Daydream Dating

Chapter 16 - Shelter

Song of the chapter -Stressed Out by Twenty-One Pilots

What had I been thinking? It was one thing to be an official girlfriend, but TJ was not just any guy on campus. He had hardly been at school for a month and the dude was already pretty much at legend status. Everyone knew him. Everyone wanted to hang with him. And I was his girlfriend.

It was Monday after the dance, which had been an amazing night. Seriously, it was Cinderella levels of epic. I was still in a giddy state of euphoria when Monday finally rolled around. And although I had been Friday's little play thing for most of my life, Mondays were almost as horrific. However, my one consolation was that Monday was everyone's headache. I was in good company.

This Monday was different. Not only had TJ asked me to be his girlfriend, he had ended the night by asking me to sit with him at lunch. Of course I said yes, how could I not? But now that the day had arrived, and lunch with TJ was on the horizon, I had realized that the epic fail that was about to occur would also launch me into legend status. And not in a good way.

I've discussed the lunch protocol at my school before. There was a seating hierarchy that had never been broached. The school populars and jocks, who didn't have off campus passes, ate their lunch in the shelter. It was an open air area right next to the pick up windows of the cafeteria. Tables were set up in rows underneath a patio-like covering. I think the attraction to the area was that the food was still hot by the time you reached your table. Unlike the rest of the assigned eating areas. And by assigned, I mean "socially acceptable" based on whichever clique you belonged to.

The stoners sat on the grass, with their guitars and flannel. The emo-goth contingency had commandeered the hallway, allowing them to maintain their pasty white complexion. The band geeks hung out in the band room. And then there was my crew, sitting outside the band room in the designated looser zone. One of my kind wasn't in the habit of jumping not one, but many rungs on the social seating ladder. I was going right to the top, and I actually feared for my life when I realized what I had agreed to.

My stomach was in knots as I made my way through the throngs of randoms sitting just outside the shelter, wishing they had the guts to march in and demand a seat at one of the tables. They were smart enough not to attempt that suicide mission. I, on the other hand, was not that smart. The current path I walked was all the evidence anyone would need to confirm that my death had been premeditated. By me. But I stayed the course, somehow putting one foot in front of the other into the lion's den of high school dining.

A few tables into the shelter, I saw a few of the guys on the soccer team, TJ's buddies. My hands were shaking as I continued forward, not able to turn back from my doom. It was a train wreck waiting to happen, but whatever. Here I was, so might as well see it to the bitter end.

"Hey, Mallory," one of the guys said. Mitch, the guy who had thrown the party for TJ, was waving me over to their table. I could feel my mouth start to fall open in shock, but I wrangled the sucker closed again. I wasn't about to look like a fangirl or an idiot. Meh, too late I guess. "TJ isn't here yet, but he told me to save you a seat."

He gestured to the spot next to him. There was just enough room for me to squeeze in between Mitch and some other soccer dude I hadn't met yet. Where would TJ sit? My anxiety was through the roof and lunch hadn't even started. Smiling at Mitch, hoping that it didn't look as forced as it was, I put my books down on the table and made the awkward climb over the bench to sit down. Who ever invented picnic tables hadn't thought through what an already gawky teenager would have to endure when trying to sit at a table with all eyes pasted on them. Which was me at that moment. Every guy at the table stopped their conversation and watched me take a seat. A few had raised eyebrows, their silent way of asking, "who the eff are you?"