by Bryce Gibson
I pulled the reading buddy program from my back pocket, handed it to him, then pulled the door closed.
He flipped the pamphlet open and looked it over. “It looks like it might be something good for you.”
He passed the pamphlet back to me and started the truck.
“I need to run by the brewery real quick,” he said. “Riley’s got the flyers ready.”
Dad owned a small brewery that was located on the opposite side of the square. After driving over, Dad got out of the truck and met Riley on the sidewalk. Riley worked at the brewery. He was a few years older than me. He had black hair that came down to his shoulders. Riley handed Dad a thick stack of flyers that advertised the upcoming event, a night on the square complete with bluegrass music and tours of the farm.
Later that night, the entire house was filled with the delicious smelling aroma of garlic, olive oil, and tomatoes as Dad prepared dinner.
Before I moved in, Dad never turned on the fancy chandelier that hung over the dining room table. The lighting fixture had been there since the house had been built. Dad had always said that the old wires were a fire hazard.
Rewiring the old electric was something that he had been meaning to do for months, but his work never seemed to allow him to have enough time to get it done.
Dad worked two jobs. In addition to the brewery, he also worked at the factory in town. His dream was that he would one day be able to quit the factory job and focus on what he really loved doing—making beer.
Just the previous week, I’d offered to do it for him. I went into the attic where I pulled the old wires through the ceiling and replaced them with new ones just how Morris had taught me.
Destiny arrived right on time, and the three of us sat at the dining room table together, underneath the lit chandelier, and ate dinner.
“Work was crazy from the minute I got there,” Destiny told us as she twirled spaghetti noodles around her fork and used her free hand to brush the long bangs out of her eyes. “I was already booked, but the walk-ins just kept coming. Everybody decided they needed to get their hair done at the same time.”
Dad and Destiny continued to talk about work, and I sat in awkward silence at the end of the table. I wouldn’t have had much to offer in the conversation even if I’d wanted to participate. Besides the pool store, I’d only had one other job. It was at a fast food place called Burger Heaven, and I hadn’t worked there since Davey was killed.
After dinner, while Dad cleaned the kitchen, I was upstairs pacing the floor of my room.
chapter three
THE READING BUDDY SITE looked legit. It was a simple black background that had the logo front and center. A horizontal row of navigation links ran across the top of the page. I clicked on the LOGIN/SIGNUP button.
Like Mrs. Reynolds had said, no personal information was required to join. All I had to do was create a username and password. I tossed a few options around in my head and finally decided on Anxiety Boy.
After filling in my preferred genres, a list of potential “buddies” came up.
I thought that I would be able to recognize some of the ones that Mrs. Reynolds had recommended, but as I scrolled through, I realized that there seemed to be hundreds of them. I would need to do a search for the specific ones.
The pair of jeans that I had been wearing earlier that day were lying in a rumpled heap next to my bed. The pamphlet was still in the back pocket. I jumped up from where I was sitting at the desk and grabbed the paper.
Using the handwritten suggestions, I clicked on several of the buddy profiles until I found one that seemed to be the best match for me. His name was Charley17.
The profiles were nothing more than a list of favorite authors, books, and genres. There was an optional ABOUT field and a place for you to put a profile picture that could, of course, be anything that you wanted.
Charley17’s profile picture was what appeared to be a stock image of a stack of books. According to the profile, Charley17 was an “Introverted book lover looking for a friend”.
After a brief moment of hesitation, I sent a buddy request.
I opened up a new browser window, and before the page was fully loaded, I heard an alert come through the speaker on my computer.
I clicked back to the Reading Buddy site and saw that I had a new message. With a click of the mouse, I opened the message folder.
CHARLEY17 ACCEPTED YOUR BUDDY REQUEST.
I reminded myself that the purpose of joining The Reading Buddy site was to fulfill the third step toward obtaining my goal. Reading books with Charley17 was preparation for making a real friend. With my progress chart in hand, I surveyed my room. I loved werewolf movies, and the walls were nearly covered with lycan related posters. There was an empty spot on the wall next to my desk so that is where I tacked the chart. Finally, I put a sticker next to step three. I was halfway there.
THE FINAL WEEK OF SUMMER vacation flew by, and, during that time, I would often wander alone through the land around the house.
I made my way down the dusty roads that cut through the fields. Some of the roads were nothing more that two tire tracks that led through the grass.
For the twelve years that I had lived in Ridge Spring, I had been surrounded by wide hay fields and crowded cow pastures. Now, the hops and scuppernongs that surrounded my new home were a welcomed change from what I was used to.
From where I stood in the field, instead of being surrounded by the color of dry straw, I saw healthy green vines that were growing along wire trellises.
Dad’s land neighbored that of an old farmer named Mr. Callaway.
As I walked by Mr. Callaway’s scuppernongs, I stopped briefly to peer down one of the long rows. I imagined being stuck in the field at night and not being able to find my way out.
