by A. L. Wood
I’m done pretending she doesn’t mean something to me. She wanted this, not me.
The bell rings, I run out of my History class before everyone else knowing that she’ll be leaving her Honors English class, which is only three doors down. I skid to a halt when I reach the door and it’s just opening, kids file out. A few are friends and they look at me strangely, because I’ve never met them at the door like I was waiting to walk to halls with them. “Hey,” I say in greeting so I don’t look like an ass just ignoring them but I’m not there for them.
Finally, the person I wanted to see makes her way out of the room, “Lyk,” I greet her.
She stops dead in her tracks.
Lyrik
What is he doing here and why is he saying my name? This is not part of our friendship. At school, we’re strangers and I like it that way. He’s popular, everyone wants to be him and if they can’t they want to be something to him. They have to surround him all the time and just watching his goons float around him suffocates me. I don’t want to be a part of it, I never have and he knows this. I just never told him why I didn’t want anyone to know that we’re friends. He’d be offended and probably get pissed like I’m saying I don’t like him when he damn well knows that I do.
I love him. He’s my best friend and the only person who actually knows me, but I didn’t sign up to be in the popular crowd. That’s not why we’re friends and beyond not wanting to smother in with the other high schoolers who idolize him, I don’t ever want him to second guess why I love him. I don’t want him to think I’m just here because I need to be a part of that crowd, that I’m using him like everyone else. I don’t have to be seen with him or to be talked about with him to be his friend. I’m friends with him because I want to be and there’s no other reason, but I see how fake everyone else is.
They don’t know him.
They don’t know that he doesn’t want to go to an Ivy League college, he doesn’t want to play sports or drive some fancy expensive car. They don’t know that he hates corn and loves broccoli, or that his favorite color is teal. Not green or blue, but both mixed. They don’t know that he wants to be a musician and that he sees words as music notes. That he is afraid to tell his parents who he wants to be because they might disown him and then he’ll have no family like me.
They don’t know that every night he climbs a tree to spend time with me. That he writes me letters and has since he was five. That he loves me too, and not because I follow him around like some groupie, but because he is himself.
They know nothing and I want it left that way.
High school is just something we have to do to get ahead in the world. If we want a job that’s worth our time we have to graduate, if we want to succeed, college would be a good start. I never want to struggle like I do now. If I ever have children I don’t want them to live the life I’ve had to. I want better.
I want more.
And I don’t want any of these people to know me. No one except Anson. I want to get by high school as fast as I can without any distractions. I don’t want to be seen. I want to remain in the shadows and Anson talking to me during school hours pulls me from those shadows.
I could hurt him right now.
“Excuse me?” I reply to him.
I hope I heard him wrong and maybe he’s talking to someone else.
He grins, “I said Lyk.”
Yeah, I got that. I was hoping you’d change your mind.
I scrunch my eyebrows and hope like hell he can read my face that says, don’t be doing this to me right now Anson Blake!
“Sit with me at lunch?”
What? No! What is he playing at?
Before I reply his idiotic friends do. “Yeah, Lyk-me he wants to know if you’ll join him for a pity lunch.” I forget his name, because well, he’s a moron and I don’t pay attention to the guys that follow him around. Only the girls. I know all of their names.
Anson ignores his friends, “Lyk just join me for lunch please?” He gives me those puppy eyes. Eyes that he knows I find hard to resist which is why he uses them all the time.
I give in, “Fine,” I huff.
One time. I can do this once. For him.
“Ha! She really thinks you want to eat lunch with her Anson,” his foolish friend nudges his arm, “Too bad she doesn’t know that you choose one person a month to have a pity lunch with, that you’re doing her a favor.”
My smile drops.
His friend continues, “Anson has lunch with a nerd once a month, different one every time, once you’re seen with him everyone wants to be your friend. He’s helping you so you should be saying thank you. After today everyone will want to be your friend. You might even get a date out of it if you’re lucky. Normally I would say you’d have no chance at getting a date, but there’s got to be someone around here who likes fat, brown haired boring nerds.”
My mouth drops open. I have never claimed to be some Barbie princess in the looks department. My hair is a dull brown, my eyes are the same, puberty has given me curves in places most girls here don’t have, and yeah, I might have some weight on these bones, but I have never pretended I was beautiful. I’m me. I love who I am, but I am honest with myself. One day someone will appreciate me for the me that I am. I don’t need some fool spouting off to me how I’m fat and a nobody who should be oh so thankful to the popular kid, Anson for extending his touch to me.
Fuck that.
Anson says nothing.
“You know what? I don’t need Golden Boys touch to get a date or to make friends,” I turn my head to glare at Anson, “I’m fine having no friends. A real friend would have your back all the time not let some dickhead sheep insult said best friend.” The bell rings for the next class and knowing Anson he’s going to be running to that room.
I’m not important enough to skip a class for or to be late for. Not when it comes to his grades and his parents and what they expect from him. No matter how much he and his friend just hurt me.
