Daphne

2 // A Failed Courting

Listen to: The Good Side by Troye Sivan  

    It's been about three weeks since I last wrote to you. I realized that I've been really tired lately. I feel there isn't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. Yesterday I kept imagining my dog getting run over in the street, and I spent an hour trying to get it out of my head. My dad doesn't really understand what happens to me when I get like that. I lay down and cry for hours and hours, trying to stop my brain from torturing me. To him, it just looks like I'm being an overdramatic teenager in desperate need of attention. It's mostly my fault though, I would definitely win a gold Olympic medal for lack of communication. 

    I woke up today at 4:30 as usual, trying to drag myself out of bed using every ounce of strength I could muster. I sat upright and rubbed my puffy eyes, and then put on my glasses so I could get to the bathroom and put my contacts in. One by one I put the little concave pieces of silicone that prevented me from bumping into every wall in my house. I walked back to my room, got dressed, and ate breakfast. I stood outside of my house, waiting for my dad to drive me to school in time for zero period. My dad always tries to make small talk on the way to school, but it ends in arguments every time. Honestly, I don't feel like making the effort to get along with him. Which is probably why we can't be in a room together for more than half an hour without bickering, but you get used to that type of stuff. Oh well. 

My dad cleared his throat. "So, what's up Daph?"

"Not much."

"Just talk to me. Talk about anything you want."

"I don't know. What do you want me to talk about?"

"Anything."

I sighed, and immediately knew it was a mistake.

"Why are you sighing? Why can't you just talk to your dad? Is it really that hard?"

"No Dad. I'm just tired, that's all."

    After that the conversation quickly went downhill, and by the time he dropped me off at school, I was angry enough to slam the car door when I got off. I walked into school and walked to my zero period in the weight room. I'm pretty weak, I can only squat like 35 pounds on a good day. Today was not one of those days. After a couple periods, I ended up in AP Physics. I got over Serena pretty quickly since she dropped me considering we had only been talking for like three days. I started to develop a crush on someone else though. I have a soft spot for basic girls. It sounds offensive, I know, but it's always the Haileys and Hannahs of the world that get me. Adrienne is definitely one of those girls. She's not too loud but not too shy, smiles and laughs at every joke no matter how terrible it is, and is the exact image of what you'll see when you look up stock photo images of beauty. Her glossy dirty blonde hair looks so smooth, and I got lucky enough to be behind her when she flipped her hair. It smelled like lavender shampoo, but only the kind you could get at an expensive apothecary. 

    I know what you're thinking. You have feelings for someone you noticed two weeks ago? Really quick, right? I know, I'm just as disappointed in myself. But I guess I'm touch starved. I settled on asking her to go on a date with me a couple days ago, promising to myself that if I didn't ask her out on Monday, I would start to actually stick to what I told Charlie three weeks ago: no more girls. Just me. Seeing as today was Monday, I tried extra hard to look nice and even put on some perfume. Even a dab of makeup. I surprised myself with that one. 

    So I'm back in AP Physics. And I see Adrienne talking to Melanie about how to do the vectors worksheet we got last Friday. She lets out a giggle and my heart swells a little. Okay. I can do this, I thought. I stood there for a second, thinking about possible rejection. I quickly forced those thoughts out of my brain and started to walk over.

"Hey Adrienne, could I talk to you real quick?"

I saw her glance at Melanie for a second. "Yeah, sure."

I took her aside. "So I was thinking, if you were okay with it, and if you're not it's okay, but it would be really nice if you would want to, I've wanted to-"

"Daphne. I'm not going to bite your head off. It's okay."

I took a shaky little breathe. "Would you want to go on a...um...a date?"

Her eyes dropped a bit and I could tell where this was going.

"It's okay Adrienne don't worry about it."

"No, I'm really sorry, I'm just not into girls like that, but if you want to hang out sometime, I would be down."

"Okay. Well, I'll talk to you later then." I sped away from her desk towards my own, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. I plopped myself down in my seat and put my earbuds in. I put on some calm music to get me to relax and feel a little less embarrassed. For the rest of the period I quietly worked on my worksheet, waiting for the bell to ring so I wouldn't have to feel Melanie's piercing stare on me. It wasn't the first time I'd been rejected though, so by the time I was at lunch I felt significantly better.

    I saw Charlie sitting next to Tyler, Josh, and Elaine on the planter we sit at every day.

"Sup dude," Charlie yelled from afar. As usual Tyler and Josh were in their own world, whispering to each other about something. Elaine looked up at me and smiled. "You good?"

"Yeah. I asked Adrienne out, so you can probably guess how that went."

"Yikes man, sounds rough. How bad did she take it?"

"Not that bad honestly. At least I didn't get called a fag."

Charlie nodded his head in satisfaction. I sat down next to Elaine and she patted me on the back. "I'm here to talk if you need it?"

"Thanks El, I'll be fine."

"Sooo do we have a physics quiz today? Bennet got pissed off at us on Friday and threatened to give us a pop quiz."

"Nah, we just worked on our worksheets."

It got quiet for a minute, and of course Charlie stepped in. 

"So are you actually going to lay off the girls for a while? You know, like you said you were going to. You know I haven't talked to any girls since we said we wouldn't."

"Yeah, not by choice, you dork."

He pouted and scrunched up his eyebrows in indignance. 

"Fine Charlie. No more girls. For real this time. As cheesy as it sounds, I want to fall in love with myself for a change."

"Ugh, the cheesiness, I'm gagging," El said in between gags. 

    No more girls. Just me. Because I got the good side of things.

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Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! More to come soon. Elliot.