Even inside of the confines of my own room, I was not sure if John had followed me all the way over here or not. He seemed like the kind of snoopy guy that would come over and fret over whatever problem you were dealing with inside school—despite it being your own privacy.
To distract me, I took out the camera Alexis gave me. I rubbed my fingers over the engravings of the side of the camera. I wondered “could this be something ancient?” Alexis probably would not know. I thought about the kindness that Alexis had shown to me after she had given me the camera. I thought about the note that Rachel had given me after class. John being incredibly nosy with how he wanted to see what was inside of me. I turned on the camera and waited while it warmed up. When the light turned green, I figured that was the time for me to speak.
“Hello,
This is the start of a series of video vlogs that I will be doing monitoring my days in Fairfax. Today really wasn’t a great day for me. First, I tried to stand up against Rachel when she tried to coerce me into becoming her friend. I mean, I don’t even like it when people try to force me to become their friends. What comes after is the worst. Rachel hid a letter inside my locker, and the letter was…” I paused and breathed hard as I tried to suck in what was on the letter. “The letter was a death threat that was trying to warn me not to mess with her. Who does this girl think she is? What was the point of her trying to blackmail me into becoming her friend? (Sorry if this is beginning to sound really childish. I just needed to vent).” I sat back for some time before continuing.
“Well, I guess that’s the main thing bothering me today. Again, I guess I’m still trying to adapt to the environment around here that’s all. I guess…that’s it. Bye.” I sighed as I shut down the camera. I pulled out the letter from my backpack. Reading it over again, I decided to underline certain I felt especially hurt by. My eye-brows furrowed. I needed to try again.
***
I took a deep breath as I looked at Rachel from across the hallway. There she was, talking to all of her girlfriends while I remained on the other side of the hallway. All I need to do is talk to her, I thought to myself.
Suddenly I saw her approaching.
“Hey, uhhh…” I began as I rubbed the back of my head. She looked at me with those narrow eyes. “Your note really hurt!” She looked down at the ground a little bit uncomfortably as I spoke. I backed away from her. I thought she would yell at me or scream at me to get over it; however, instead, all I got was a rather mournful look.
“Ok, sorry, it’ll never happen again,” she said.
“That doesn’t excuse you from the fact that you sent that note! If I wanted to, I could have reported this to the principal and may have tried to get you suspended!” Inside my voice quivered. It takes a lot of guts just to say these jagged words, my mother would have said.
“No really, I’m sorry,” she said. Several of her friends started to surround me.
“Hey, what’s Rachel doing around the ‘new girl’?” one of them asked. With that, they all walked away.
“You know that she doesn’t really have any real friends,” Alexis said as she approached me. She was dressed in a buttoned-down polo shirt with a green band that tied her hair back. “Give her some time, and maybe she’ll come to terms with what she has lost.”
“Rachel has lost something?” Alexis covered her face for a moment as if saying “so you really are in the dark about all this”; but she brushed it off.
“Want to come over to my house after school?” she asked. I said sure.
The bell rang. School was starting. I watched Rachel with careful eyes. The smile on her face seemed nothing more than a conniving way of guarding something she hid behind her. It was the Barbie doll face she placed on her in order to conceal the true self that went on. Maybe it was a fear she had that caused her to go and become like this.
***
“Both of us are going to have so much fun when we get to my place!” Alexis said. I tried to wear a smile as I rode the bus with her, but for some reason I just couldn’t quite don the same joy that I usually had back in New Jersey. Something about Fairfax didn’t seem right; no, that wasn’t the right word. Something about New Jersey didn’t seem the same, or at least as far as I was concerned.
At the seat in front of me, John sat alone. I bit my lip as I watched him sitting all by himself.
“Do you want to go over there and sit with him?” I asked.
“I warned you about him,” said Alexis.
“What is your problem with these kinds of people?” I asked.
“They’re dangerous. They’ll suck you into whatever that they want…they merely want the attention for themselves,” she said. “Ultimately they need to find their own way in the world. Sometimes, it really is a very hard thing for them to come by considering that they need to figure it out themselves.”
“That sounds cruel,” I replied. Before she could reply, the bus driver stopped in the middle of downtown Fairfax.
“Come on!” Alexis said as she started to get off the bus. I followed her close behind. John kept his eyes at the ground, staring at the floor like a mindless idiot. Still I wondered what went on inside of his mind. I wondered if he thought about a lot of things in his own life. I wondered if he really carried any sort of significance over what his life looked like. For a moment, I could see his mother spanking him on the ground, or his father beating him with a belt.
“Come on!” Alexis called again. Before the doors could close, I raced down the hallway of the bus to reach Alexis. I looked up at the buildings that stood towering in front of me. They reminded me of two monsters with glowering eyes, ready to swoop down at me with their hands and hold me inside of their grip. The entire ground shook as I started to walk between the two lanes.
ns 15.158.61.37da2
