Okay, so I just made a huge mistake. Big deal; happens all the time, right? I mean, re-electing George Bush as president of the States was a big mistake. Accidentally mixing salt instead of sugar in my brownies for the class bake sale in the third grade was a big mistake. Taking the wrong bus on exam day was a pretty big mistake too. Grabbing the first guy to walk past me and claiming he was my boyfriend? No biggie. People do it all the time. Right? Right?

Wrong! What the hell was I thinking? Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t. Typical me. I am so stupid; I have no idea what I’m going to do.

Ehmagawd, what if this guy already has a girlfriend? Ehmagawd, what the hell am I doing?

“Maroni,” Stephen croaks as if I’ve just announced that I’ve got the plague. Maroni? What kind of name is-oh, duh. His last name. Oh crap, does Stephen know this guy? ‘Maroni’ blinks down at me. I beg him with my eyes and hope to god that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I mean, besides me.

Right. I don’t even know his first name.

“Yeah…um, hey Stephen,” Maroni says slowly. He’s got this low husky voice, kind of like he smokes too much or screams a lot. It’s the total opposite of Stephen’s, whose voice is kind of closer to the high end of the octave and really slick like oil and about as nice. I shiver.

“You’re going out with Sean?” Stephen says accusingly.

Hold up. Are these guys friends? They don’t look anything alike. Stephen is such a troll, no offense, but really. Maron-I mean Sean, is…well, I haven’t actually looked at him properly now have I?

“Um…yeah, I am. Look, I really didn’t want to say anything but…” I let my voice trail off but Stephen isn’t even listening to me anymore. He’s glaring daggers at Sean Maroni and his Adam’s apple is bobbing like crazy.

“I told you I liked her!” Stephen says like I’m not even here. Sean Maroni shrugs.

“You didn’t tell me her last name. How the hell was I supposed to know she was the same girl? I just picked her up at the movies,” he says. I shoot him a grateful look. I don’t care if I come across as a whore-I’m not and that’s good enough for me.

“Come on, Sean, everybody’s staring,” I say, hoping that Stephen might get the picture and back away. But this doesn’t work. In fact, I’d say he just got angrier.

“So you’ll go out with him but not with me? I’m not stupid, you know. I know you’ve been avoiding me,” he says, scowling at me now. I gulp. Stephen’s a pretty big guy and he could probably throw me thirty feet into the air if he wanted to. I back away slowly and Sean Maroni catches me.

“That’s because I’ve already got a boyfriend,” I say, in what I hope was a confident voice. I feel like my legs are made out of jello.

“Come on, uh…”

“You don’t even know her name, you backstabbing bastard,” Stephen sneers, “And you’re just a ten cent whore.” Then it’s like I’ve stepped out of my body and I’m watching myself scream as Sean Maroni plants Stephen a facer. Everybody’s definitely staring now, watching these two guys pummeling each other in the middle of the food court. And suddenly the rent-a-cops start appearing out of nowhere and I’m back in my body, my legs pumping at the speed of light as my ‘boyfriend’ grabs my hand and dashes through the crowd.

The rent-a-cops chase out of the food court but we’re faster. I can hear people shouting after us, complaining, yelling, mingled with the footsteps of our pounding feet. My body was definitely not made to run. I have speed, I know that, but I definitely fail on the endurance test.

“Come on, faster!”

We burst through the front doors and spill onto the streets. My heart is pounding like mad and I feel like I’m suffocating. But suddenly I start laughing; a fast high-pitched laugh and I know that I’m hysteric.

We walk for a little bit, trying to catch our breaths, and then suddenly we stop. It’s pretty dark out so I can’t really see his face too well but I can tell he wants an explanation. I know I should be scared, and that I’m completely disobeying every rule taught to me about strangers since pre-school, but my mind is blank and I can still feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins.

“Sorry,” I manage to force out. Sean Maroni doesn’t respond, but lights a ciggie. Its embers glow kind of weirdly, like in those old b-rated horror movies, but I feel myself calming down.

“So who are you?” he says after a couple puffs. It’s definitely not the reaction I was expecting, but it’s alright. I just don’t know how much to tell him.

“I’m Joey,” I finally say.

“Joey?” he repeats.

“Yeah, as in Joey Ramone,” I say. I don’t know why, but suddenly this guy’s starting to annoy me. But then I feel bad because I just got him kicked out of a mall and into a fight, all for me. Luckily, though, he laughs. It’s not a nice laugh either. It’s a real, growly, husky laugh.

