Combustion

nebula: one

It was freshman year when I found myself not two hours from the ocean, but twenty, as a result of a recent move from a coast state to land-locked town. I remembered trying to fool myself into thinking that I was not nervous, but I was. I think everyone was a little bit scared, because we were itty-bitty freshmen in this big, old school- the minnows amongst the sharks.

 You would laugh, and then you would tell me you like minnows. I think you would like minnows. I imagined that you would be that stupidly daring minnow. The one that would swim right up to the sharks, so close that you're flossing their teeth, and then you'd laugh and squirt away. Yeah, I think that would be you.

 I was left clutching at a wrinkled piece of paper- my school schedule that I had already memorized. The school map was folded messily into my back pocket. That, too, had been committed to memory along with the routes I would take from class to class and the amount of days separating me from a journey back to the other side of the country: 120 days until winter break and home.

There were five minutes before class officially began, and the room was shockingly empty.

So there I was, having an inner debate in the doorway over whether or not I should turn around and make another lap around the school or if I should just loiter around outside the door and pray that someone would talk to me. However, it was the idea of conversation, the possibility that somebody might actually have the decency to talk to me that made my decision to turn around and keep walking. I knew I should have a million questions to ask about the town or the school and a million stories to tell about life back home, but the anxiety of having to make small talk had turned my ability to use language to mush.

I proceeded to turn around and walk straight into the teacher, who I had managed to beat to the classroom. The collision would have been awkward enough if I hadn't managed to cause him to drop the folders he was carrying, scattering loose papers in front of the door.

It would have been really funny if it wasn't me. But since it was me, I only stammered out an apology, bent down to collect the fallen material, and wondered if it was too late to transfer classes. I had wanted to make an impression, but this wasn't it. Sadly, there are no redos.

"What's your name?" Mr. Russel asked.

"John," I said, perhaps a little too quietly. At the time, I was sure I was going to receive my first detention ever, even before the first bell rang, which would have to be some sort of record. And I know you're all about legacies and being remembered, but I was not about to go down in history as the first goody-two-shoes to get his ass sent to detention before the first day of school had officially begun. I'm not about that life.

"And you're going to be in my English class first hour?" he asked.

"Yes?" I prayed to God to just strike me down now and spare me the suffering of the rest of high school.

"Great. Just what I need. Another delinquent," he said, dryly.

I am so glad that you weren't there to see what happened, because I would never have lived it down. This is something that I still occasionally cringe over, so I'm glad that I don't have you to remind me of this moment- having myself is reminder enough.

I tried to splutter out that I am a good kid, and that this whole incident was just an accident, but words seemed to have left me. It's amazing what human interaction does to my psyche.

Needless to say, Mr. Russel felt bad for transforming me into a fish out of water. (It is now my personal goal to cram as many fish and water analogies as possible. You're welcome.) He gave me a look of pity as if he had already foreseen a dark high school path for a teenager who could not pick up on basic linguistic cues. "You know I'm kidding, right? Lighten up!