A/N: A new story--I know I suck at finishing things--that I came up with. But I actually had a *gasp* semi-original thought and I will TRY my darndest to finish it. Besides, I really like it. :D

Being thoughtless isn’t a normal thing for me. A simple act of good faith—like maybe there was humanity left in a cynical society— got me into a lovely well of trouble because of course, my persistent nature reared its head as it was bound to do. Talking and guys were not a healthy combination for anything and the latter just got me all twisted up inside before I managed to figure out the crazy mystery. It only took a few decades (well, one and a half, really, give or take a few years). Lillian swears up and down that boys are easier to read than I am, but she's been dating since she was ten and Bobby Morello asked her to marry him—she politely declined and suggested they ought to try being friends first—and she's also a compulsive liar, which makes it hard to tell when she's serious or the oftener times when she's only pulling my chain.

I'm never really good at executing simple gestures of kindness and I guess finishing my chem lab (titration was hell) early had me flying high that day. The penalty for this oh-so-complex after effect of good mood was pretty hefty considering it only cost me about thirty seconds of inane babbling. When I get nervous or hyper, I start talking faster and faster, pestering and questioning, until my mother says she's sure I switch languages on her. I wish I knew another language. I could successfully move to France and hide among the snooty women and odd fashions instead of enduring the repetitive embarrassment of being me. As it was, I could barely master English.

My girls had their theories. It was supposed to be a cure for social awkwardness, according to Lil—but I wasn’t nearly brave enough to try an experiment like that. Being socially awkward was good for the soul! Mine hadn’t suffered so far. On the other hand was Olivia, arguing that I was only incurably random and that any attempt to make sense out of my spontaneity was dangerous and should not be tried. She might have been joking.

Olivia was a born cynic, which was probably why I related with her so well, better than Lillian at times. I could be bitter when I wanted to, and there would be Olivia, waiting and ready to join my pity party. Or nights when I couldn’t sleep, thinking about how screwed up the world was; Olivia was only a phone call away, awake with my same quandaries. Only she had better answers. The one thing you never spoke to Olivia about was ‘men.’ She’d stopped calling them boys a long time ago, when something happened, something she never fully explained to me. Lillian, I think, knew all, and I was made to understand that Olivia wasn’t always so introverted and generally bent out of shape. It had to do with sex, I’m nearly positive, but I wasn’t sure, since Olivia was still a virgin. At least, that was what she said. Sarcasm flowed with her natural way of talking, heavily veiled and difficult to puzzle out. She was still a mystery to me, and I’d known her for six years.

I tried to maintain that I was really just an idiot and ‘these things happen,’ sort of as a safeguard against any jokes that maybe Leon Grant was a potential boyfriend. Olivia wasn’t interested in anything like that; teasing girls about guys was just another form of sexism to her. Lillian was another story. Any time a guy and the name ‘Josie’ could be mentioned in the same sentence, I got hell for not trying hard enough to get hooked up. In truth, I wasn’t trying at all. Dating was a complicated situation that my life could survive without. School was enough to keep me preoccupied during the day, and nights were spent on homework and spending time with Mom. Lillian tried shaming me into accepting some of her blind date ideas, but with no luck. Being single was my fate, and I accepted it joyfully. Even at the lowest points when I couldn’t get love off of my mind, I merely grabbed a chocolate bar, basked in delusions for a good hour and then got on with my life. It was a sweet monthly routine.

Back to my current woes. It was sheer stupidity to walk up to a person I didn't even know (a guy!) and just sit down at the otherwise empty table. In my defense, I wasn't actually paying attention, humming a song I couldn't remember and bearing the rare paper-sack lunch. I usually just skipped lunch and ate when I got home, choosing instead to read away the half hour. It was a shame too, because after my one minute lapse of sanity, I certainly had no appetite.