“It’s really Joy,” I say, feeling a little defensive. It’s a story I’ve repeated a thousand times. About how, when I was a kid, I somehow couldn’t pronounce ‘Joy’ and always said ‘Joey,’ and how the name sort of stuck after fifteen years. Really, though, I like it better than ‘Joy.’ I’m not a joyful person, I know. I’ve been called a lot of things over the years-bitch, heartless, ice queen, robot…slut. Actually, the last one is new since I’ve never actually done or said or dressed slutty in my entire life. But I digress.

“So why am I your boyfriend again?” Mr. Maroni asks me, blowing a bit of smoke into my face. I cough but don’t say anything. Normally I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes but today I’ll make an exception. Avoiding the question, though, I ask,

“How do you know Stephen, anyways?”

Sean glances at me and I know that he knows I’m trying to change the topic.

“Dad’s friend’s kid,” he finally mutters. “To be truthful, I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. Can’t stand his face. Or his voice for that matter.”

I practically wet myself from joy-finally, another person who shares a mutual hatred against Stephen.

“He’s been stalking me,” I hear myself say, and I practically slam my hands around my mouth like a little kid. “Didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“Well is it the truth?”

Is it the truth? What a weird question. I think about it. In school, there are about 1,500 kids. Stephen isn’t in any of my classes but somehow he always manages to pass by me at least twice a day. I remember during graduation last year from junior high, how he tried getting the seat next to me during the dinner, and how I spent the entire time clinging to my best friend who moved away and how I had to pretend to go to the bathroom every five minutes.

“Yeah,” I say in a weird voice. “I guess it is.”

We walk in silence, where to, I have no idea.

“What’s your favourite colour?” I say suddenly.

“Orange,” he says without missing a beat. Orange? I think to myself. Who has orange as a favourite colour?

“Why do you smoke?”

“Because I can.”

“Do you drink?”

“Yes.”

“Do you do drugs?”

“Yes.” He does drugs? Okay, now I’m kind of scared. I know it’s really lame but I’ve never gotten high on drugs or drunk or anything before. Except for this one time when I drank an entire bottle of Buckley’s. I just wanted to see what the big deal about getting high was. It was fun at first because I was hallucinating and it made Pink Floyd sound like magic but then I started getting nauseous and it was like there was no gravity left on earth. I dry heaved for practically an hour before throwing up and then I had a hangover all day the next day.

“Why do you drink and do drugs?” I ask at last.

“Because I can.”

“What were you doing at them mall?”

“Why don’t you ever shut up?” Touché. I feel my face heat up and I’m thankful that it’s dark out. It’s too bad that I’m probably letting off enough heat to be a radiator, though.

“Can I just ask one more question?” I say in the smallest voice I can muster. It’s a hard task, I’m telling you. I’m just loud by birth.

“You just did,” he says, obviously very annoyed.

“Where are we going?”

We end up walking for another ten minutes in complete silence. I have no idea why I followed him when I could have just gone straight home after escaping the Mall of Doom, but I did. I guess I do stuff like that a lot. Be random, that is.

I know a lot of people who tell me they wish they could be as spontaneous as I am, and yeah, I’ll admit it-I get flattered. But it’s not always that cool. Like now. I’m starting to get kind of freaked out. What if Sean’s going to a rave or something? I wouldn’t be surprised-I bet a third of my entire school is on drugs, and cough syrup doesn’t count.

You know, he still hasn’t answered my question about where we’re going. He hasn’t said anything other than asking me if I “ever shut up.” I’m annoying, I know. Most of the time I can’t stand myself, but I really can’t help it. Silence unnerves me worse than screaming and fighting. I don’t know how to explain it…its like, if I’m in a group of people and nobody’s saying anything or I’m the only one who’s not being spoken to, I feel really awkward or freaked out. Its weird though, isn’t it? Because when I am alone, I hate it when people just show up and start talking to me.

So yeah, I’m really weird. And annoying. And impulsive. So sue me already. No, wait, don’t. I’m broker than that bum we just passed. I can’t even remember what I was doing in the mall in the first place.

Oh, that’s right. I was going to the bookstore to read. It’s pretty mad how I started off there and now I could be walking to my doom. Or possibly a rave. Whatever.

“Hey, Maroni, you’re late!” somebody shouts suddenly, making me practically jump ten feet into the air. I stop myself from gawking as people suddenly appear, almost as though they’re coming from the shadows. There’s three of them.

“Oh. You’re with a chick.”

Okay, just a question here. What the hell is with calling girls ‘chicks?’ I’m not usually all feminist/activist or whatever, but I hate it when people call me ‘chick.’ Unless I know them. And I know I should keep my mouth shut cause for all I know this guy has a gun on him or something, but I can’t help it. Like I stepped out of my body again, I watch as I cross my arms and say,

“It’s not chick, it’s Joey.” And then silence.