Humming to the music blaring in my ears, I slumped down the main hall, ambling towards my locker with my hands curled through the fabric of the inside of my hoodie pockets. Exposing them to the snapping March air for the five minute walk from my intentionally sweltering car to bearable hall had managed to have my fingertips going numb, tingling with static once being reintroduced to heat.
My eyes moved from one peer to another, taking in the cheerily gossiping groups, already exhausted kids chugging down coffee like imperative IV fluid, and obnoxiously noisy crews who congregated in doorways and seemingly purposefully made everyone else’s Monday even more despicable. I’d stopped being considerate enough of others to bother pulling out my ear buds and completely participate in the world when I got to school, instead sucking in my musical drug for as long as I could manage in order to hopefully store up enough songs internally to survive the day. Well, with minimal mental damage, that is, since getting through seven hours at Dulaney with none was, as I’d recently learned, basically impossible.
Reaching my locker, I started to twist the lock, flicking in my combination before someone jolted into my arm and caused my fingers to fumble and spin an extra rotation in the wrong direction, irreparably fucking up the attempt to open it. Turning to discover my assaulter, I got grabbed, familiar giggle and excited voice flowing in under the notes I was listening to.
Blinking, I caught strands of caramel and platinum hair blocking my vision as I grinned and curled an arm around Alex – who had already plastered himself to my chest – once figuring out what was going on. I tugged on the wire protruding from my pocket, usually unwanted ability to hear my surroundings restored as I stepped back enough to display the buds dangling from my hand in a silent proclamation that I hadn’t heard what Alex had said, giving my boyfriend a confused look and half smile.
Alex grinned widely at me, teeth shining under the fluorescent lights as he practically sang, “Good morning!”
Not bothering to return the pointless formality, I cocked my head to the side, trying to figure out what had Alex so upbeat and jittery at the very beginning of the school week. Last time I’d checked, he hated suffering through these damaging buildings as much as I did, and also knew that he didn’t need to present the fake bubbly Alex to me. Rolling my shoulders in a lame attempt to get my backpack straps resting more comfortably on them, I questioned, “What are you so excited about?”
His brushstroke eyes blew open, lids practically totally peeled away from the whites. Alex’s smile only expanded, lips tugging back further as he exclaimed with evident surprise, “Holy crap!”
Still hopelessly confused and increasingly rattled, I allowed myself to be pulled out into the biting weather when the boy grabbed my wrist and ran off towards the exit, asking as we rushed past preparing students, “Can I at least get my stuff for class?”
“That’s not important,” Alex dismissed, bustling me up against the scratchy wall of the building’s exterior, having nearly ran me into the pole between the double doors in his haste to get us outside.
It was quiet out there, at least, no one having any rational reason to be in the space between the gym and other assorted classes, only empty plastic picnic tables dotting the littered area. Alex didn’t seem concerned by the freezing wind that was surely tearing through his thin shirt – long sleeved, white and brown stripes, totally adorable – instead wiggling his phone out of the pocket of his skinny jeans and ignoring the perplexedness that I was positively radiating.
Deciding that I should probably satisfy the boy and give in to whatever was happening, I wrapped the thin wires connected to my cell up neatly, tucking it away and focusing attentively on Alex, who appeared to be scrolling through iTunes on his phone. I glanced around when the opening notes to some random song started to ring out, only a group of assumed Freshman nerds within hearing distance, too engrossed in their hurried memorizations of pi to notice Alex smiling smugly at me while I continued to frown in baffled confusion and scramble through my memories to place the music he’d so pressingly insisted that I hear.
“Be careful making wishes in the – dark, dark,” came the definite voice of Patrick Stump, which only served to muddle my mind further. I’d heard him singing literally thousands of times and could quite possibly pick his voice out quicker than my own mom’s, but this wasn’t on Soul Punk, not even closely the same type of sound, substantially nearer to that of-
I gaped at Alex, who looked excessively proud of himself as recognition evidently reformed my features and I cautiously asked, “Is this Fall Out Boy?”
It was unlikely that the answer would be yes, disappointingly, since I knew their discography better than the names of my cousins, and this song, that had now progressed to the chorus (“My songs know what you did in the dark…”) was sure as hell not a part of it. The fact that they had also obviously – and annoyingly – not released anything new in over three years also helped discount the possibility of this being a FOB song.
But Alex was happily unaware of my silent, disproving rationalizations, nodding enthusiastically as he yanked his sleeves down over his hands, muffling the chords playing through the bitter chill as he replied, “Yes! You didn’t know about this? The hiatus is finally over, they just announced it!”