I reached out my hand to a large cluster of the bronze-colored grapes and pulled one of them off the bunch. Even with all the times that I’d stayed at Dad’s house, I had never tasted a scuppernong. I popped the entire thing in my mouth. The skin was tough. The inside was slimy and full of seeds. It was horrible, and I spit the whole thing out.
I turned back toward Dad’s land and made my way down one of the rows of hops.
Apposed to the way that the scuppernongs grew on horizontal wires, the hop vines grew skyward. Like the scuppernongs, the hop vines were supported on wires, but these were attached to cedar poles that were at least twice my height.
The vines were covered in green leaves and little pinecone-looking things—the hops. No, I didn’t taste one of them. I knew that they were not for eating. They were grown for adding to the various beers that Dad made in his brewery.
Finally, I found my way to a clearing that butted up to the corner of Mr. Callaway’s scuppernong field, Dad’s hop yard, and a dense set of woods. A pile of board and tin lay in the middle of the grass. It was the remnants of an old building. A large tree stood in the center of the land next to the pile of rubble. I made my way over to the tree and flopped down onto the ground next to a large, exposed root.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened the Reading Buddy app. In addition to the current e-book that Charley17 and I had downloaded from the site’s extensive library, the app had a list of our reading history, a message folder, and a status symbol that would indicate if your reading buddy was online or not. Green meant yes and red meant no.
With my finger, I tapped the cover image of the book that we were currently reading. The book opened to the page that I had bookmarked.
The app was designed so that I could see Charley17’s progress being made in yellow highlights, while he could see mine in blue. He was just a few pages ahead of me.
If one of us wanted to comment on a particular passage, all we had to do was highlight the words by tapping the screen and dragging. Then a message box would pop up. Inside this box was where comments could be typed and sent to each other. It was just like texting.
Even though I had been hesitant about the Reading Buddy pr
ogram at first, it hadn’t taken long for me to start enjoying it. When I was reading books with Charley17, in a weird kind of way, I felt like it was the spirit of Davey that I was communicating with through the vast space of pixels and code. And I knew that, as long as I didn’t know the real identity of Charley17, I could hold on to this fantasy that I had created.
I barely got through ten pages of the book before my concentration was broken by the approaching rumble of a diesel pickup. I looked over my shoulder. I didn’t see a truck, but I did see a girl that was standing at the end of one of the rows of scuppernongs. The girl appeared to be about my age. She was wearing a pair of denim coveralls. Her brown hair had been braided into two long pigtails. She was wearing a purple fanny pack around her hips. She was looking straight at me.
I noticed that she held a bunch of scuppernongs in her right hand. She put one of the grapes into her mouth and spit it out a moment later. After she did the same thing again, I realized what she was doing. She was only spitting out the hull and seeds.
Just the day before, Mrs. Reynolds told me that, in order to work toward the ultimate goal of overcoming my anxiety, I should start trying to make small talk with people. “Put yourself in social situations. Interact with others. The more you avoid it, the worse it will become,” she’d said.
Now, I was in the perfect situation to practice. There was no one watching. If I embarrassed myself, it would only be to one person instead of a group. But as much as I wanted to speak to the girl, I couldn’t make myself do it. It was like another person was inside of me trying to get out.
The pickup emerged from the farthest row of scuppernongs and stopped. I couldn’t see the driver because of the glare of the sun on the windshield. The girl turned around, went to the truck, and climbed into the back. The truck and the girl disappeared through the trees. I had missed my chance. All the way home I felt the weight of self disappointment grow heavier with every step that I took.
Inside the house, the table was set with two plates and two glasses of water. I sat at one end of the table, and Dad sat at the other. When Destiny wasn’t there, it was how we always ate dinner. I had a feeling that, before I moved in, my end of the table had been used as a place for Dad to throw his mail.
“So I guess this is it,” Dad held his arms out to each side, “your last supper.”
“What?” The comment had taken me by surprise. Then I realized the punch line to the awful joke—the next day I was starting school.
He laughed. “Tomorrow is a big day for you.”
Just the previous day, Mrs. Reynolds had said that she was impressed with the progress that I had made over the summer. She was confident that I was ready to “take action”. I was ready to make friends.
That night, after I’d gone to my room, I opened the Reading Buddy app and realized that I had a new message.
DO YOU LIKE HER?
The question caused my heart to jump. For some reason, all I could think about was the girl in the field. Then I realized that Charley17 wasn’t talking about her. He was referring to a character in the book.
Charley17 was nearly a hundred pages ahead of me. I thought about trying to catch up, but I knew that I should try to get some sleep. I logged off the site, left the question hanging, and turned over onto my side facing the wall.
Sleep didn’t come to me easy that night. Instead, the image of the girl in the field kept me up.
Tomorrow would be a new day, I told myself. I would start fresh. Lying in bed with the nearly full moon shining through the curtains, I told myself this—it was time to take action. When I went to school the next day, I would make a friend.
Even if it killed me.
chapter four
I AM A BLANK SLATE.
That is what I kept trying to tell myself on the way to school.
I was in the passenger seat, and Dad was driving.