He might not have said those words, but he didn’t say anything either. That’s the problem. He decided it would be a great idea to talk to me, I didn’t. That’s why I put the rules in place, I knew what would happen. Instead he thinks he knows better, like always, and tries doing me a favor only to find out he does this often and this month he tried to bestow his touch to me in front of the entire school.
No fucking thanks.
“I’ve got to get to class,” Anson says.
“Go. Just go!” I yell then run away.
I stop at my locker, grab my backpack and run out the school doors without looking back.
Fuck Anson Blake.
I don’t need him to be my friend.
Anson
That could’ve gone better. Fucking Marcus, of course he had to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. He could’ve just walked away and let me talk to Lyrik on my own. I wasn’t using her as a pity lunch, I never did that. Marcus was lying. I might pretend to be an asshole a time or two in front of him, but I would never intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, bully or make anyone feel less than. If I hadn’t met Lyk I might have turned out to be an asshole like that, but she’s shown me what it’s like in another’s shoes.
I just wanted to ask her to lunch because I was tired of pretending that she doesn’t mean something to me. I love her and I want her to know that I love her in public as I do in private. That she means more to me than she thinks she does. That she’s not some dirty secret.
I want her to be mine.
I’m tired of pretending I don’t have feelings for her.
I’ve known her almost all of my life, of course I’ve gone on a few dates this year, but none of those girls meant anything to me. Lyrik is the only one I see and I want her to know that. Instead she gets upset because of Marcus and walks away.
My parents would ground me for the rest of the year if they find out I skipped a class and walked out of school but I can’t let Lyrik go.
“Dude, she wasn’t
some pity lunch. I don’t even do those. She’s my friend, my best friend.” I tell Marcus before running after her.
Lyrik
Sometimes I can’t believe him. That he would go and mess up eleven years’ worth of rules just to embarrass me and take pity on me. School staff never lock the East Wing doors, everyone knows that. This is the first time I’ve taken advantage of those doors being open though. I look behind me down the hall to make sure no one is out and about to witness my running out the double doors. The school hall is empty so I make a run for it.
The doors open easily, the sun hits my face and warms me, I pause to soak it in.
Behind me I hear the doors open in a rush.
Shit! It could be school staff. I run to the side of the old brick building then walk down the hill. Our school sits on a mound of land surrounded by four deep ditched hills on Main Street. I’m sure in another town our Main St. would look like a back street, it’s busy for us, one stop-light on the entire thing. Anyway, right after our school is a bridge, below it train tracks run through. The tracks are rarely used so usually that’s how Anson and I walk home from school. I make my getaway fast.
Once I reach the bottom of the hill I manage to walk seventy-five yards without being caught then walk down the embankment near the bridge. Once I reach the train tracks I won’t be visible.
I hold my breath while treading down the steep dirt incline. We’ve been walking this walk for years so what used to be a plant infested embankment now has a path. I reach the tracks in record time. I find myself just standing in the middle of the wooden planks. I don’t want to go home but I have nowhere else to go. Anson’s my only friend.
I don’t have anyone else.
Anson
She stands in the middle of the tracks with her eyes closed, she looks peaceful. I’m glad she didn’t run away and not take our route. That would’ve meant she was mad, real mad and I would’ve questioned if she’d ever speak to me again.
Except that she’s here.
In our spot.
On our tracks.
I watch her without saying a word for a minute. She’s so beautiful with long wavy brown hair, not that dull brown either but a chestnut color. When her eyes open they’re a deep shade of brown, dark like chocolate and her skin is flawless. Light peach with random spurts of freckles, she hates them, but I don’t. She has curves unlike other girls at our school, she’s becoming a woman like I’m becoming a man. It’s life.
And now that I’m not a kid anymore, I notice her.
I like her.
“Lyk, you shouldn’t have run away from me. I wanted to explain,” I break through the silence.
She opens her eyes, stares right through me.
I hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“We had the rules for a reason Anson. Remember? Because I’m not someone to pity, I don’t want to be popular and I don’t need to be seen with you. You are my best friend, you. Not these other fools. I don’t want to know them and I doubt they want to know me. Shit Anson, they don’t even know you like I do and they don’t deserve to, but you don’t get the choice to just decide that I want to be a part of your crowd all of a sudden. That’s not fair. What you did wasn’t right and I’m sure everyone will know that Anson Blake, the pretty boy, took pity on me and asked me to lunch. Lyrik, the weird girl, balked at his invite and ran away.”
“I’ll make it right, I promise I will. I’ll say that I asked you out and you said no. I’m sorry, I am. I’m just tired of pretending that we’re not friends.”
“That will only make things worse. Just leave it alone and it will go away. I can’t believe you just ignored the rules after all this time.”
Rules. Always about the rules. What kind of sixteen-year old’s friendship has rules? Oh, that’s right, ours does because we’re not normal.
“Maybe we should change some of the rules?” I suggest in a question.
“Why?”
“Because Lyk, we made those rules when we were eight. Eight years have passed, we’re teenagers now and I don’t think some of them would still apply.”
