Chapter 1

We introduce some of the important characters here. You know, usual first chapter stuff.

Chapter 1

     “Hey, can I borrow a pen?”

     I looked up from my desk to see the kid in front of me turned around, waiting for an answer.

     “Um… Yeah, sure.” I reached into my pocket and grabbed an extra pen. “Here.”

     “Thanks,” he said. He took and put it on the empty desk next to him. “Here. Just ask him next time.”

     I blinked, like the kind of blink a person does when waking up, or maybe the kind of blink a person gives when a response is expected but you can’t really think of anything to say. I looked over to the empty desk with my pen on it, then back to the kid in front of me. He rolled his eyes.

     “She hates asking for things. Stubborn girl.”

     That was my first experience with Daniel.

☺☺☺

     That first day of tenth grade didn’t seem like much then. I’m sure I just shrugged it off and thought whatever or something like that.

     A couple of days later I was in lunch and noticed him again, sitting alone. He was talking and laughing, though. At least, that’s what it looked like from across the room. Maybe he was talking to someone on a cell phone. Or maybe he was nuts, I wasn’t sure.

     “What are you looking at?” my girlfriend asked.

     I nodded towards Daniel’s direction. “What’s up with him?”

     “Who?” She turned around and laughed when she saw who I was talking about. “Oh, Daniel. I dunno. He’s a little weird.”

     “Yeah, but like what specifically?”

     “He talks to himself.”

     “Is he crazy?”

     “I dunno. Maybe he sees ghosts. Or thinks he sees ghosts and is having a chat with them.”

     “Does he have any friends?”

     “What, like ghost friends?”

     “Like living friends.”

     “Oh. No. Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”

     I looked towards Daniel again. Who was he talking to?

     “Jim?” she asked, nudging me in the shoulder.

     “Yeah, Claire?”

     “Everything okay?”

     I kept staring at Daniel. I really didn’t have an opinion about him. Kids in high school all did weird stuff. And I’ve seen enough social outcasts that something like talking to yourself didn’t really stand out much. Well actually, that’s a lie. I’ve always wondered what a person would have to do to become so lonely as to talk to himself or a made up person.

     “Jim?”

     I turned towards Claire and smiled. “Yup, everything’s fine. Just never noticed Daniel before.”

     We went through the rest of lunch normally, but when we walked out of the cafeteria I noticed Daniel hugging the air and waving goodbye to someone. It was, well, interesting, to say the least, but I was 15, decided I didn’t care enough, and just shrugged it off again.

☺☺☺

     “So that was a little weird, today.”

     “What was?”

     “That Daniel kid.” Apparently I did care enough because his oddities never left my mind for the rest of the day.

     “Oh. Yeah, what was up? You kept staring at him all through lunch.”

     “I dunno.” I held the phone between my cheek and shoulder while I was clipping my toenails, trying to think of a better answer. “He looked lonely, I guess.”

     “Did you want to invite him over to our table? You could have, you know.”

     “Not particularly, I just… I dunno.”

     “You sure you’re okay?”

     “Yeah... but you ever look at kids like Daniel and wonder what they did to make them, you know, weird? Like outcasts?” I clipped too deep on my big toe; it started bleeding.

     “Not really. Why, do you?”

     I shrugged, not that she could see me doing it. “Sometimes.” I grabbed a tissue from my nightstand and blotted the bleeding toe. “Sometimes I just want to know what happened to them. Like if they did something wrong. So I could know what not to do to lose people.”

     “Are you talking about Jess?”

     “No.”

     “Don’t lie to me, Jim.”

     I sighed. “Yes.”

     “She was a b***h, Jim. A cheating skank. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

     I smiled a little, not that Claire could see it. I think she knew, though. Claire was cool like that. “Thanks.”

     “You’re welcome. And I’m not a cheating skank, Jim.”

     “I know.”

     “You sure?”

     “Yeah.”

     “You sure you’re sure?”

     “I am sure I’m sure.”

     “Good,” she giggled. “Well I’m going to go to bed now. I’ll meet you before homeroom?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Okay, good. Good night.”

     “Wait, let me ask you something first.”

     “What is it?”

     “If I was doing something wrong, you would tell me, right?”

     I thought I heard Claire give a little sigh over the phone, but I couldn’t tell if it was from her or from me, immediately regretting asking. “Yes, Jim. Love you.”

     “Love you, too.” We hung up and I put the charger in the phone. I’ve had to charge my phone every day since we’d started dating. Who knew a two-hour phone call every night and countless texts during the day could drain a battery so fast?

☺☺☺

     “Here you go. Phoebe says thanks for the pen.”