I had packed half a pita, stuffed with tuna, lettuce and tomato and my daily vitamin water. Lillian always worried over me, saying I was fine the way I was and I had no reason to be concerned about my weight (a generous 140 lbs.) and “God, Josie, why don’t you eat something other than this crap?” I half-listened to my scolding. I ate healthy because I liked to, and wasn’t at all concerned about my weight of all things, but to Lillian, any girl over a hundred and twenty-five pounds was concerned about their weight. She could never believe me when I said I ate avocados, spinach salads, and cucumber sandwiches because I liked them. Normal girls liked foods that tasted good, cute boys, and specials on Lifetime. Not that I didn’t eat other things—English toffee and hot fudge sundaes were a weakness. But eating like that all the time didn’t seem like a good idea with the metabolism I had. Lillian could eat ten cheeseburgers on a Saturday night dare and not gain an ounce. I so much as looked at a box of Cracker Jacks, and gained two pounds from daring to think about it.

The conversation didn’t last long between us, as was to be expected. I was too startled by him and he seemed shocked into moodiness by my presence. It turned out, though, that I had found someone less socially inept than myself.

“Excuse me?”

I didn’t look up from my book, still dazed with success in science and the prospect of lunch with both friends—Lillian had been out with a fever. Neither Lillian or Olivia had gotten to the cafeteria yet, so I had forsaken the usual table and sat down at one I perceived to be empty. “Um, yeah?”

“Do you normally sit here?”

Gulp. It was not a voice I recognized and talking to strangers was hazardous to my health in all states. “No, I don’t,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the page and trying to remember the sentence I had just read.

“I didn’t think so.” He sounded sad, like he almost wished I had intruded on purpose, rather than simply by accident.

“Do you?” I asked bravely, after he had begun poking at the strange lumps in his spaghetti.

“Do I what?”

“Do you normally sit here?” This time I looked up. I remembered him from a tenth grade English class I’d had, the guy who had the most to say, but never said anything, not even when prompted. His name was something Grant and he had awfully nice manners, was respectful to everyone, and pretty much dull all around.

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Wasn’t he sure? Sheesh, I thought. Can’t even make up his own mind about where he eats his lunch.

“Well, do you always sit by yourself? That must be awfully lonely,” I pried.

“No, my friends usually sit with me, but one’s on vacation, and the other’s out sick. Probably going at it with his girlfriend,” he muttered to himself, stabbing his pasta with a new vigor.

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah.”

“I sit with my friends, but they aren’t here yet.” My ramble had begun. It was dangerous to leave me on my own for too long and this was why. “Lillian and Olivia. Do you know them?”

“Olivia Keller?”

“Yes.” He resumed the staring at his tray, working now on opening his milk carton with fastidious concentration. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Do you know her?”

“Who?”

Boy, was this guy thickskulled! “Olivia Keller!” I all but screamed across the table.

He nodded slowly, pushing his dark bangs aside. “She’s been in a class or two of mine every year. I have History with her.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah,” he said again.

I held back a heavy sigh. Among his positive list of attributes, he also appeared to be not much of a conversationalist. “Do you like her at all?”

“Wh—oh, Olivia? Yeah, sure, she’s all right.”

“Yup.” I smiled as best I could. He offered a very small smile back and returned to his spaghetti slop.

“Josie?” a voice called to my right. Olivia was standing with a chattering Lillian at the end of the table. “Come on and sit with us. Hey, Leon,” she called, with a surprisingly smooth smile and a half-wave. He gave her the same look as I had received just moments ago.

“Your name’s Leon?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he replied, his voice laced with a thin sarcasm.

“I’m Josie.”

“I heard.”

“Well, see you around.”

“Sure, whatever.”

I got up, my stomach beginning to ache acutely, and followed Olivia’s lead to our table in the corner. She was eyeing me with an almost unfriendly curiosity, not losing contact for a moment. Finally, she was too overt to ignore. “Yes?”

“Do you always do this when we don’t show up on time?”

“Do what?” I asked crankily. I’d already had my morning lecture for my smudged glasses and incomplete French homework.

