Written about October 25th 2006

I made it.

It was an almost I’m-going-to-be-late-to-school sort of morning, but I still made it. I sighed just as I walked right through the front entrance and into the bustling, chattering halls adorned with the never ending rows and rows of cyan blue pained lockers at both sides of the walls. The floors were the same overbearing puppy wash brown with dots and teardrops of white like on a speckled egg. The ceilings were white and glared with power bright light beams.

Some turned to flicker a glance in my direction as I stood there. I did not examine them. I did not stare at them. Instead I avoided their eyes and looked down to focus my attention on something else when I ventured deeper in.

It was never easy to walk through the halls with people striding along to wherever. Even when classes didn’t start yet. I tried to walk quickly, but without looking up, around, or turning my head over my shoulder. I only could look down; tilt my head slightly and pretend I was thinking of something increasingly important; too important to bother giving strangers glances here and there. I had to.

Squish. Something soft pressed against for my arm for a moment, and pushed me back roughly. I swung to the side slightly. And then I realized someone had brushed against me without noticing. I gave a tentative peer in secrecy, but I barely could bring myself to look. I saw a blur of brown hair of a certain someone. That certain somebody seemed to notice me.

“Oh, sorry about that, Lillian,” the female voice of Amanda; brown hair and green eyes, smiled apologetically to me.

Brown hair and green eyes. Those were the only two things that I could distinctively tell about her that first time I saw her. And still yet because I could hardly hold my eyes on her for more than a couple of seconds. Therefore her other features; if maybe a birth mark on her jaw line or an old scar from scrapped elbows, I didn’t know of any of them.

My eyes raced to the floor a gain. “Um, that’s okay,” I tried to say in my calmest tone, which of course came out miserably.

I swallowed hard. If I looked at her, would that be alright? If I didn’t, then it would be rude, right? I looked up. She seemed to have her attention closely on me. Then again, this was Amanda Myers I was talking to. She always looked at people like this. So it was nothing. I didn’t expect it that Amanda would be nice to me all those countless other times whenever I was stuck by myself. On that class trip last month, she offered to be my buddy partner and sat with me on the bus. Throughout the entire ride, I had not said as much as a word, yet she didn’t mind. She gave me a patient smile that time. For a group project in History class, she picked me to work with her even though there were many others who could’ve be more diligent. Unlike myself, I hated school. Despised sitting in class; being called on to answer questions and receiving “lack of participation” marks on my report cards.

I thought the first couple of times like those when Amanda approached me were lucky. But then things started to get weirder. She asked me to her study partner; eat lunch with her, and then offer to tutor me when she noticed I was having trouble in math.

She was still smiling. So I gave her a weak smile back.

My awkwardness was a very well known thing around all the students.

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End. This was a small little draft of an idea i had for an english class back in high school but I never continued it after this.