     I looked up from my desk to find Daniel looming over it, holding out the pen that I had completely forgotten about. “Um, thanks,” I said as I took it from him.

     “Thank her, not me.”

     I really wasn’t sure what to do, so I slowly turned towards Phoebe’s empty desk. “Thanks.”

     “Who are you talking to?” Daniel asked with a quizzical look on his face.

     “… Phoebe.”

     “She’s sick today. There’s no one there.”

     I nodded. Slowly. “Of course.”

     “Or maybe she’s cutting. She’s super smart, sometimes she gets bored with school. She should be a year ahead of us, but she insisted on staying behind so she could hang out with me. Isn’t that the nicest thing you’ve ever heard?”

     “Yeah, that’s really nice.”

     If it were true.

     Daniel turned around when the bell rang. Our teacher started the lesson, but I didn’t really care because, well, I was 15. Instead, I just stared out into space, which I guess was the back of Daniel’s black hair. Which eventually turned into observing just what it is that Daniel did.

     Every five minutes he would receive a text message. He snuck his phone out underneath the desk and typed something back. I’m assuming it was from Phoebe, or at least that was the image he wanted to project. He would always laugh a little when he “received” a message, too. I don’t know if he was typing messages to himself or just pretending he received something, but anyone that wasn’t aware of his problem could easily assume he was talking with somebody else.

     He did get glances from other people, though. Not as many as I thought; I guess the rest either didn’t care or were already aware of Daniel’s eccentric behavior.

     Daniel drew a lot in between texts. I couldn’t tell at first, I could only tell that he was scribbling something, but I got up to sharpen my pencil halfway through class and glanced at what he was up to. It looked like he was drawing comics or cartoons. I couldn’t tell if he was drawing his own creations or copying existing ones.

     Normal, yes. Except every time I saw him drawing, he included both his and Phoebe’s signature.

     Lunches went the same as the first day. Daniel would be the first in the lunch line (or at least one of the first) and would carry two trays of food to his isolated table at the back of the cafeteria. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but halfway through he seemed to be arguing with his invisible friend. I assumed it was over the food; he tried shoving the tray over to her, as if he were a mother trying to force an anorexic teenage daughter to eat, then shook his head out of frustration and ate the second lunch.

     It was times like those that made me wonder if he was trying to convince other people that someone was there or if he was trying to fool himself.

     The strangest part of everything was the hug at the end of each lunch. Out of everything Daniel did, that stood out the most. I could almost understand the emotional need to make up a friend, but imitating a physical act to overcome loneliness, especially at his age, seemed frightening.

☺☺☺

     “So why don’t you just ask him?”

     “What, just go up and be like, ‘Hey Daniel, just wanted to make sure: you’re not talking to anyone, right?’”

     “Why not?”

     “Because that’s weird.”

     Claire and I were drinking iced coffee at the Starbucks in the mall (I don’t think it’s there anymore, but then again, that whole town changed since we were in high school). We were talking about how our classes were going after a week of sophomore year, but I guess I started talking about Daniel again.

     “What’s weird is how fascinated you are by him,” Claire said while wiping her mouth.

     “I’m not going to argue with you about that,” I said with a snort. “I agree, I shouldn’t care this much. He’s a weird guy. High school’s full of weird guys. I’m 15; I should just be able to shrug it off. Focus on more important things. Like you.”

     “Aww. Still weird.”

     “Agreed.”

     “Why don’t you invite him to lunch tomorrow?”

     “Why indeed.”

     “You wanna know what I think?”

     I took a long sip of my drink, stalling for an answer. Then I got a brain freeze.

     Claire sighed and shook her head. “Regardless of why you’re so fixed on this, the mystery is what’s grasping you. He’s a distant observation that you don’t actually deal with.”

     “So?”

     “So deal with him. Invite him over to our table. Spend time with him. I think you’re trying to find normalcy in him and you’re frustrated that you can’t. Once you can accept that he’s just some crazy, random guy you can leave this alone.”

     “Well, aren’t you smart.”

     “Well, yes I am.” We giggled and spent the rest of the afternoon doing couple stuff. It was ideas like those that I was glad I had a girlfriend that wanted to be a psychotherapist.

☺☺☺

     “Oh my God, I hate when you do this! You can be so embarrassing sometimes!”

     I walked into our classroom the next day to find Daniel yelling at the empty desk. I assumed Phoebe wasn’t sick today. I took a deep breath and walked to my seat, trying not to stare at the fictional fight.

     You know, if I were smarter, I wouldn’t have walked through the aisles between Phoebe and Daniel’s desks to get to mine. But I was 15, and 15 year olds don’t tend to be very smart. Especially at 8:00 in the morning.

