2.

“Why can’t I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold, cold heart?” – Norah Jones ‘Cold Cold Heart’

He declared at lunch today that he didn’t believe in love.

It was entirely unexpected and more than a little bit shocking. At first, none of us at the table could fathom as to why. As far as we knew, he hadn’t had his heart stomped on—hell, he hadn’t gone out with anyone since freshman year.

“What?” My mouth recovered first. “Why?”

His unsatisfactory answer was a shrug and it took all of my willpower not to prod further. I held back, though; the school’s cafeteria wasn’t a suitable place to have serious conversations.

However, while this proclamation came out of the blue, I realized later that it wasn’t totally unexpected.

Neil Prewett was unlike anyone I had ever met. Back in seventh grade, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. Crazy, energetic, and with the oddest laugh I had ever heard, I was fascinated with him. He had a certain eccentric charm that no one was immune to.

We had had classes together for five years and I still never completely understood him. While we were classmates, we were never close—our relationship teetered between acquaintances and friends. I would have been willing to be friends with him, but neither of us ever made the first move.

This year had been hard on Neil, it was obvious to see. His best friend since the third grade, Tad, was virtually abandoning him for his girlfriend, Colleen, who, we were all convinced, didn’t like him half as much as he liked her. A lot of his other good friends went to the neighboring high school and most of his friends on the Cross Country team were seniors, so he would be all alone come next year.

Neil’s humor had always been a little snarky, slightly cruel, but hysterically funny nevertheless. But this year it had escalated into something bitter and vicious. His laugh, so bizarrely unique, had an undertone of resentment and pure sadness.

Oh his laugh…

What I liked most about Neil Prewett was his laugh. Even his jokes were corny or pervy or disturbing I would laugh, long and hard, because of his laugh. He told his stories and every time, every damn time, he would be laughing by the end of his tale, laughing as though it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. And I would be laughing with him because his laugh was infectious, it was so crazy and out there that it made you want to laugh as well.

I miss that laugh.

My friends and I have talked about it at length. We’ve wondered, we’ve pondered, we’re worried. But none of us save one is good friends with him, and even then she has no clue what’s going on.

Callie Kawachii. One of my best friends, and one of Neil’s. I had had my suspicions before that she liked him, but when I voiced my questions to my other friends, they brushed it off. “They’re just good friends,” they said. “Nothing more.” But there was something in her eyes when she looked at him that wasn’t platonic, something in her expression that made me wonder.

Oh, how she adores him. I have a theory that sometime or another, everyone falls just a little bit in love with Neil Prewett. I admit it—I’ve been in love with him before, and am reminded of it every time he laughs. But the thing with Callie is that unlike the rest of us, she’s stayed in love with him.

A master at hiding her emotions, the signs are subtle. She talks to him the same, and acts the same around him, but her eyes trail after him and the corners of her mouth and the expression in her eyes speak of wistfulness and hope.

My anger is irrational. Neil has no clue of her infatuation and I don’t know whether to be mad at him for his obliviousness or upset with her because she refuses to give him the one thing he really needs.

So as he gets up from the lunch table, I can only sit there helplessly as he gets up and walks away, his back turned towards us all. And maybe if he turned around, just once, he would see that there would be a girl looking back at him, eyes begging him to stay.

But he never does.

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Posted: 14 February 2007