How could it be that Brett Valentine, of all people, was suddenly my lifeline? And did I want in his group badly enough to brush aside the morals my parents had drilled into me since birth? Surely these guys would respect the truth. “No, I don’t have anything.”
“Yeah, you don’t look like you got any edge.”
Or not.
Their talking head continued to diss me. “You probably don’t even get baked, do you?”
Ah, shit. This wasn’t a test. Drug use was apparently a prerequisite for hanging with these dudes. The desire to lie my way in was strong. After all, who would it hurt if I pretended to be a pothead just until they accepted me? I was a fairly funny guy and, once they knew me and saw my skills on a board, I was confident they’d like me enough that it wouldn’t matter if I filled my lungs with poison or not. This was a whole new world, with new rules and requirements. I had to do what I had to do to stay alive.
But even though I was totally prepared to lie, the truth inexplicably tumbled out of my mouth. “No. I don’t smoke.”
“Sucks for you, newbie,” the upside down guy said, before turning his attention away from me.
My fingers clenched into fists. Who said this guy got to decide my fate?
“That’s it?” I challenged. “You have the final say?”
“Nah, brah, the guys can do whatever they want. But this is my spot, so if they decide to hang with you, they’ll have to relocate too. But hey, lucky for you, there’s some room over there at Tweezer’s table.”
My eyes followed his finger until they settled on the lone figure sitting a few tables over with black, dyed bangs hanging down over his face. Tweezer was passing the time by plucking the coarse hairs out of his forearm. I cringed. All it would take was one gust of wind to ruin lunchtime for me forever.
Swiveling my head back, I scanned the group of skaters, hoping some of the others might show their support, but not one of them met my eye. Even Valentine, my damn lifeline, was looking away. Hell, no. That’s not how this would end. These skaters were my group – they had always been my group. I refused to be turned away only to join the ranks of some hairless arm dude. There was no harm in telling a few lies to get me where I needed to be.
My mother’s voice played on repeat in my ear.Keith, you’re stronger than this.
No. No, I wasn’t. Mom didn’t understand. I had to survive. It’s not like I wouldn’t have loved more options to choose from, like my siblings had. A jock? Sure, I’d have loved to be one, but I wasn’t Mitch. Aligning myself with the popular crowd would be awesome too, but I wasn’t Emma. And having the musical abilities of a child prodigy? Hell, yeah! Sign me up! But only Jake wore that crown.
If I wasn’t special in my own family, how could I expect to be distinctive within a group of strangers? Never had I felt more insignificant than I did today – as the scrawny new kid begging for acceptance.
Looking out over the cache of students, I searched for someplace, anyplace, to land, but my feet refused to deliver me to safety. For better or worse, this was my crowd. I belonged with the guys who would never be more than average.
I took a step toward my destiny.
“Dude, I’m totally down to try.”
The leader flipped upright, his eyes scanning me with newfound interest. “Well, okay then, Newbs. Welcome to Barnum.”
Five Years Later
1
Samantha: Hey You
“Did everyone pick a number?”
I glanced down at the slip of paper in my hand and unfolded the parchment. My eyes widened. Number twenty-nine. That couldn’t be good.
“Numbers one and two, you’re at lab table 1. Three and four, lab table 2.” Mrs. Lee flitted around the room, way too excited for such a mundane activity. “You get the idea. Let’s go. Get to know your partners, and be nice. Barring an outbreak of a contagious disease or an explosion that takes out the lab, these will be your partners for the entire semester.”
Obediently, I grabbed my bag and moved all the way to the far back corner of the classroom – lab table 15. I practically needed binoculars to see the whiteboard from there.Nothing good ever happened after midnight, went the wise old saying. That applied to the back of the classroom as well, the favored spot of troublemakers and slackers. In these parts, pant loops were routinely zip-tied to the back of seats, and if there were spitballs to be hurled, they’d originate in this far corner of the world.
Blessed with a top of the alphabet surname,Anderson, I’d spent the majority of my life inches away from the teacher’s desk. And even when seating charts disappeared in high school, I still migrated north. I was just comfortable there – with the smart kids who were as predictable as they were dull. Trust me, I wasn’t dissing the academic overachievers. On the contrary, I was lumping myself in with them. Dull and predictable – yep, that was me. Still, being boring meant there was no need to worry that other front row dwellers would tie my shoelaces together during a pop quiz.
Of course, the fact that I had the eyesight of a cave-dwelling bat also might have contributed to my affinity for the head of the class. Sure, I could wear my particularly unfashionable specs to school every day to correct the problem, but why advertise my super-geek status?
Before moving to this beach town last year, I honestly hadn’t cared what people thought of me. Sweats, ripped tees, no makeup, ponytails – I rocked the ‘no style’ style. I even went so far as to sport highly practical, yet exceedingly dorky, light-adjusting glasses that allowed me to seamlessly move from indoors to out.
Sadly, the ‘anything goes’ approach wasn’t sustainable at Pearl Beach High School, where beauty was the norm, and students would rather not see at all than be caught dead in a pair of spectacles. It went without saying that corrective glasses of any kind were a fashion no-no here – viewed with the same distaste as, say, wearing corduroy pants.