But really I wasn’t. A blank slate, I mean. The truth of the matter was that most of my new classmates had probably already searched my name on the internet. I was the new kid. They would have wanted to know everything that they could about me. My best friend’s murder and the death of my step-dad had been all over the news.
The idea of strangers looking into my past made me even more anxious than I already had been. I tried to push all of those thoughts aside and focus on the here and now.
I understood that there was no sense in trying to hide what happened. I was just another kid with a messed up past. These days we’re a dime a dozen. The only thing that mattered was how I presented myself.
In my mind, I could fall into one of three categories.
One—I could be cool and collected.
Two—I could use my past as a great way to gain some sympathy. Maybe even from a girl.
Or three—I could be the quiet loner who may or may not be a head case because of the things that he had witnessed.
To simplify things even further, I could either fit in or I could be ostracized.
I had one chance to prove myself. First impressions mean a lot, especially when you’re seventeen.
“I’m proud of you, son.” Dad spoke up from behind the steering wheel. “There’s something about you that seems different today. It’s like you’re... normal.”
I turned my head to look at him. “What is that supposed to mean?” I pinched my eyebrows in confusion.
“I just mean you seem relaxed. It’s like you’re not even nervous.”
“I’m not,” I told him and shrugged my shoulders.
But really I was wearing a mask of confidence. Inside, I was a tightly wound ball of nerves.
And I wasn’t comfortable with the way I looked. I hadn’t had my hair cut since the spring, and it hung down over my ears in a shaggy, unkempt appearance. Recently, the acne on my face had gotten a hundred times worse.
Mrs. Reynolds said that people with social anxiety are afraid of others seeing their insecurities. I guess she’s right. She also told me that I should try not to worry about what other people thought of me. Instead, I should concentrate on genuinely getting to know them. Over the past few days I had been so nervous about starting school that I had gotten nausea-inducing headaches.
The truck had already made it all the way through town. Now, we were surrounded by freshly plowed fields. A barbed wire fence ran along the roadside.
“Blake, don’t get me wrong. It’s great that your being so positive and all, but...”
“Dad,” I stopped him. “If you don’t shut up I’m not going.”
“Okay. Okay.” He relented and let go of the steering wheel. He held both of his hands up in mock surrender.
The truck swerved and crossed over the yellow line in the middle of the road. There was a log truck coming our way.
“Dad,” I yelled.
His hands went back to the wheel, and he regained control of the truck, jerking it back into the right lane. He laughed, and the log truck barreled past us. The driver pressed down on the horn and flipped us off. “I’m just messing with you,” Dad said. “That wasn’t even close.”
“Why do you keep making jokes? It’s like you’re not even worried about me.”
“I’m just trying to treat you the way that I would want to be treated if I was in your situation,” he said.
Ahead, the school finally came into view.
Edgefield County High was surrounded by pines. Between the trees and the road, the twisted, pink branches of tall poke weeds reached into the fog-shrouded morning.
Dad steered the truck into the crowded parking lot and stopped.
“Good luck, Blake,” he said. “If things get to be too much, just give me a call, and I’ll be here in three shakes of a Billie goat’s tail.”
I got out of the truck and slammed the door. Behind me, I heard the truck pull away, finally leaving me on my own.
The building that loomed in front of me was a cinderblock structure that had turned gray with age and weather. A wrought-iron fence wrapped itself around the propert
y.
I made my way down the paved walkway that led to the front door.
Inside, a banner was stretched across the hallway announcing next week’s homecoming and Spirit Week. Every day would have its own theme—Inside Out Day, Stoplight Day, Inclement Weather Day, Super Hero Day, and finally, Team Spirit Day.
I felt like all eyes were on me. And they were. It wasn’t my imagination. I was fresh meat. Everybody was judging me. Everywhere I looked were faces that held knowing expressions. I pushed through the crowd and made my way toward my first period classroom.
The door was open so I went inside. The teacher was standing behind her desk with her arms crossed. Besides her, I was the only other person there. I went to the desk at the back corner and sat down.
Soon, the rest of the senior class began to trickle in. After the bell rang, the teacher, Mrs. Steinman, wanted us to introduce ourselves. The idea of speaking in front of the group caused my stomach to twist and rumble.
By the time that it was my turn, my hands were wet with sweat. I was shaking with nerves. I didn’t want the sound of my voice to tremble when I talked. My eyes darted around the room. Everybody was looking at me. They were waiting. I was taking too long.
“Blake,” I said with a cracking voice. “My name is Blake Thomas.” I felt my face turning red.
I didn’t speak to anybody for the rest of the morning.
At lunch there were empty chairs at some of the tables in the cafeteria, but I couldn’t force myself to sit and talk with strangers.
Instead, I went outside to a gravel area that was behind the building. A pair of vacant picnic tables were standing side by side. I sat down at the one on the left and noticed that someone had scratched some type of diagram in the wood. To me, it just looked like a jumbled mess of letters and marks.
With the day already half over, I had so far failed in my intentions of making a friend. I could only imagine what everybody thought about me and what they were saying. I knew that, if I didn’t do something soon, I would likely be facing an entire year of torment and ridicule.
