text: This is my first story here, and its kinda long but I hope you guys enjoy it. Its about a dispassionate high school senior's last days in school. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ I sat down with my friends. The room around me was bustling with the sounds of youth. I could hear it so clearly, it was as if it were next to me. In fact, it was next to me. My friend Cassidy spoke with her gaggle cheerleader friends, about the end of the school year. “Four years fly by so fast, bitch”, the flamboyant boy spoke in such a way that seemed so artificial. As if his personality was man made, carefully placed together to create an image that matched who he thought he was. In the end though, his tone of voice and mannerisms could only be described as fake, and even a blind man could see through it. I thought that it was pointless, this game of hiding and rejecting who you are only plays to hurt yourself in the end. You begin to lose sight of who you are, and thirty years later your wife tells you that she doesn't know who you are anymore, and you realize that you don't either. But I suppose to some degree we all put on our facade, and that divorce was inevitable. As humans we compensate. A woman who lacks confidence in her beauty wears makeup. A man afraid of his sexuality, bitterly attacks homosexuals. A person afraid to appear dumb, learns large words to make himself sound smart. I suppose I am just as much of a liar as everyone else in the world, and so I am in no real position to judge. I scanned the room of students eating their lunch, and thought to myself. Two more weeks and I will no longer have to deal with this dreaded place. For four years, I played the game of youth. For four years I was an outcast, and when I finally decided that I wanted to change. I was out of time. Maybe this was a lesson, I was not meant to be a part of the in-crowd. I took solace in that thought. It helped me feel as if I had spent my time these past years correctly. “Oh my god, my gown doesn’t fit me.” said one of the jubilant nobodies. Her chipper voice broke my train of thought.“Bitch, How? Your Figure is great!” Once again the gay boy used his signature phrase. I rolled my eyes at their pointless conversation, but then began to wonder what truly was “pointless”. In a moment, I had returned to deep, and likely pointless, thought. As I continued to scan the room before me, my eye was caught by a girl. Her skin appeared to be soft and white, like virgin snow. Despite me, having never witnessed virgin snow at first hand, she was how I imagined it. Her hair was black, straight and short but flowed freely back and forth as she moved. She spoke to the group at her table, and laughed in gay youth. When she laughed two dimples appeared in her cheeks. Her name was Summer though, I doubted she knew my name. She had first caught my eye, three months ago. Shortly before spring break, our school held an every fifteen minutes event. Which is to discourage young students from drinking and driving. It was funny to me that the school only condoned singular illegal actions, but heaven forbid you perform two at once. It was almost as if the school itself was telling all students, “It’s okay to drink underage. It’s okay to drive underage. Just don’t drink and drive underage.” I suppose it was similar to how schools taught sex ed rather than abstinence. Regardless, I was tasked to be a photographer for the event. Well, I was the third choice for photographer. Initially it was the photography teacher and my friend Michael, but when they realized that they needed another hand, they asked me to help. I only joined because I learned that I was allowed to skip my classes for the day. I was going from table to table taking photos of the students preparing for the event. I had always felt that the position of a photographer was perfect for me. The outsider looking in, only capturing moments of the lives of others. Never truly a part of the moment, simply a means to prove that the moment existed. In some way, I was the most important part of life. If an event happens and no one witnesses it, then how can anyone confirm that it happened at all? I am the witness, I am the proof of existence. Or at least I told myself that. As I moved around the room, she entered. Apparently she was one of the makeup artists for the event, She was there to make it look like the students had just been in a car crash. I was taking photos of a group that was across the room from the entrance. I had only noticed her arrival when she walked past me to speak to someone at the table. I looked back into my camera after taking a photo, and noticed a beautiful girl. When I looked up, she was gone. I turned around and there she was. I pulled the camera to my face, and snapped a photo as she reached towards a box of makeup on the table before her. I looked down at the photo I had taken, and she rushed over to me “Oh, How did it turn out?” she placed her arm on my shoulder, and slightly pulled me down so that she could see the photo. I was taken completely off guard. “I-it turned out alright. I think?” my face instantly turned red. For a moment I thought that I might die. She took her hand off my shoulder, and I felt as if I could breathe again. She smiled, flashing her dimples at me, and said, “It looks pretty good. I see why they hired you.” She turned away from me and returned to the makeup table. I turned back to the rest of the students, and continued with my work. Occasionally, her dimples would flash back into my mind, and I would begin to long to see them. I would take photos of her, simply to sneak a look, and occasionally she would show me her dimples. As I thought back to that