“Sit down with random people you don’t know and pester them unnecessarily.”

“No,” I snapped back. “Olivia, I just sat down somewhere close to the door. He wasn’t anywhere near the table when I sat down. I’m sorry if my… lack of sense offends you.”

“You’re forgiven.”

I glared at her. Tiffs with Olivia were always like this. She graciously bestowed her mild, holier-than-thou remarks and I flashed back with my angry or apathetic replies (depending on the topic) until one of us was silently declared the verbal master or Lillian told us to shut up. I had no idea what it was about me sitting with Leon that had irritated her into commenting on it, but Olivia never spoke without a reason. This would bother me for a long time, I could tell.

Leon’s attitude was already bothering me and I had just met the guy. He was third in our class—I knew him by reputation—and yet somehow had gone through adolescence with no speaking abilities. And the cold brush-off at the end of whatever all that had been. He infuriated and intrigued me, something I knew could be potentially lethal for my preferred lifestyle. I decided not to care. But the more I thought about him, the more I confused myself.

“Hey, Josie, who was that guy you were sitting with before?”

“Some guy. I don’t know, Lil.”

She grinned from behind her copy of Seventeen magazine. “But he’s cute, right?”

“Nope,” I said quickly.

“Oh,” Lillian replied glumly. I had a strict code for my ‘males’ that Lillian had cooked up for me, all of her schemes involving a devilishly sexy man who would somehow save me. Car accident, death by choking, it didn’t matter. Lillian’s imagination was sure feeble in some areas. But thankfully, she let this one go.

I had, of course, noticed his features, after I got over my initial embarrassment, and they were not too shabby. His black hair was cut in a popular style and he was wearing a vintage t-shirt that hid nothing. Not blatantly muscular, but there was something there, definitely. Bookishly cute—the kind of cure that nerds reek of—skinny, possibly a loner, and smarter than three-quarters of the student body. My kind of guy, objectively speaking. If only I could forget the way his cold grey eyes had dismissed me. I mean, why the hell should I have cared? He was a random kid at a random lunch table who happened to be cute and also suck at talking. At least to girls. Should it have bothered me so much that he wanted me to go away while he ate his lunch? He didn’t even know me! This was clearly going to become a thing for me. An issue that would not leave.

I sighed deeply, removed the vitamin water from my paper sack, and pitched the rest into the trash can.

“Two points,” I muttered sulkily. I contented myself with drawing lines on the tabletop with my cracked fingernails for the rest of the lunch period.

~*~

I remained pensive throughout English class and onward into Pre-calculus. I may have pissed off my English teacher by ignoring her speech on the underlying themes of all of Tennessee Williams’ literature, but Mr. Metzger didn’t care what his students did as long as they passed. The first half-hour was spent explaining the material and the rest of the class time was spent on homework or getting extra help. I liked his methods, especially today. I had gotten a ninety-eight on last night’s homework and was nowhere close to failing. I could do as I pleased.

Thinking about Leon didn’t exactly please me, but I didn’t really have another choice. He would somehow skulk into my brain and then I thought, with alarm and horror, Oh, God. He has class with Olivia right now. Oh, what is he telling her? Or worse yet. What is she telling him? I had no doubt that Olivia could still be ticked at me enough to throw a few cheap shots about how spacey and airheaded I could be when I tried hard enough. What perturbed me however, was that I wasn’t sure if I minded Leon asking about me. But would he? Had my annoying presence affected him at all? Had I even annoyed him at all?

I felt like the world’s greatest loon, sitting and attempting to reason out what a mere and recent acquaintance thought of me. Part of me wanted Mr. Metzger to ‘beg a boon’ of me, as he called it, and ask me to help another student who was a little behind. With stern fortitude, I forced myself to do my homework, for this class, Literature, and even the dreaded French.