Still skeptical, I picked Alex’s phone out of his grasp, checking the screen and eyes widening at the artist and album art it revealed. The song was even paired with a ridiculously long title.
The music looped back around, starting over as the brunette grabbed his phone back, tucking it into his back pocket and moving his grip to my hands, numb fingers slotting together as I slowly processed that information. Apparently, the latest volley of Fall Out Boy rumors had been true.
It was when Patrick sang, “In the end everything collides, my childhood spat back out the monster that you see,” and my brain absurdly provided, Pete Wentz is a lying ass hole, that Alex’s declaration clicked into realization and I repeated his earlier words, swearing, “Holy crap,” because, seriously, holy crap, Fall Out Boy was back.
Devoid of any other outlet for my sudden, thrilled energy, I pressed my hand into Alex’s waist, flipping us around and crowding him up against the wall. Our linked hands rubbed between our shirts as I bent down, smoothing our lips together, gleeful smiles slanting our mouths as they slid in sync.
“So light ‘em up, up, up, light ‘em up, up, up,” the words persevered, pushing past the obstacles of Alex’s constricting jeans and the school building, vibrating into my ears as the first bell rang. I seriously considered simply skipping class – something I’d never done, having only missed ten minutes of a period at the most without a note – to stay there, ecstatically kissing my boyfriend and inhaling the glory that was Fall Out Boy’s new single instead of enduring another increment of high school torture.
It was appealing, certainly, with Alex’s free hand smoothing through my hair and tongue lapping toothpaste mint onto my lips, but I reluctantly pulled back after hearing chattering girls and shuffling binders passing behind us.
Alex switched off the song, carding his fingers through his fringe to flatten it, continuously grinning like a million dollar lottery winner. Brain lagging behind the recent events, I was still too stunned and scrambled to do anything other than call out a goodbye when he kissed my cheek and skipped off to first period. I had to take a moment to lamely inspect the area around me and remember where I was and what I was supposed to be doing before heading back towards my locker, face beginning to settle into a perpetual grin.
By the time I had the necessary supplies to get me past the beginning of school, class had already started, the previously loud, throbbing hall still and silent except for the muffled instructions of teachers from within their respective classrooms. I didn’t care, having already accepted my fate of being at least five minutes late, literally not alarmed by this at all, because, really, fuck math. Lacking any concern for missing part of my first lesson, I walked towards the correct room, step bouncing and newly discovered chorus ringing through my head.
___
I squinted critically at the batter, scooting to the left and hoping that they wouldn’t be able to hit the ball near enough to me that my overly enthusiastic teammates would expect me to catch it. My hand eye coordination was about equivalent to that of a toddler, and I was literally completely useless in all sports. Basically everyone who had ever gotten stuck on a team with me in gym despised my entire existence by the time the painful period ended.
Luckily, the plastic ball hurled off into what I was relatively convinced was right field, snatched up by someone who’s name I could never recall as the defeated batter slumped dejectedly away from first base. I didn’t actually know who was winning, having been too caught up in myself to notice or care, simply watching with disinterest as the other team apparently got their third out and we returned to bat. I dragged my heels across the field, glaring at Josh and Kellin as they joked loudly while working their way to the various bases. I hid at the back of the line and hoped that a meteor would come and smash into the earth, obliterating Dulaney completely, before I had the dingy bat shoved into my incompetent grip again.
We’d started wiffle ball last week, and Alex had miraculously developed a crippling grass allergy. I was still somewhat confused as to where he’d gotten the note that excused him from anything involving the green expanse of the field – I’d heard enough about that boy’s neglective parents to fully know that they wouldn’t exert themselves enough to scrawl out a pass for their son - but DeGirinimo had accepted it, probably only because he didn’t actually give two shits about his students, and sent Alex off to watch from the bleachers during sports. Frowning at Alex from across the field, I eyed the boy huddled in on himself at the top of the peeling structure.
When my team struck out embarrassingly quickly, I decided that getting full credit for that particular class was not worth the psychological suffering I subjected myself to while standing alone on the field and feeling completely useless, jogging to the outfield and continuing straight on, completely ignoring DeGirinimo when he called, “Barakat, I don’t think the ball’s gonna go that far!”
