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Summary: Exactly how important is your reputation in high school?
Disclaimer 8/24/2007: All names are chosen at random. Any similarities are coincidental.
What’s Stopping You?
Fifteen-year old Adam Takeda sat waiting for his friend on a bench under a tree. It was where they always hung out with the group. Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering what kind of person he is right?
Actually, I don’t know, I’m not psychic but I’ll just tell you nevertheless. He actually couldn’t ask for anything better. Popular, gets the hot girls he wants, and well-known. Yeah... clichéd much? But even with all of that, he still wants one girl. Who just happens to be one of his best friends. How she actually got into their group is beyond him. She was the smart, pretty and polite girl he always wanted. She was new too, having only come in the beginning of their sophomore year, to now, the school just starting its second semester. He had taken a quick liking to her, but somewhat disappointed when she had turned down quite a few guys in the group.
Of course, with everything “perfect” in life, there are always little flaws he chooses to look at. She was in orchestra and part of the math club. And she had started to drift away from his group. Not that the others noticed. They never really noticed anyone was missing unless it was someone who had been there for a year at least.
“Trav.” He looked up from his anime drawing. “I gotta talk to one of my friends, can you tell the others for me?”
“Yeah sure,” he said. She smiled and waved a goodbye before he turned back to his drawing that looked a lot like her.
“Hey,” she smiled, her books still in her arms. “Seat taken?” He looked up at her before flipping his phone closed.
“Nope.” He moved his bag for her to sit.
“Thanks.” She put her books on the edge, her bag on the ground, and sat next to him.
“So what’d you wanna talk about?” he asked, looking straight ahead of him after a while.
“I... I like you Adam,” she confessed, looking at him, after another long while. He let out a breath through his nose.
“You had your chance last quarter,” he said after a while. “I still like you though.”
“So what’s stopping us? Last time I checked you broke up with your last girlfriend.”
“That’s not my point.” He finally looked at her. “You’re one of those math club, geeks,” Alexis narrowed her eyes at his choice of words, “and I’m not. We hang out in different groups.”
“So what?” Her eyes showed hurt no matter how much she tried to hide it. “Who cares? You’re not even like them.” She was referring to his “friends.” In the past quarter, Alexis had gotten to know him better than any of his friends had in five years. She found out he liked anime and thought the band geeks and orc-dorks were cool. She found out he liked girls with a personality, who laughed at his dirty jokes because they got them, although they had to have looks.
“I care Lex, I have a reputation here.”
“So what would you have done if last quarter I had said yes rather than saying we should be friends for now? What if I had said yes and I still joined the math club? What would you be doing right now?” His eyes flickered between emotionless and dark thought.
“Be breaking up with you,” he stated plainly before looking straight in front of him again. He heard her let out a disbelieving breath through her nose.
“You’re unbelievable you know that?”
“I’m sorry Lex, you wanted the truth. I just gave it to you.” She silently picked up her books and bag. Leaving, she stopped and spoke.
“Don’t ever call me ‘Lex’ again. From today I’m not your friend and I won’t talk to you again,” she whispered, loud enough for him to hear, before walking away from him forever. Adam kept his eyes emotionless before he picked up his own things and walked off to his next class in the opposite direction.
A now twenty-five year old Adam Takeda sat on his apartment couch watching the news. His ex-girlfriend finally moved out, so he was pretty much enjoying the peace until something on the TV caught his attention.
“Anime producer Travis Cullen and journalist Alexis Ishida finally tied the knot earlier today more at 10 o’clock.” A short clip of the wedding played before it stopped and reverted back to the newscaster. “In other news...” Adam didn’t listen to the rest because he switched the TV off.
“Fate fucked me up before, why stop now?” he muttered to himself before standing up to shower.
dreamweaver138
Part of "From Spark to Fade Series"