day three months ago, something caught my eye and pulled me out of my daydream. A waving hand. As I snapped back into reality I realized that the waving hand was hers. I was completely flustered once again. I thought that the best way to recover from being caught staring was to pretend as if I was not. I jerked my head back slightly, and began to wave reluctantly, pretending as if I didn't know she had caught me staring. We flashed smiles at each other, and returned our attention to our respective groups. My face began to boil in embarrassment, but I was relieved of this feeling of dread when the lunch bell rang. I rushed to class, and began to put the whole ordeal behind me. The next morning I woke up to my 6:00 AM alarm. I fumbled with my phone to try to turn off the loud ringing and after a minute or so I succeeded. I promptly threw my phone across the room. I slowly pulled myself up and began to get ready for the day. I left the room to brush my teeth and when I returned I felt the need to check the time. I walked around my room looking for the phone I had thrown earlier. I picked it up off the floor and turned it on. It read 6:08 AM and beneath the time, there was a notification from Instagram “xoSunflowerox sent you a message at 12:08 Am”. I opened the message and saw that it was from Summer, *“Hey! Sorry, I thought you were looking at me during lunch yesterday. That’s why I waved*.” I was dumbfounded and began to think to myself. How did she know my Instagram? She texted me at midnight, she must have been thinking about me. Yeah she probably was thinking about me. Thinking about how creepy I was. I continued down that chain of thought for a couple of minutes before I realized that I should probably respond. *“Na it’s alright, I was just lost in thought thinking about graduation.”* I thought that I would stick to my cover and play dumb. I sat down on my bed and several minutes later she responded *“Oh yeah that’s right! You’re graduating soon. I’m going to miss seeing your cute face around campus”.* I fell off of my bed. Was this really Summer? This had to have been some kind of elaborate prank. I double checked the account and it was undoubtedly her‘s. My mind flashed through possible responses that I could make. I climbed back onto my bed and in my best attempt to sound cool I typed. “*Yeah I kinda blows because you’re pretty easy on the eyes yourself.”* After I pressed send, I reread the message, and fell off of my bed once again, cringing at myself. In pure desperation I turned off my phone entirely, and continued to get ready for school. When I exited the front door of my house I came to the conclusion that I was being pranked. As I walked to school I began to think about who would hold such an elaborate prank on me. Luckily I didn’t know many people so my list of potential pranksters was short. The issue that I had faced was that within my short list there was no one that I was aware of, who had a friendly relationship with Summer. I reached into my pocket for my phone to check the time. I turned it back on, and the first thing I saw was a notification from Summer “xoSunflowerox has sent you a photo” I reassured myself that this was it. Now the prankster would reveal himself and we would both have a good laugh. I opened the message and it was a photo of her. The orange morning sun lit her white skin turning it golden, and the light showed the intricacy of her beautifully brown eyes. However beyond the highlights of the image were the dark little patches of shadows where her dimples were. There was a graphic in cute pastel colors that read “Thank you”. I half tripped when I saw her photo. I thought that even the most untalented photographer could make masterpieces with her as a subject. She’d be perfect for me. As I looked more closely at the photo I realized that she was at school and I was not. I looked at the time on my phone and it read 7:03 AM. Classes started at 7:20 and I still had a 20 minute walk ahead of me. I threw my phone into my pocket, not responding to Summer, and ran towards the school. My first class of the day was calculus two, I had barely made it in time before the late bell, and took a seat beside my friend Peter. After the teacher performed her opening lesson, and we were all working independently, I began to confide in Peter the events of my morning. “It’s definitely a prank.” He said callously, “There is no way that a beautiful girl like her would ever take interest in you” “Right!” I agreed, “But I wonder who it is.” Then, in contrast to his last statement, Peter said, “But if it is genuine, and you approach it as if it isn't, you could really be blowing your chance with a beautiful girl.” “You suck, don't give me hope like that.” I had only shortly played around with the idea that Summer's advances towards me were real, but I simply couldn’t believe it. No girl had ever been so forward with me, and so why would one be now?