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-Sam

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He’d been in love twice.

The first time was pretty much an accident, because he went to the wrong room in 2nd grade on the first day of school, and there was this little fat girl who let him sit by her and she would talk to him and lend him her crayons and stuff. Now, this was a big deal, because even in 2nd grade people knew that Sam was different than them, and for that one little fat girl to reach out to him like that...and even back then Sam could recognize how kind she was being, and he had been kind back, and he had found out that both of them liked the color violet, even though the little fat girl laughed when he told her that his favorite color was violet because “it’s a girly color!”. Sam had laughed, too. And they both liked sea anemones, and he was impressed because other kids (not even the boys) tended to only like horses or cats or dogs or birds.

When Sam left that 2nd grade classroom, and left that little fat girl, he had actually looked forward to school the next day. He used to hate school. He surprised himself. Sam had escaped his box for a few blissful hours thanks to that girl, and to that girl did he credit his newfound feelings of belonging and happiness. Sam had spent the rest of that day at home thinking about her. He didn’t sleep because he was thinking about her, and he got dressed for school that night and slept in his nicest clothes because he was so excited to see her again.

And then, when he tried to re-enter that 2nd grade classroom to see the little fat girl again, a teacher came up to him and said, “I’m sorry, but you’re actually supposed to be in the room across the hall!” and he was forced into a dimmer, fat girl-less room. In this room there was no sunshine. That 2nd grade room only had kids who stared at him and selfishly pulled their Crayola crayons to their chests in possessiveness when he dared take a peek.

‘I’ll see her at recess,’ Sam had thought with hope, but he knew that something would go wrong.

He ate his food quickly. He left the cafeteria, first in line, first done, so that he could stand by the door and wait for the fat girl to exit. She did. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but half-heartedly. She was with some other little girls and one other little boy, a boy named Spencer who Sam hated with a fervor ever since then.

As the fat girl walked away, Sam wanted to call her name, but he couldn’t remember it. And he didn’t want to embarrass her; he heard her friends ask her why the weird-looking kid smiled at her. Sam also saw Spencer put his fingers on the edges of his eyes and pull them back to make them squinty. This made him angry and sad, so sad that he sat down at that door and had to use all of his recess time to fight back tears. Fat girl never stopped haunting him.

The second time Sam was in love was a more confusing time. He was in 5th grade and three years of scorn from his peers had made him unusually bitter for an eleven year old. They said he was ‘weird-looking’ still, like they always had seemed to. Fortunately, there was a girl who came in every once in a while to help the students who made Sam less isolated for a month.

She had a name like his, an English first name and a Chinese last name, but Sam was horrible with names, so he couldn’t remember it. Sam was also horrible at history, also because he couldn’t remember names. But that fucking asshole Spencer always had to tease him about it.

‘I’ll bet if we learned about Jackie Chan he’d be better at history,’ the prick had said once, after Mrs. L put Sam’s name on the board underneath ‘Needs Improvement’. The little diva that Spencer was ‘dating’ (did 5th graders honestly date?) had snickered. Mrs. L obviously heard him, but she let the comment pass and Sam noticed her ignorance and was hurt.

So every other day Sam was sent to the back of the room to work with this girl, who was also sort of chunky, but more in the upper body, like a white girl. Her skin was pretty pale, too. (Later on Sam decided that this girl was probably half white or something, maybe a little on her mother’s side).

The girl helped Sam by using her special glitter marker (in violet) to write the names of important people on his wrists. He went home with marker smears all over his arms because he would feel them during his other classes and try to remember exactly what the cool tip felt like against his skin, being held by the helper girl.

The more time the helper girl spent with Sam, or the more time she spent away from him therefore giving him more time to brood on her, the deeper his feelings went. What happened at her house? At her classes? What classes was she bad at? things like that ran through his head every day for a month.

At the end of the month, Sam’s grades in history improved, and since he was the only kid in the class who had been written up on the ‘Needs Improvement’ board (even though bastard Spencer had shit grades and everyone knew it), the helper girl was no longer needed. She was sent to a different classroom to work. Sam couldn’t remember what day it had happened, though. He just knew that whoever she was, he had loved her.

School didn’t cause Sam anything but grief, ever since the 2nd grade, that first moment of highest ecstasy and deepest sorrow. And things didn’t get any better the more time that passed; Sam withdrew and withdrew and withdrew into his notebooks and video games. Friends? Virtual only. Real friends disappoint. Especially girls. And boys are assholes. So why bother with anyone?

Sam’s life changed in middle school, 7th grade, when a new kid came to class who wasn’t much of either sex, and, like Sam, wasn’t much of anyone. Just a new kid, who everybody hated not because of its sexlessness, but because it was a new kid. Sam hadn’t been a new kid for five years, but he could definitely relate. It took a seat beside him in the back after receiving glares in the front.

“Hi,” it said, in a weird voice that was neither low nor high. It didn’t make eye contact. Sam liked it. “Hi,” he said back in his different weird voice. And then his story really twisted.

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Even if you didn't read the story and you're only reading this note, at least send me some advertisement for your own work in a message or something. You know what, forget everything that I just said, because whenever I make promises I tend to break them :(. So I'll just keep my mouth shut for now.

Buenos nachos.