Him and Other Things

Chapter 2

‘Hey Ned’ he said completely ignoring me. 

‘Hey’ Edwardo said glancing at me.

He glanced at me as well but then just went on talking to Edwardo.

‘Well done for getting in the musical’ he said to Edwardo.

I zoned out then my temper exploding inward. How dare he ignore me, I thought, he didn’t even know me, the least he could do was say hello. But no, maybe he thought he was better than me, maybe my friends were right, and maybe he was arrogant. But I knew deep down that he wasn’t, maybe he was just shy.

My temper is like that, contradicting itself all the time; I was never good at staying angry at anyone I guess it's my curse along with my blessing. The curse because sometimes it's good to stay angry at someone else my blessing because I'm not exactly nice when I'm angry and if I’m angry all the time that’s not going to help.

I sighed inwardly at myself; I really needed to stop having these mental conversations with myself. It wasn’t helping my sanity at all.

I zoned back in and realized He was gone and Edwardo was talking to me.

‘How do you know Him’ I said indicating cutting him off.

‘Well apart from the fact that we go to the same school, I play rugby with him,’

‘Oh’ I said colouring a little. ‘I forgot about school’

Great move, my mind said, now he thinks you’re really stupid.

‘Anyway Edwardo I have to go or ill miss my bus and be stuck here for another half an hour’ I said glancing at my watch.

‘Ned’ he said smiling.

‘Huh’ I said not understanding him.

‘Call me Ned’ He said on the brink of laughter.

‘Oh ok Ned’ I said blushing a little, and then I ran off to my bus stop.

The bus was crowded and there was only one seat left, I sat down feeling uncomfortable as the morbidly obese man next to me tried to move over to make more room for me. I gave him a quick smile as I heard a chuckle coming from behind me. I glanced back to see him staring right at me with a smirk on his face. I stuck my tongue out, I know it's not the most mature thing to do but I did it anyway. The smirk on his face turned into a smile as I turned back around.

Jerk, my mind said, but this time I couldn’t agree with it. Unknowingly a smile spread across my face and the man next to me gave me a weird look. Damn these stupid mental conversations soon someone’s going to put me in a white padded room, so I can’t hurt myself. I've got to admit that might be fun for a while but I don’t really like white, so it might get a bit boring.

The bus ride was a lot longer than I remembered but finally my stop came and I hoped off. It was about 2km to my house but I enjoyed the walk. Especially in autumn as the thousands of orange and brown leaves covered the ground making a carpet of soft leaves.

I got home to an empty house, which is quite unusual for me because of my three, very noisy, younger siblings. Enjoying the peace and quiet I went to my bedroom and picked up a book on Genghis Khan the famous Mongolian conqueror. I loved history and when I got older I wanted to be an Archeologist. I always loved the idea of discovering something that no one else has seen in perhaps thousands of years. To me it would be like reliving the past which is so much more interesting than the present.

I got to a boring part in the book and decided to turn my laptop on. Facebook came up and Alex, my best friend from kindy started talking to me. She was dating this guy named Dave and of course she had to tell me every detail. Then Kat started talking to me about a book she loved.

I think Facebook is a great tool for enhancing your multi-tasking skills, my record is somewhere between six chat conversations and a couple of mail ones.

Damn Alex, I love her but she doesn’t know how to stop typing. This is where the magic button “Offline” comes into great use. Anyway I was flicking through my friends and I saw Him. I didn’t even know I was friends with him. I clicked his profile, wow 750 friends I haven’t even seen that many people. Well he was single according to Facebook which was usually quite accurate.

A light bulb just went off in my head, I was Facebook stalking him. That was nearly as bad as real stalking. I quickly switched my computer off and fell back on to my bed. I looked at the time and gasped, it was nearly ten o’clock man time goes fast. I hadn’t had dinner but I was really tired so I decided just to skip it and go to sleep.

That’s one good thing about me I can fall asleep anywhere at any time. I drifted off to sleep and a dream found me. I was riding a motorbike on a long highway; so long I couldn’t see the end suddenly sign posts started flashing past. Slow down they all said, but I couldn’t the bike just kept going faster and faster and then I saw the worst thing possible, it was Him and Ned just standing there. If I tried to dodge one I would hit the other. ‘NO!’ I screamed as something grabbed me.

‘Beth! Beth wake up’ David my brother said shaking my shoulder.

‘No, no, no’ I moaned.

‘Beth it was a dream, a dream!!’ He said shaking me harder.

Suddenly I sat up.

‘What oh my gosh what time is it?’ I asked.

‘Um 2a.m.’ he said looking at my clock.

‘Oh God what was I doing?’ I asked.

‘Screaming No! and thrashing around, anyway Beth go back to sleep we have school tomorrow’ He said suddenly tired.

He left and I drifted back to sleep again.