“Well, I mean. If it is a prank, and you fall head first for her, yes, you look like an idiot. But only for like two weeks. The real question is can you live with yourself if it's genuine and you blow your opportunity.” I buried my head into my arms in search of hopeless respite. He made a solid point. By accepting her advances, I had more to gain than to lose. All that was at stake was my pride, and I really didn’t have much of that to begin with. “Why are you acting like I have a chance?” I asked. “Because, Ollie, at the end of the day, I’ll be here to help you out whether it's a prank or whether it's not. I mean regardless, it’ll be entertaining for me.” “You’re a shit friend.” This was our relationship. I had never felt like Peter was particularly rooting for me, but I also never felt as if he was ever really rooting against me. It was like he was just around to watch and see what would happen. Maybe that’s why Peter was such a good photographer. I smirked at him and began to return to my work. As hard as I tried however, I could not get the image of the golden sun hitting her face out of my head. I kept thinking about Peter’s reasoning more and more. Then I began thinking about why I was thinking about Peter’s reasoning. I finally concluded that it was because I wanted him to be right. I wanted it to be real. I wanted Summer. During Lunch, I didn’t sit with Cassidy, the summer sun was not too harsh today, and so I sat alone outside in the quad, and drafted my response. *Hey sorry for the late response, your photo made me speechless... and late for class.* I thought about the message, concluding that it was just playful enough that it could work in my first step on trying to woo her. A figure appeared before me, but before I looked up to see who it was, I sent the message. I then heard a phone chime and looked up. There she was, as if on queue, a light breeze blew her hair slightly to her right. “So here you are? You weren’t with your usual crowd. You hiding from me?” She smiled playfully. I couldn’t believe it. Her brash approach towards me threw me off completely. I wondered if she had even considered my feelings in all of this. Did she not realize that with her beauty, she could give a man a heart attack? After a moment of silence, I realized that she was waiting for me to respond. “W-well, I can only behold your beauty once a day or I think I’ll, I’ll MELLLLTTT” I began to slide down the bench I was sitting on, towards the floor. She lightly laughed and covered her mouth as she did so. I wished that she hadn’t so that I could see her beautiful smile, but the gesture was attractive in its own way. Before I hit the ground, I pulled myself up and sat back down. “Well that makes things a lot harder, now doesn't it?” she said, while taking a seat next to me. She was so close that our elbows slightly touched. I wondered if this girl had known what she was doing. I wondered if she was planning on killing me. “I suppose that just means that we should spend the whole day together.” Her cheeks were rosy. I awkwardly chuckled to myself to try and gain my composition. Then I was caught by the thought that this was genuine. No girl could laugh at my pathetic attempts at humor if she didn’t like me. No girl would be able to fight the natural cringe of my cheesy remarks if she didn’t like me. I was expecting to wake up at any second but I never opened my eyes. After our small bit of banter, we sat in silence for a moment. The silence wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either. She was sitting beside me with her legs pressed together and her hands resting on her knees. There was a sense of tension as if both of us were waiting for the other to make a move. It was like two cats had locked eyes and were preparing for their showdown. When I thought to make the first move, I had realized that I knew virtually nothing about this girl. As my mind scrambled to find something of value to say, I decided to choose my default student question and asked her about her classes. She told me, “AP U.S. History, Psychology, AP literature, and precalculus.” Initially, I thought that she might be smart but her class lineup proved it to me beyond a reasonable doubt. I found myself a little intimidated. “What major are you planning to take in college?” I thought for a moment and said, “Political Science. For a while, I thought about Astrophysics, but the only money to be made there, is in the best of the best. And my calculus grade shows me that I am not in that margin.” “Political Science and Calculus, huh. Those are two very different fields.” There was a moment of silence, then she said, “ You should help me study for my precalculus final!” She dug into her backpack and pulled out a worksheet and showed me her progress. I was taken aback, for a moment I suspected that all she wanted was a math tutor. But the plot seemed too convoluted to be true. A third of the paper was complete, and the majority of the answered questions were wrong. I thought to myself that regardless of whether or not this would score me points with her, this girl needed major help. I grimaced wryly at her and said, “Oh man, we're definitely going to need a table...” I stood up and she watched me for a moment, before following suit. We began walking towards the library. As we approached she grabbed my arm and stopped me “Umm actually, can we not go to the library?” I thought that maybe her boyfriend was the librarian’s aide, but then I remembered that the librarian’s aide was a girl. Maybe she was a lesbian? I broke my strange train of thought and made a questioning expression towards her and she said, “It’s just I owe two books, and the librarian has been hunting me down.” I instantly understood how she felt, the librarian terrified me. Before I found myself in Cassidy’s clique, I often stayed in the library during lunch. I would watch the librarian hunt down rowdy students. Once, when I was studying alone, listening to music, my headphones unplugged when I reached for my backpack and the music played out loud. Before I could turn it off, she stood before me menacingly. Her gaze pierced my soul, and she kicked me out of the library. She half dragged me out, because my body was too afraid to move. As shivers ran down my spine I said, “Okay, lets go to the photography room then.” It was once my personal safe haven, but I hadn’t gone in a while so it wasn't the first place that I had planned to go. We walked toward the photography room. As