
All I was planning on doing was saying “Yes,” but when I opened my mouth, everything started pouring out!.
“Yes, I’ve been here for a month now, not that anyone cares because I have no friends and nobody talks to me because I don’t talk to them so I don’t know why you’re wasting your time!.”
His brow furrows, and he looks slightly agitated!.
“First, I’ll decide who’s worth my time!. I officially dub you worthy!. Now that we’ve gotten that past us… aren’t we friends!?”
Well, I spoke to somebody!. At least nobody but him is here to hear it!.
“Um, I guess…” The truth was, I didn’t consider us ’friends’!. We know nothing about each other, and we’ve only spoken twice, if you count this time!. Well, once, on my behalf!.
He smiles!. “Good!. Now!. You’re here mighty early!.”
I nod!. “So are you!.” Surprisingly, talking really wasn’t very hard!. Well, I knew it wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t awkward!. Not really!. Here I was, opening my mouth to a human being for the first time in months!. It was nice!.
I must have drifted off into my own world, because he waved his hand in front of my face!.
“Sorry,” I mumble!. I’m still used to drifting off!.
“Do you want to get breakfast with me!?” he asks, right when my stomach rumbles!. I don’t usually eat breakfast, even though it’s, you know, good for you and stuff!. I purposely make sure I don’t have time to eat it at home, because that would just contribute to many more minutes of awkward silence between my parents and I!.
“Uh…” I’m a very indecisive person, and I know that it bugs people!. “Sure!.”
He smiles!. “Great,” and we start walking in the direction of the cafeteria, where they have some sort of breakfast for the students at school!.
It’s awkward, walking next to someone!. I walk alone, in the halls and otherwise!. It’s odd to have someone always be right next to you!.
Since I don’t open my mouth, he opens his!. “So!. Where were you from before you came here!?”
“Nowhere, really!. We moved around a lot!.”
“I see, I see!. We were kind of like that too, never settling down in a permanent location!. It felt like every time we unpacked we started packing up again!.” I knew exactly how he felt!.
We were now just silently walking down the hall, him looking straight ahead and every now and then he’d stop to do something odd, like jump in the air or something like that, and me looking at the floor and the walls!. As I was looking at the walls, which were a bland cream color, I noticed how many posters there were!. They were hung everywhere, in some areas you couldn’t even see the wall behind them!.
Most of them were for something different- notices about club meetings, papers announcing that there would be some sort of religious concert held in town,…but most of them were for the homecoming dance, which was not more than a month away!. Everywhere you saw blue and orange papers- our school colors, interesting as they are- telling you to make sure you have a date, “Go Team!”, blah blah blah!. All useless information to me!.
“You going to that!?” I jump when Brandon asks the question!. He noticed me looking at all of the posters, and was pointing towards the “Make sure you have a date for homecoming!” poster!.
“No!.” I never go to anything school-related!. Not just because I would have no one to talk to while we’re there, much less sit next to, but also just because I simply didn’t have any interest!.
“Ah!. Bummer!.” He sighed, and he showed disappointment!. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or fake, I’ve never really had to dissect people’s expressions before!.
We were at the doors to the cafeteria, and you could hear the music they had playing inside!. The Beach Boys- always the Beach Boys coming out of the speakers!. Call me a freak- oh, wait, most people do already- but I kind of like the Beach Boys!. True, some of their lyrics are a tad bit too corny for my taste, but they have a nice tune!. A happy tune!.
There were two other kids in there, each at completely different sides of the cafeteria!. I tried to see what they were eating to see if I was going to enjoy this or not, but like I said, my vision isn’t anything special!.
We walked into the room slightly cut off from the rest of the cafeteria where they serve the food, and Brandon grabbed two trays and handed one to me with a smile!. He seemed to be a very happy person, always smiling, even in the short time I’ve known him!. When he smiled at me, though, I noticed a slight glimmer of silver come from his mouth!. He turned before I could see anything, obviously un-aware that I was studying his mouth!.
It was also then that I got to see what they were serving- cereal, in little pre-packaged bowls!. There was a choice of Trix or Cheerios, I went with the Trix!. I personally like anything with a fruity flavor!.
After paying, we found a table in the middle!. Out in the open!. Uncomfortable!.
He sat to the right of me, so I could see what was in his mouth that was silver!. I saw a tiny little metal loop circling a small part of the left side of his bottom lip, a lip ring!.
I wondered how he kissed people with that there, then instantly smacked myself internally for thinking that!. His personal business is not yours, I told myself!. So instead I looked down at my Trix, and went to pour my little carton of milk over them!. Just then I realized that I had gotten chocolate milk, which probably wouldn’t taste all that great with my cereal!.
I opened them anyways and scooped some into my mouth; the crunching noise coming from the dry fruity morsels was nearly deafening in the almost empty cafeteria!.
Crunchcrunchcrunch…crunch crunch…crun…ch!.
The other two kids had now stopped eating and were staring at me!. They clearly did not approve of dry-cereal munching!.
Brandon reached his arm over and poured some of his milk (he had been smart enough to get white) on my half-empty bowl!. I blushed and mumbled a quick thank-you in return!.
“No problem, we all have those chocolate-milk days!.” What he said didn’t exactly make sense, but I think I knew mostly where he was coming from!.Www@QuestionHome@Com