After writing “Je ne sais pas” a dozen times or so—Mrs. Lambert liked cheek—I returned each finished paper to its rightful folder. I had not wasted enough time. The clock only said 3:15. Another fifteen minutes of reflection and misery? “Mr. Metzger?” I called, raising my hand only as an afterthought.

“Yes… Josie?” he replied, finally noticing my lone hand in his sea of thirty-two students.

“I’ve finished the homework.” I put on a begging face. “Would it be too much to ask to go to the library for the last part of class?”

He looked at me shrewdly and I kept the mask on tight. He didn’t like allowing students to leave class, not even for the bathroom. “Yes, I suppose,” he replied finally. “Since you’ve finished.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Metzger,” I said, in the most polite voice I could. He appreciated good manners in students. My teacher nodded and returned to reminding Georgina Lopez the fundamentals of right triangles.

Gathering my books was a cinch with the huge messenger bag I carried. The assistant principals had stopped trying to get them out of classes, since the only thing it had done was get us to hide them in our desks instead of under our chairs. I skipped and whistled, much happier with the prospect of finding a new book than thinking about stupid boys.

“Returning already, Josie?” Ms. Renner asked with a knowing smile. The first thing I had done upon entering high school was make nice with the librarian. I didn’t need a note anymore to come here during lunch, not even when she had a class.

“Yes,” I said, beaming as I handed her the school’s copy of Rebecca.

“So, how did you find it?”

“Oh, it was wonderful,” I gushed. Not many women existed in my world who would share a love of old literature. Unfortunately, my cranky English teacher was not one of the few, but Ms. Renner was a perfect substitute. She loved Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Du Maurier, whom she had so kindly recommended to me. “I loved the plot twists and how Rebecca turned out to be so different than what all their implications of her suggested. I was sad, though, at the ending.”

“Tragic,” Ms. Renner agreed, shaking her head sadly. With a little sigh, she scanned the book back into the library’s system. “Just browsing today?”

“Yeah, and hoping for maybe a fantasy.”

“Try Tolkien or C. S. Lewis.”

“I’ve done that,” I said sheepishly. I’d grown up with The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, something that had concerned my elementary school teachers and thrilled my middle school ones.

“I should have figured.” She laughed. “Well, there’s always Terry Brooks. He’s quite good.”

“Thanks!” Ms. Renner was better than the catalog, because that only gave me a synopsis, while she could tell me if the book was worthwhile or not.

I took the familiar route to the young adult section and searched for ‘B.’ I had not found ‘Brooks’ yet when something else familiar took precedence. Olivia’s voice floated from across the room, originating from the 900’s. She was talking just above a whisper and I could hear the smile in her voice. And then that new voice, the one that had come to puzzle me after a few short minutes of hearing it, rumbled softly back. I remained very still and tried not to emit any sort of sound. Two encounters in one day was too much for me.

They, however, were not kind enough to stand still. I heard their voices travelling closer to me, until I was close enough to eavesdrop against my will.

“Why weren’t you sitting with Toby today?” Olivia asked. I could tell she was trying to sound casual. Could it be…? Olivia with an interest in a, dare I say it, man? I moved closer to the bookshelf.

“What, you aren’t going to ask about Philip too?” Leon teased, and I was shocked to hear the actual emotion in his voice. The way he had spoke to me, he sounded like a dying frog with no emotional capabilities whatsoever.

“Stop it, Leon.”

“I’m just concerned. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea when I tell Tobias you asked about him.” He was really teasing her now and I knew her well enough to assume she was blushing.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Naw,” he said after a moment and the lilt in his tone was gone. “I’m not that mean.”

“I’m not so sure. Promise,” she demanded.

“I promise.”

“Good. Now about Josie-“

He groaned and my stomach bottomed out as I knocked my head lightly against the poor books. Why, why, why, Olivia? Oh, God, stop. “I don’t need a girlfriend, for the last time, Liv!” That was what I called her, in moments of strong sisterly affection. How dare this boy of questionable character speak to my friend with such closeness!

