The Specks of Smallness

Aaron | Two

                                                                                Aaron | Two

I don’t know what was wrong with her. 

  I don’t know why she was so...so venomous. The only thing I asked was a question. One stinking question, and she acted like I’ve asked her what’s going on in Area 51. 

   “Um, yeah. I just... tell him I won’t be able to make it tonight, okay?” I said. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a frown upon my face. She was rude for no reason. 

  “Tell him yourself,” she spat, the venom in her teeth crawling underneath the skin on my arms. I took my hand out my pants and wiped it off, as she stormed into the girls restroom. 

  For some reason, I was frozen in that one spot. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, what to think. Everything was just...just so awkward. I had never seen Bentley’s sister before—and when I would see her in the hallway, she would seem like she was just in this peaceful state of mind. No one was bothering, she wasn’t bothering anyone. 

  But now, with me seeing her, tears in her eyes, I just had the awkward feeling that something was wrong. 

  I shook the thought out of my head. I didn’t want to think of something like that; the bitter possibilities of vulnerability. If I really cared, I would have snooped inside the girl’s restroom, but I didn’t. No, instead, I continued to walk past, only slightly listening to the laughter going inside. 

  As I walked down an empty hall, one that was in the back of the school, where the air conditioner was always on for some reason, I pulled out my phone from my back pocket. I knew no teachers would be back here, but there was this small instinct in me that made me hide it away, like I was holding this secret within my palm. 

  When I had unlocked it, I instantly went to text Bentley. His phone had been spazzing for almost a month now, so it was difficult to communicate with him. The only time I would see him was at lunch, but even then it was difficult to say anything over the rambunctious noise. At the end of the day, he would get a ride home with his sister, and by the time I got outside, she was driving wildly off in her old, beaten down Prelude. 

  Me: Is your phone wrking now?

  I had always been the type of texter that shortened unnecessary words, like maybe ‘popcorn’, ‘music’, and ‘giraffe’. It annoyed me when people would always shorten words like ‘you’re’, ‘love’, and ‘you.’ Sadly, Bentley was one of those people. The annoyance that I have when texting him doesn’t bode well with me. Sometimes I get so annoyed that I tell him, “Get a damn dictionary!” or, “You illiterate fucktard. Go bck to Puerto Rico!”. The last one didn’t go too well with our friendship, and he ignored me for a week, almost two. 

  When my phone didn’t vibrate in less than five, I took it that his phone was spazzing so badly that he didn’t get it, and he’d get the message that I couldn’t go when it was six in the evening, and we weren’t in the basement playing Minecraft together, or watching 80’s movies together. 

  I slipped my phone back in my pocket, and walked my way back to class. The classroom was farther down the hallway, buried deep in the cold. The walls, if they were wet, could be covered in ice, if the school board would allow for such thing. I could see all the health problems that came from it, and someone’s parents suing the school for it. 

  Anyway, as I made my way down the hall, I actually regretted not being able to do something about Bentley’s sister. Maybe if everything had just started out differently, I wouldn’t have to come back to this class where I didn’t know anyone. As cliche as it sounds, I was the new kid who sat alone in the back, doodling on the wooden desk that’s chipped and packed with gum underneath. 

  The class itself wasn’t too big, so it wasn’t hard to know people’s personalities and behavior. There was this girl in class, lips so red, hair that fell just at the back of her neck, and a smile that was just this infinite void of beauty. From the way that she looked, you couldn’t tell, but she had Tourette syndrome. I would watch her tic, tic, tic, and watch her as she tried her hardest to hide it when she was reading out loud. 

  When I finally walked inside the room, all eyes were on me. I handed the teacher, this fully bearded man with bushy eyebrows and an evil glare, the wooden hall pass. He harshly put the hall pass back on a hook. I dared not to stare him in the eyes. 

  “Group assignment,” he snarled. 

  I looked back, surveying everyone in the room. Everyone was in a group of four, some in three’s. There was no sign that showed where I should be. I started to turn back towards Mr. Oscar the Grouch, until someone shouted my name. It startled me, actually, because there usually isn’t any sound in the class. Even if this is Human Behavior. 

  I made my way to the group of three: the girl with Tourette’s, a girl with a pink jacket, and a guy that had on an unbuttoned plaid shirt. He was laid back in his chair, feet kicked up in mine. He only removed them once I looked at him in the eyes. There was this smirk that just made me smirk back.

  When I was situated in the seat, the girl with Tourette’s introduced herself to me. I noticed how she tried to hide her tics by showing her smile. I shook her hand, politely. Her name was Elin. Then there was Lily. I’ve never watched Lily before. 

  “Name’s Carson,” Plaid Shirt finally introduced. When he extended his hand, I saw the vein’s in his arms poking out, and the long length in his fingers. His grip, too, was tight. 

  Finally, when he let go, Elin had asked me a series of questions. She asked if I agreed with surveying the children with cancer, and comparing them to adults who had cancer. At times she would pause, when her tics got severe, or stutter, when her tics made her get stuck on a word. I felt sorry for her, so I didn’t want to down her idea about cancer. 

  “How about we study those kids who’ve survived cancer, too? And the one’s who are put on chemo, opposed to those who aren’t?” Carson threw out there. 

  This made Elin smile, adding to the more infinities of beauty she had. She began to write down our hypothesis, her speedy hands not a match with the tics in her body. Lily and I just sat there, smiling at how Elin and Carson seemed to chime over the project.

  Once they were finished, we split into two teams. Elin and Lily would work on the children—Lily pleaded to work with children, and since it was Elin’s idea, I let her go along with her. 

  “When should we start?” I asked him, when the bell rang for the end of the day. 

  Carson sat up in his chair, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. He flashed a smile. “This weekend,” he replied, that smile never leaving his face. 

  I could get used to seeing that.