     “Jim!” Daniel shouted as he grasped my arm. Couldn’t even make it to my seat.

     “Oh, Daniel,” I said with almost no enthusiasm, “how are you doing today.”

     “I’m pissed, Phoebe’s being a little spoiled b***h again.”

     “… Again?”

     “Because you are!” Daniel shouted back.

     I glanced around the room, trying to find anyone willing to pull me from this charade. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

     “All right, so you know how Phoebe was sick yesterday?”

     “… Sure.”

     “Well she’s trying to get me to do the homework she missed for her. Because she’s LAZY,” Daniel said as he turned towards his invisible friend, enunciating his words.

     “Um.”

     “No, I’m tired of doing things like that for you. Do it yourself.” Daniel shook his head and turned back to me. “I’m always doing favors for her. Sometimes I think she really doesn’t appreciate me.”

     “You wanna sit with me at lunch today?” I blurted out.

     Daniel tapped his finger on his chin and smiled. “You know what, yes, I do.” He turned back to his friend. “I’ll come back and sit with you once you’re ready to apologize.” He got up and left the classroom. I’m still not sure why; maybe he wanted to make a dramatic exit to end this scene from his lifelong play.

     I glanced towards the kid sitting on the other side of the empty desk. He was sighing. “You ever get creeped out ‘cause he’s always looking in your direction and talking nonsense?”

     The kid slowly turned towards me and nodded. “All the f*****g time.”

☺☺☺

     “So Daniel’s gonna eat lunch with us today.”

     “Aww, yay! I’m so glad you listened to me!” Claire gave me a peck on the cheek as we were walking to the lunchroom.

     “Just want to prepare you that he’s having a fight with Phoebe.”

     Claire giggled. “Oh?”

     “Yeah. She’s a little spoiled b***h, apparently.”

     “Maybe she’s so little that she’s microscopic. That’s why we can’t see her!” We both laughed.

     “That’s not funny,” I said with a grin.

     “It’s a little funny.”

     When we came to our seat, we found Daniel already there, waving to us. It was a little creepy how he knew where I sat. Our other friends had moved down the table; they eyed us, as if asking what the f**k?

     “Hey, Daniel,” I said as I sat down.

     “Hey, Jim. Thanks for letting me sit with you. I don’t know how I would have made it through lunch with just her,” Daniel said, rolling his eyes.

     There was an awkward silence before Claire stuck her hand out. “I’m Claire, nice to meet you.”

     “Hi, I’m Daniel,” he said as he shook her hand. “Are you Jim’s girlfriend?”

     “Yes,” she said while looking at me and smiling. “We’ve been dating for three months now.”

     “How’d you two meet?”

     “Well Claire and I sat next to each other in art all last year. We became friends, and…” I looked at her, into her azure eyes, eyes that almost looked like the twilight hour of dawn, and again I drew a blank. There was something about her that just sparked a feeling that I couldn’t really put into words. “I dunno. One day something just clicked.”

     “So like at the end of the school year?” Daniel asked.

     I counted the months on my fingers, but Claire already responded before I could finish.

     “Yes, it was right before school ended.”

     “Huh. Cool,” Daniel said.

     “So how about you and Phoebe?” Claire asked.

     “Oh, we’re just friends,” Daniel said. Then he spun around to face his usual table. “If she decides she wants to grow up!” he shouted. The whole cafeteria seemed to stop and focused its entire attention on us.

     He turned back to Claire. “We’re just having a little fight.”

     “Yeah, Jim told me.”

     “You guys are always… uh… hanging out and stuff, though. You mean there isn’t anything else going on there?”

     “Nah, we’ve just been best friends since like forever. It’d be weird if we weren’t like that.”

     I chose to be the bigger man and not make a comment on what was weird. “But like the hugging and everything. Normal friends don’t do that. Err, I mean, normally friends don’t do that. At least that often.”

     Daniel shrugged. “What can I say? She’s very attached to me.”

     “You know, attachment can be a bad thing,” Claire interjected.

     “How so?”

     “It can just… blur reality, I guess.”

     “Well I don’t have to worry about that. I’m as realistic as the next guy.”

     Claire and I just smiled and nodded as we watched Daniel believe what he was saying.

     “You guys wanna come hang out at my house after school today?”

     “… Sure,” we both answered at the same time.

Reviews

[selkietales]

Ahahaha this is great! Your characters are easy to relate to and imagine and I like how you incorporated the other students in the school and didn't just forget about them.

[paparapapa]

I love how the girlfriend's so supportive. :)) I'm definitely loving the characters and the story line so far. There were only a few typos that would be easily corrected. Great job on this one. :)