I took a deep breath and exited my car slowly. I now have to face them and actually make conversation. We walked towards the movie theater. "Do you even go to Jordan?" asked one of the girls. I looked around for a second to make sure she was talking to me, as if there might have been someone else nearby that she could be talking to. "Yeah, why?" I asked. Was that the right thing to say back? That's being involved in the conversation right? "It's just that I've never seen you around before." replied the girl. What do I say now? Sorry you've never seen me before? No, that's dumb. Don't apologize for being a hidden and nameless face in the hall. I try very hard to go unnoticed.
Wait a second! Who am I even talking to? I hadn't taken my eyes off my shoes and the dirty sidewalk since I walked out of my car. I hadn't even bothered to look at who is actually talking to me. I figured I should at least glace at the person who is quizzing me on my participation in school. I looked up and the first thing I saw was a brick pillar, smothered in old gum. I looked to my right. Strangers. I looked to my left, nobody. Where the hell did everyone go? "Behind you, dumbass," said Damon. I heard the girls giggle. Great. Now I look like a dumbass. I'm making an awesome first impression. I must have looked like an awkward autistic kid, always keeping quiet, avoiding eye contact, and making below-average-intelligence decisions. I turned to see Damon with a girl at each side of him. One was a short blonde girl with a nice smile and big blue eyes. The other was a short, but plain looking girl in glasses, brown hair, freckles and with a giant grin on her face. I've never seen them before. How does Damon know these girls? They are pretty good looking. Not to say Damon couldn't get attractive women to hang out with him. I guess I just wasn't expecting attractive girls to be around me.
"So Damon tells me you're in a band. What instrument do you play?" asked the brown haired girl. "Drums. It's cool." I replied. I felt like an idiot. She smiled and said "Are you excited for the movie? I've always wanted to see this. I hear it's way scary." I flatly replied, "The movie looks ridiculous. At the very least I'll get a good laugh out of the crappy plot or bad acting." The blonde girl turned and raised her eyebrow at me. Smooth move. Maybe I can also talk to her about my love for Star Wars and Star Trek, or maybe even tell her that Taco Bell almost makes me crap my pants every time I eat there. Maybe I'll ask her to feel my armpits for strange bumps to check for cancer. I am not good at this whole conversation thing. How does Damon do this? He makes it seem so easy and smooth. Here I am looking like a cynical jackass.....Well I was/am. But I even knew back then that a cynical personality was effective girl repellant. I needed to shape up, if not for my sake, for Damon's sake at least. I don't have to take him down with me. "I'm sorry I have a bad memory but I don't remember, what were your names again?" I asked innocently. I still have a chance to save my sinking ship if I act nice enough. "Heidi." said the brown haired girl. "Brittany," said the blonde. Ok, I can remember that. Heidi is the one talking to me, Brittany is the the one giving me looks as if I'm from another planet. Got it.
We started walking to our seats. Damon and I were walking ahead of them exchanging witty banter about the potential crappiness of the film we were about to sit through. Behind us the girls whispered very quietly. I was certain they were planning to bail on us. Any moment I figured one of them would make an excuse about a beloved animal suddenly dropping dead at home or they just remembered they had to wash each others hair that night. I blew it for both of us, I knew it! Damon picked our seats in a nearly empty theater. We shuffled toward the middle of a row towards the back. As we shuffled, I silently waited for the bail-out excuse. But there was none to be had. The girls looked at each other, giving one another dirty looks. "Here it comes," I thought. They were just deciding who was going to break the excuse. But instead, one stepped in front of me to stand on one side of me and the other passed Damon to sit on my other side. What the hell? Are they trying to make a girl-boy-girl-boy pattern? Why? Damon shot me a confused glance. I just shrugged and sat down. To my left, Heidi sat their looking at me nervously. To my right, Brittany looked at me smiling. She winked at me. Who does that? Who winks anymore? What does that mean? I panicked. I'm sitting between two girls whom I've never met before and they are acting weird. I bet I got something stuck in my hair! Or did Damon slap a sign on my back again? He was notorious for doing that. This was just too weird. I tried to run my fingers casually through my hair to check for paper or popcorn or whatever might have gotten stuck in my shaggy afro. Nothing. I scratched my back as if to have an itch to check for a sign. Nothing. Everyone got eerily silent. Something just happened and I wasn't getting it. The girls knew. Damon knew. I didn't.
After fielding a few more awkward questions about myself between Heidi and Brittany, the movie finally started. Finally! I had never been so excited for a bad movie to start. These questions and weird behaviors were freaking me out. Damon hardly said a word the past 15 minutes. Why aren't they asking him anything? He actually knows how to communicate! As the movie rolled on, so did the awkward times. Brittany kept asking me questions about the movie and what I thought would happen next. I just kept replying "I don't know," even though I knew perfectly well what was going to happen next. The movie was predictable and shitty. I didn't want to say anything and ruin the movie. As far as I knew, girls hated that sort of thing. Heidi kept on leaning in close to me to ask how I was doing or asked if I was scared yet. I kept replying I'm fine although I was most certainly not fine on the inside. In my head all I could think was "What the fuck is going on and what do I do?" I was freaking out. How do I interpret this needlessly complicated girl language? Halfway through the movie Brittany nudged my hand with her hand. I withdrew it thinking I was just in the way of her comfortable armrest. I turned and said "Sorry." She raised her eyebrow again at me and then shot me a dirty look. She turned to watch the movie again. I was perplexed. I apologized for being in the way of her comfort, what more does she want? What's her problem? At that moment, Heidi snatched up my hand into hers. I turned to look at her. She wouldn't look at me, she just kept watching the movie casually. Is this real? What do I do? My palms instantly started producing sweat in mass quantities. "Is this first base?" I thought. No that's stupid. First base is kissing right? No, no, this is definitely second base. Isn't it? She let go of my hand after a couple of minutes. I soaked her hand in nervous sweat. She then put her hand on my thigh. Oh shit, this is like third base isn't it? No, that can't be right. Where does a kiss fit in the ballpark then? Is that the home-run? I then wished I had paid more attention to Branden and Kyle's stories of conquest and knew more about baseball. Suddenly, the movie produced a loud noise. Heidi screamed and clung on to me.
Great, another challenge. Now what do I do? Do I comfort her and tell her what she is afraid of is nothing more than a loud noise during a silent scene to make up for weak plot content?
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