“I think it’d be good for you, to go out for a change. You haven’t dated at all-“

“Well, thanks a bunch for pointing that out-“

“And neither has she. It would be good for both of you.” My head hit the shelf again in silent agony.

“You know dates aren’t my thing. Sure, girls are nice and Josie seems cool, I guess-“ There was that damn guessing again—couldn’t he decide how he felt about me? “But I don’t really have the stamina for it. It took everything I had to keep talking to her today. She looked like she was going to throw her lunch bag at me or something.” I muffled my giggles with my sweater sleeve. I had considered it at the time.

“She did not and she’s been thinking about you all day, you can count on it.” Now I used the same sleeve to hide a groan mixed with another angry squeal of ‘Oh, God.’

“You’re the only girl I can successfully talk to besides my sisters and something tells me you're not inclined to date me, hmm?” Her blush was most certainly back. Olivia was a master of subtleties and I would call myself the Abominable Snowman before saying that she didn’t catch the hinted mention of Toby, whoever that was. “Single is good. C’mon, Liv, no girlfriends. Isn’t that what we agreed when I said I’d introduce you to him?”

“Yes,” she replied grudgingly. “I thought you’d change your mind.”

“Well, you were wrong. Don’t make promises you-“

“-Don’t intend to keep. Yeah, yeah.”

I heard a slapping sound and was left to assume she had hit him with a book. This assumption was followed by the dry, sarcastic, “Thank you, Olivia,” that followed.

“Back to class with you, you faithless worm.” It was said with an affection that made me feel left out. I knew Olivia less than I thought. “I’m giving you her number.” Once again with the angry squealing.

“Fine.” I wanted desperately to call “Heavens, NO,” but something told me that that might not have been wise or appropriate. Without a word, I listened pitifully as their bickering voices drifted farther and farther away from me until I heard the entrance door click.

BRRRRRIIIINNNNG

The sound of the bell jarred me from my ridiculous rabbit-like position, pinned against the shelf. I quickly grabbed by school bag, threw it over my shoulder and called a rushed goodbye behind me to Ms. Renner. I never stopped at my locker at the end of the day, hightailing it for Lillian’s car instead. After getting her license and a sweet used Prius for her birthday, she drove us home. Olivia rode the bus in the morning and I usually walked, as Lillian was often late to school. I leaned against the newly waxed car, fuming anew.

Only a smidgen of me was mollified by the fact that Olivia would even think to speak on my behalf. The other 98.4 percent was enraged that she actually had. How pathetic did that sound, sending your friend to ask someone out for you? I hadn’t given her motive, not even by the subtlest of hints! Asking someone out for me… Especially someone I had just met! What if he thought I was a tasteless stalker, the kind who made you creepy mix-CD’s and followed you to the mall and spammed your Myspace page? It wasn’t like I could try to convince him otherwise, because bringing it up would only make him think about it. And of course, all of that would involve talking to him!

And why… why did I care so much, damn it! He was an odd, possibly demented idiot who couldn’t for the life of him manage a few sentences in the shortest of conversations that I happened to know very little about. Not exactly cause for this thought obsession which was starting to drive me mad.

But the more I pondered and questioned and reasoned, the angrier I got. By the time Lillian showed, my face had all the properties of a storm cloud.

“Hey, babe!” Lillian said, totally missing, or stupidly overlooking, my obvious rage. “Hop in back would you? My shopping bags are still up front.”

I climbed in the back and refrained from slamming the door, edging over behind the driver’s seat so that my body was as close to the window as possible. I buckled my seatbelt as we drove around and waited for Olivia. “You know,” I ground out, after a minute of waiting. “I’d rather walk.”

Before waiting for her response, I was out of the car and bounding down the sidewalk, past the trees and shrubs that lined the entryway. My house wasn’t that far away, only a quarter-mile. I could manage.

...Remember, FP-lovelies, R&R is good for the soul!...