NB: The Search (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 3: Partners

I didn’t see Maggie in school yesterday. I tried to call her last night. She didn’t answer.

I’m waiting for her by her locker. I hope I’m not starting to turn into one of those creepy stalker guys, but she’s my best friend. I thought everything was fine. It wasn’t even a kiss.

Why did I try to kiss her? I think.

Fuck.

The bell is going to ring soon. I should be going.

I head to class. When I get there, Mr. Cooper looks up from his table. He gives me a smile. On time again. Normally he would say something, but he can tell that I’m upset.

I get to my table. The new kid is already there. He hands me a piece of paper with an assignment on it.

“Aaron right?” he asks. It takes me a second to process what he’s saying. He wants to know my name.

“Yeah,” I say. “And you’re Damien?” I hope I got it right.

“Most people call me Day.”

“Cool,” I say. I really need to stop using that word. It isn’t in fashion anymore and it isn’t out of fashion enough to be ironic. ‘Cool’ is just blah. Damien doesn’t seem particularly bothered by my word choice.

“Do you have a partner?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“For the project.” He gestures at the piece of paper he handed me.

“It’s a group project?” I ask. I’m a little slow in the mornings.

“Yeah.”

I shake my head and laugh a bit. I feel like an idiot. “Obviously,” I say, or else he wouldn’t have asked me. He smiles. His eyes are blue, but there’s this weird little brown flake in the left one. “No, I don’t have a partner. Do you want to work together?”

“Sure,” Damien says. I don’t really have any friends in the class. With Maggie not talking to me, I’m not entirely sure I have any friends. Working with Day might be good. It’s not an important project anyways. “Are you okay?” Damien asks. “You seem a bit out of it.”

“Yeah, I’m just dealing with some friend issue drama stuff.”

“Friend issue drama stuff?” Day says. He’s obviously making fun of me, but I don’t know him well enough to tell what he’s getting at. “Back home, they call it high school.”

I laugh and so does he.

“It’s just my friend Maggie. It’s a long story,” I say. I don’t know if I feel comfortable talking about personal stuff to a guy I barely know, but I definitely don’t feel like talking about personal stuff in class where everyone’s always half listening for a new piece of gossip. “Where are you from?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

The bell rings and announcements start. I’m not used to being in class for this part of the day.

“We can talk later,” Day says.

After class, me and Day start to talk again, but then I see Maggie. She’s waiting outside the door.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Day, “I have to go.”

“Friend drama issue stuff?”

I nod. We get to the door and I introduce Maggie to Day. “Damien, this is my friend Margret.”

Maggie’s lip puckers as I use her real name. She’s trying to hold back her evil death stare. She smiles and reaches her hand out to Damien. “Hi, my name’s Maggie.”

“Nice to meet you,” Day says. “I’m Damien.” They shake hands. It’s such a mechanical social interaction. I normally forget to do introductions.

I look over at Maggie. I want to talk to her.

“I have to get going,” Day says. “Can we set a date to work on the project?”

“Are you free tomorrow night?” I ask.

He is, and we exchange phone numbers.

“Can we talk, Air?” Maggie asks. There’s a certain deliberateness to that question that always scares me.

“Of course,” I say. We start to walk down the hall. Maggie doesn’t say anything right away. We just walk. I look over at her. Somebody has to say something. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I shouldn’t have tried to do what I did.”

“No,” she says. There’s hesitation in her voice. “It isn’t your fault. It’s just,” she pauses and looks around, “complicated, you know.”

Complicated, I hate that word. It makes teenage drama sound like a formula that needs to be solved. But most of the time you can’t just work things through to a logical conclusion. It’s just a cyclical quagmire of frustration.

“Yeah,” I say. What else could I tell her?

Maggie stops walking for a second. She looks over at me and into my eyes. “Aaron,” she says as if she’s about to ask a question. She doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything. She just looks into my eyes. I’m looking into hers too, but I feel self-conscious and look away.

She turns away and starts to walk.

“Wait,” I say. She stops and looks back. “What were you going to say?”

“This isn’t a good place to talk,” she says. “Come on.”

We start to walk again.

“So, who was that guy?” Maggie asks.

“A new kid, I’m doing a project with him.”

“He’s kind of cute,” Maggie says. He is.

“Not as cute as me though, right?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie says. “He’s never called me Margret.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the name Margret. I think it’s pretty.”

“You can have your own opinion, but never call me that again.”

“What are you the dark lordess? For now on, should I introduce you as ‘she who must not be named’?”

“Well, that’s better than Margret.”

We both laugh, but there’s still something on Maggie’s mind.