Ursa Minor (On hiatus)

Friend or whatever

"I'm sorry if you felt like my mom was questioning you the other night," Allen started stutteringly after a couple of minutes of silence. "You shouldn't take it personally because she's always like that, she just likes things a certain way, people to be a certain way. Like our friends, like my brother's girlfriend...I actually like her, but mom thinks she talks too much, but then his last girlfriend was too timid, you know?" I shrugged. "It's not a bad thing, like she's very good at her job, you know, but I didn't want you to...because I hadn't...so I'm sorry if I acted strange, I just didn't want it to be strange...anyways..." he trailed off his eyes glued to the floor.

To me, deciding within five seconds that I was definitely not a Christian, or that if I was I obviously was doing it wrong, and looking at me like I was hazardous waste was not a good thing. And surely not a Christian thing either. And I still didn't know how much of Allen was part of it, and how much was he was his own. But after the lesson I would hardly talk to him again, so what did it matter.

"Whatever." I shrugged again and Allen silently stirred next to me, pulling his hair before shifting his papers, looking down at his scribbles. 

"You nervous?" I asked, even though that hair-pulling and the passing out comment before already had provided me with the answer. 

He nodded. "Yeah, I hate being in the center of attention, when everybody's looking at you. Like the first day here, you know, it was a nightmare." He laughed a little. "I'd imagined a thousand people to hide among, not a thousand people staring at me." He lowered his voice while talking, the view through the hallway windows opposite getting more and more blocked by people. I hadn't envied him that first day, and looked like I had had good reason for it.

"I didn't notice," I admitted. I had been too busy trying to cover up my assholiness with niceness with varying degree of success. 

Allen shrugged. "I hide it pretty well. But I babble a lot when I'm nervous so, you know, if I get lost I might just start going on about something completely irrelevant." 

"I just clam up," I mumbled. 

Allen smiled. "Yeah, I've noticed. That's not so bad though, or at least we won't be two people babbling."

What did he mean he'd noticed? I glanced at him, looking down at his notes again, twirling that lock behind his ear around his finger. Let my earlier thought sink in. We were done. After this I wouldn't talk to him. After this I probably wouldn't even be seeing much of him. He'd hang out with the Bradford's, I'd hang out with my friends. I'd see him in the cafeteria, at one of the choir concerts, at some Bradford event Lisa talked me into joining. Maybe he'd comment on something I said in English, or ask me about some band. Maybe he'd just nod to me in the hallway. And that would be it. The letters in the note pad in front of me blurred together and I closed it feeling restless.

It blinked by in my mind that maybe I'd been wrong that first day thinking we had nothing in common, that we were as different as two people could be. The time for figuring it out had gone by so fast and now I would never know. I felt fucking agitated only thinking about it. That I'd actually meet someone who actually could be a friend or whatever, and then I wouldn't see more of them because of stupid high school cliques. But hey, since when did I care about those? I dated a choir girl, I did as I damn well pleased, then people could think whatever they wanted to think. Including Adam.

I didn't even feel nervous anymore, the bell rang and I felt nothing. Who the fuck cares about electoral laws anyways? Allen collected his things, not looking too collected himself. The look on his wide-open face. I couldn't help but feel endeared again. 

"You'll be fine," I leaned in and whispered in his ear, as we joined the herd of students trying to squeeze through the door. "If you pass out, I'll pass out too."