She doesn’t answer right away, instead she takes what I said and thinks about it for a moment. “Okay. But we can’t go home to do it. I do happen to have them in a notebook in my bag.” She lifts her arm showcasing her heavy bag.
I know just the spot.
Lyrik
We walk down the tracks a little until this concrete slab comes into view. “We can climb up that from behind, it’s all dirt back there.”
The slab sits along the tracks, has trees on top of it, so it has to have been here for many years. He leads me up, it’s just another rocky incline and we’re sitting on the top with our feet hanging over the ledge.
“The rules?” He asks.
I pull out the notebook that has them right in the front. It might sound childish, but once we made those rules I’ve written them at least one hundred times into each new notebook that I’ve got or bought. It’s a stark reminder that even though Anson is my best friend we have rules. I open the notebook and flip the page over. There in my handwriting is all ten rules that we wrote eight years ago.
Rules that hadn’t been broken until today.
Rules for our friendship
1. No talking in school. Ever.
2. No holding hands.
3. No hugs.
4. No kisses.
5. No talking about each other.
6. No sharing secrets.
7. No stealing Lyrik’s Reese’s Pieces.
8. No stealing Anson’s Snickers.
9. No talking in school. Ever.
10. Never tell anyone that we’re friends.
I laugh because I always stole Anson’s Snickers and he always stole my Reese’s.
I hand Anson the notebook so he could read them too.
“I don’t think we even need these rules anymore Lyk. We wrote these forever ago, we’re older. Then we thought that cooties was a real thing, but it’s not. We found out the next year after you were scared you got them from me because I accidentally touched your hand and you went to the nurse’s office. Can’t we just rip them up and not have rules?”
“Having rules is how our friendship has worked so well, don’t you think? Girls and boys never stay just friends and we found a way to beat that. We’ve been friends forever, how many people do you know have stayed friends that were the opposite sex? I’ve read about it Anson. It just doesn’t work. One usually gets feelings while the other doesn’t. Rules set boundaries that can’t be crossed. I think we should have them. We need them.”
I like rules.
My entire life is out of control, at home with my parents.
I need this one thing. One small thing in my life that I do have a say in. That I can control. Anson pulls a pen out of his bag and flips the page in the notebook to a fresh one.
“Fine. Rules. Have it your way Lyk.”
When he’s done writing he tosses the notebook in my lap, grabs his bag and walks down the back of the concrete slab.
He leaves.
I read what he wrote.
Rules for our friendship
1. Don’t ever talk to Lyrik in school.
2. Don’t ever touch or hold Lyrik’s hand.
3. Don’t hug Lyrik.
4. Don’t kiss Lyrik.
5. Don’t talk about Lyrik.
6. Don’t tell Lyrik’s secrets.
7. Don’t steal Lyrik’s Reese’s Pieces.
8. Don’t ever talk to Lyrik in school.
9. Never tell anyone that Lyrik is my best friend.
He gave me his Snickers.
August 28th 2009
Age: Seventeen
Lyrik
I love him. I shouldn’t, but I do. He’s not just my best friend but more, I mean, I want him to be more but don’t know how to tell him. Last year he wrote those new rules but they weren’t for me, they were all for him. I read those rules again and again a thousand times t
rying to figure out what he meant by that and all I could think was maybe he was trying to tell me that he wanted more, but didn’t dare ask for more because I mentioned boys and girls couldn’t be friends. That one would always have feelings.
Maybe he was the one who had feelings and I just trampled on them. So, he wrote rules for himself about me. I want to ask, but every time I get the courage to I become speechless.
“So, what did you think?” Anson pulls me out of my thoughts.
We’re in his room, I’m lying on his bed while he plays his guitar as always. He never sings to me though, at most he just hums along with the melody. I wish he would sing though, his voice sounds nice when he hums and I want to know what he’s making a song about. I can’t guess by just chords, I want all of his words and I want them now.
“I like it, but why don’t you ever sing?”
He coughs, surprised that I asked him about singing I guess. I never ask. I just let him be. That’s how our friendship is. We are just there for each other, all the time through everything. We never question each other, never have judgements. We just support and listen….and I love.
“I didn’t know that you wanted me to sing.”
“Of course, I do. You always play these songs but just hum along, I want to know what the song is about, I want to hear the lyrics.”
“Well I don’t really have lyrics, yet. Just an idea. Humming helps me find the rhythm that words would take with the chords. That’s all.”
“Well if you can’t sing just tell me what that song was about.”
“It’s about love,” he says quietly, if I wasn’t trying to listen so hard I would’ve missed what he said, “it’s about being in love with someone and them not loving you back.”
“But you’re only seventeen, how do you know what love is?”
How do I know what love is?
“It doesn’t matter how old I am. I just know. It’s about appreciating the person you love, finding beauty in everything they do. Wanting to make them happy, wanting to take care of them and wanting to hurt anyone who makes them hurt. That’s part of what love is.”