Dismissing the snickers behind me and chewing on the inside of my cheek to lessen the heat stinging them, I removed myself from the idiotic game and clambered up the bleachers, plopping down next to my boyfriend with a relieved sigh. He raised his head from where it had been resting on his knees, smiling at me with a quiet chuckle as I declared, “I give up. Screw this class”
Alex shuffled closer to me, wrapping his arms round his knees and hiding his fingers away in the sleeves of the striped shirt that he was still wearing under my extra PE tee – he’d asked if I had a spare in the locker room earlier, explaining that his was temporarily lost – asking, “Wiffle ball pushed you to the limit?”
I shook my head, hand tucking under the band of my gym sweats to get my phone out of the restricting jeans I was wearing underneath, beginning to untangle the wires of my ear buds as Alex snagged one and I replied, “No, I don’t dislike wiffle ball any more than any other sports, but DeGirinimo put Kellin and Josh and the other team and you’re not playing, and I don’t like being alone while we’re doing games.”
Normally, I could bear through PE and the stupid activities that we were obligated to do by performing to the bare minimum and joking around with my friends. There was almost always someone on either my or the opposing team that I could chat and make stupid cracks with while completely disregarding the fact that we were meant to be tossing balls through hoops.
I’d spent PE on Friday sarcastically making fun of unsuccessful batters and laughing at missed catches that had slipped through fingers with Josh, cat calling at Kellin as he sulked by himself on the opposing team and chuckling at Ramsay's pathetic batting stance - ass out, chest forward, striking out immediately.
That, I was fine with. As long as there was another person to interact with me and extract me from myself, I didn’t have any issues.
However, when I was alone, abandoned in the middle of a pitch or looking out with anxious eyes from in front of a net, my malicious thoughts set in and started working on deteriorating my mental stability. I constantly had self-imposed insults and degradations ripping apart my head when I was uselessly watching sports go by around me, knowing that I would be worthless to contribute to a win and feeling like a complete and total waste of oxygen that should unquestionably go to a human who impacted our collective existence in a more positive way.
It was ridiculous, of course, absolutely baffling and absurd that being bad at grabbing airborne spheres out of the atmosphere had me on the verge of a mental breakdown and tearing apart the skin of my thumbs with my nails, but anything that even slightly exhibited my insufficiencies inflated my insecurities and had me unintentionally attacking myself.
I’d come to the conclusion that I would rather get a B in gym than allow pernicious thoughts to attempt to destroy me, leading to my currently leaning into Alex, playing Fall Out Boy on shuffle in honor of their reunion and silently contemplating when I’d stopped placing any importance on grades. I had precisely no motivation to get straight A’s anymore; I didn’t care about school work at all. Avoiding mentally belittling myself seemed to be logically worth going down a couple grade points.
“Huh. Wiffle ball makes me feel really insecure and useless, so,” Alex said, placing the plastic bud in his ear as The (Shipped) Gold Standard started up, implying that this was the real reason behind his forged note and slumping into the hoodie covered arm I looped around his waist.
I was clueless as to how I was meant to respond to that, mind working to figure out if I should try to talk him up or whatever people did to discount each other’s self-proclaimed, often false defects. But I didn’t know how to make anyone feel better - though I probably should be conscious of how to perk up Alex - and concluded that he most likely needed exactly what I did. To be comforted by the knowledge that he was not the only person who felt like that.
We had lots of these odd conversations, swapping screwed up stories and confusing emotions, never trying to change the other’s opinion of themselves or dismiss their concerns. Alex was basically the only person to whom I applied the golden rule, constantly striving to treat him as I honestly desired to be treated, and I knew that someone trying to convince me that my beliefs and ideas were wrong would certainly fail miserably. It was definitely more beneficial to be told that my thoughts and emotions were totally normal and didn’t qualify me as insane. I didn’t need to be proven wrong, I needed to be reassured that I wasn’t crazy and irreparably damaged.
So I simply held Alex closer, his messy hair tickling against my chin as he tucked his head into the my neck, muttering that I got it and letting the topic change as the period stumbled on. The world would be such a better place if it wasn’t only the broken who understood how to repair each other.
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If anyone doesn't like Fall Out Boy, then imagine your favorite band in place of them in this. ATL's actually my favorite but FOB make me really happy, so (and guess who I just got tickets for?). Also, for some reason, I thought they got back together in March rather than February, so for the sake of this story, let's pretend that that's what happened. And for the future, I want to say that I love Marianas Trench and think that Josh Ramsay is an awesome person, but need someone to put down in this. It'll be more relevant later. Please comment and vote!
xoxo
Rose