I opened the door, I shouted “Hello! How are you!” There were three people in the room as we entered. The teacher, Mr Cardenas greeted me, and I walked towards my desk, and Summer sat down next to me. Summer questioned my strange greeting and I explained, “During fourth period, I hold the door open and greet everyone as they come to class. It started back when I was the teacher’s aide for the class.” She nodded like she understood. Peter walked over towards me, and patted me on the back as we walked past me. My face began to feel like it was on fire, and I had wished that he wouldn't make such obvious gestures towards me. For the rest of the lunch period, we quietly worked through the problems on the worksheet. We worked closely, trying to share my small desk, which was already limited in space due to a computer monitor. Occasionally our heads would bump into each other, and I would feel her soft hair brush against my face. We came across a question that was so utterly incorrect that I questioned to myself if she had even taken the class. “You have to erase all of this.” I said. “What? I’m sure that there is something salvageable here.” she responded. “Yeah, no. This one is so wrong, I can’t even begin to find where you went wrong.” She pouted at me, but I didn’t understand why she was upset. This was math. Numbers are cold and uncaring, and they love to express how incorrect you truly are. “I guess I really am dumb.” the brightness of her face dulled, and I couldn't understand why. I spoke coldly, “You’re not dumb for making mistakes in math. Even the greatest mathematicians, make mistakes. Would you tell Albert Einstein that he was an idiot for discovering relativity earlier? Or Newton for not realizing that it was gravity that brought things towards the earth? If making a mistake means you’re dumb then everyone is an idiot.” There was a still silence, not even the other people in the classroom spoke. Summer looked at me, her cheeks were red. I couldn't tell if it was rage, or embarrassment but I could tell that it wasn't good. I was frustrated in myself, I had a bad habit of speaking in an abrasive way, and it was obvious now, that my lack of social skills were backfiring. I might as well have just told her that she was an idiot for thinking that she was an idiot. I had to apologize. I began , “I-I...” “I’m sorry.” She finished my line for me and threw me for a loop. “I guess, I just don’t really believe in myself.” She looked down, and the light from her face faded even more. I only longed to see that light again. “Yeah, well. We’re following the path of intellectual titans. People that can only be described as perfect and the fact that you can begin to understand any of this is proof enough that you have a right to stand beside them.” She nodded and I assumed that she understood that I was trying to compliment her. She smiled at me, flashing her dimples. I had succeeded, but I couldn't help but feel guilty. I had dragged her through the mud only to clean her off afterward. I wished that I didn't have to do that. Why did I have to be like a sour patch kid? First sour then sweet. Why couldn’t I just be sweet? While I sat there thinking to myself, I hadn’t noticed that the lunch bell had rang. “Well, Mr. Tutor. Will you walk me to class? It’s precalculus so I might just skip.” I was pulled back into the dream that was, being in her presence. She began to put her things back into her bag and stand up. How could she just change the atmosphere on a dime. A moment ago I was flustered that I had borderline insulted her, but now it was as if all was well in the world once again. I felt that this might be an opportunity for me to make a cheeky remark and so I said, “It might be best that you just skip, and have me teach you.” She smiled at me and said, “I might just take you up on that offer.” Her response made my heart skip a beat. She made her way out of the classroom, and I followed her, leaving my things in the classroom. It wasn't fair, I could have sworn that I had the upper hand, but her beauty was too much. She was cheating in this game of banter. We began to walk down the hall together. “Wow, how can you be so bad at math? Do you pay attention in class?” I joked. But then I instantly regretted the words that escaped my mouth. Hadn't I just told her that it was okay to not be good at math? “I’m more of a reader than a math person, you dick.” She playfully pushed me to the side. She seemed to have picked up on my playful tone, and responded accordingly/ I moved back to her side and retorted, “Good, then you can read your math textbook.” I chuckled at my own joke and we walked in comfortable silence to her class. When we reached her class, we stood outside for a moment. This was it. Every moment, every sly remark, had led to this moment. “Uh, you know. I really recommend that you need a tutor for math” I used my hand to pull my hair back and attempted to avoid eye contact, “so could I have your number?” “I’m not sure Oliver” my heart broke. It had all been for naught but before I could respond she said, “Because apparently I’m just no good with numbers.” This girl was something else. Did she not know she could give a man a heart attack? She pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack, wrote her number and handed it to me. “I hope that you could solve this problem without my help.” She smiled at me showing her dimples, and I smiled back. She turned and walked into her class, but the smile on my face would not go away. I ran back to the photography classroom, and when I entered, Peter, Michael and the Photography teacher were waiting for me. I dramatically raised my hand holding the piece of paper, and we cheered.