Unconditional

2: Ocean Eyes

This is my one hundred and sixty-seventh day of senior year. And I'm still just as anxious about today as I was about the first day of school. In just the first week of school I probably went through an equivalent amount of anxiety as an average person would in about a month or two. I also probably had ten times the amount of mental breakdowns after school as a normal person would during a whole school year. And it's been one hundred and sixty- seven days.

          As always, during lunch I sit alone in the library and write in my purple-and-blue notebook. I go through two notebooks per school year, which always seems to astonish people. As I write my most recent story, a psychological thriller about two friends finding a dead girl in the woods, I subtly examine the passersby around the school through the window of the door to the library. Everyone else seems to have large friend groups, except me. My only friends are my notebooks, my sketchbooks, and the books I read when I'm not at school. Sometimes I'm glad I don't have a ton of friends. I would never get to be alone with my thoughts otherwise. And that would probably drive me even crazier than I already am.

          Despite the fact that my high school is so small—there are only about 150 students here—it still has the same clique groups that every other stereotypical high school does: the nerds and the geeks (really, they're separate entities), the popular kids that are slightly wealthier than everyone else, the hippies, the stoners (which makes up about 90% of the whole town because marijuana is such a major crop around this part of the state), the artists, the punks and emos, and the class clowns and accident-prone kids. And then there's me: the loner that no one knows even exists. Just last week, a teacher asked me if I was a new student, and she almost didn't believe me when I told her that I had been here for four years. That proves how much people notice me.

          Once the bell rings for lunch to end, I finish the sentence I'm writing, and I quickly grab my notebook and my sketchbook and stride out of the library into the hallway. As I swiftly make my way down the hallway toward my journalism class, I lose focus of where I'm walking and I accidentally run into someone walking in the opposite direction. My books fall on the floor, and when I lean down to pick them up, so does the other person. I glance across from me and see a guy my age with near-black hair long enough to cover his ears and bangs that sweep over his forehead, light skin, and blue-green eyes that remind me of the color of the Pacific Ocean. I've never seen such a beautiful shade of blue before.

          His blue-green eyes move from my own dull gray ones to my open sketchbook on the floor. My sketchbook is open to one of my drawings of a cryptic-looking wolf, and I quickly grab it and close it before anyone else can see it.

          "That's really good," the boy with ocean-colored eyes says.

          "Oh, thanks," I reply in a timid murmur. We both stand up and awkwardly stand in the middle of the hallway as people walk past us.

          "What's your name?" he asks me with the kindest smile anyone's ever given me.

          "Elizabeth, but everyone calls me Lizzie," I tell him. "And you?"

          "I'm Will. Nice to meet you, Lizzie," he says with his continuous smile. "See you around."

          "Yeah," I say, but I don't think he hears me because it comes out as a nervous murmur, like before. Then we're both off on our ways to our next classes.

          In my last class of the day—sixth period English—I'm slightly startled when someone sits down next to me. No one ever sits next to me. I sheepishly glance over to the desk to my left and see that Will has decided to sit next to me. He catches me looking at him, and I look away shyly.

          "Is it okay if I sit next to you?" he asks me, perhaps assuming I don't want anyone sitting next to me based on the flat expression on my face.

          "Of course," I reply with a small smile. I think this might be the first smile I've given someone in months. I then wonder why I've never seen him around school before today, so I ask him, "Why haven't I seen you around here before?"

          "I just moved here from San Francisco. This is my first day, and you're the first person I've talked to all day."

          "Well I can say the same for you, about not talking to anyone else all day," I tell him with a light laugh. "It seems like you're doing alright so far. You know, with finding your classes and all."

          "Yeah, I guess. I haven't been late to a single class yet, which is already a record for me," he admits with a laugh.

          "What part of town do you live in?" I ask, wondering if we happen to live near each other.

          "Birch Street, near the middle school."

          "Really? Me too," I reply with a smile. "I live in the gray house at the end of the street."

          "I'm in the dull blue house in the middle. I guess we're kinda neighbors." I swear he has the brightest, warmest smile in the world, which makes his blue-green eyes light up with a golden tint.

          "I guess we are."