#continuing to call Nick 'Mr.' is so oddly on brand for him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

openparadox294 · 6 years

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Ch 1

I remember exactly what I wore my first day of high school. A green shirt that clung to my waist and was loose on my stomach, a brown leather jacket, jeans, and brand new white pumas. I remember feelings weird about the fact that my shoes stood out way too much against the color of my jeans.

When mom dropped me off, I begged her to let me stay because I felt sick and I definitely wasn't ready to take on high school yet, but I got out of our shitty purple Eclipse and began the journey to find locker 101. All the lockers were supposed to be lined in numerical order, I saw 102 and 103 but I couldn't find my own, so instead of being late to the 'welcome' assembly, I decided I'd continue the search afterwards.

I hadn't been in the gym since that spring for cheerleading tryouts, that was an epic fail. One thing that stands out about myself to this day, is how incredibly awkward I am. Let me give you a clue as to how my tryout went. You know how people sit in circles at camp introduce themselves and get to know each other? Well, while all these girls sat in their circle, I sat against the wall - even after they invited me to sit with them numerous times.

So here I am in this gym again, late, with nowhere to sit because the only people I knew were the boys who bullied me in middle school. Even if I wanted to sit with them, I wouldn't risk falling up the bleachers to find them. So once again, I say against the wall next to the teachers, watching the cheerleaders finish the fight song.

By the time the assembly was over, I had literal beads of sweat pouring down my back so I tightened my bag straps to hide any possible sweat marks from being seen by anyone behind me. I eventually found a teacher to show me my locker and naturally, he looked at me like I was crazy. "They go in numerical order, yours is around the corner," he said before I explained I had already been down that hall and couldn't find it. So he followed me and there it was. Right next to 102 and 103. I still don't understand how I never saw it to begin with. I opened my locker with the combination after several failed attempts and put my shit away before walking to my seminar class for announcements in Mrs. Brown's class. She was quirky and wore chunky necklaces that looked like they were made by kindergarteners, I decided this was where I would spend my lunch period until I made some friends.

My first hour class was English with Miss Birch, who was also the cheer coach, nice. Moving on to second hour Biology with Mr. Audio, who had a nice face and a great butt. I sat behind a girl in a red sweatshirt and complimented her messy bun, she complimented me back which gave me hope for making friends. Mr. Audio called attendance and I learned the girls name was Katherine. Everyone was in class besides one student, "Stephen Stockholm?" He called out and another boy, built like a bear, named Josh told him that he was probably lost in another class from falling asleep. Apparently this was a reasonable explanation for Mr. A because he didn't seem surprised at all.

The second morning or school went just the same, but when I got to biology, there were two new boys at a lab table. One was named Danny, he was tall and wore jean shorts with a wife beater and blue Jordan's. The other guy was skinny and blonde, he dressed like a skater and looked as though he could fall asleep at any moment. "Stephen, nice to see you today," the skinny boy looked up and smiled, "what's up, Mr.Shoe?" (Audio's are a brand of skating shoes. I knew this and thought it was pretty clever.) So this is Stephen. He talked with long S's and a nervous shakiness in his voice. He and Katherine kept making the heart symbol at each other with their hands. She would look back at me and roll her eyes laughing. "He's so dumb" she always that. I asked her if they were a 'thing'.. they weren't. I watched him and he always caught me.

Katherine, Josh, Stephen, and I all sat at the same lab table, reading along and taking notes. Stephen didn't have his book and wasn't paying attention anyways. "Who are you?" He was staring right at me. "Mariah Ayres" I told him. I felt strange when he repeated it back to me, pronouncing my last name completely different, "Mariah Ayr-resss" is how he chose to say it from then on. Josh and Katherine told him to stop being weird and Stephen responded by calling Katherine and bitch and laughing with Josh.

I kept trying to avoid eye contact with Stephen but every time I looked, he was staring at me. "Ayr-resss" is all he would say. Katherine and Josh would just watch him watch me, but he continued to flirt with Katherine.

He walked by at lunch and for some reason I decided to flip him off, that apparently became our thing once I assured him it was a joke after he approached me asking if I was serious with a whole lot of sadness in his voice.

The next biology class we spent most of the time partnered up doing bookwork, I was with Katherine, who was already my best friend and constantly rejecting Stephen's affection. He and I were getting along and exchanging middle fingers with each other where he sat at the opposite lab table with Josh. Stephen would still randomly say my last name, smile, and shoot Katherine heart hands.

I finally had to ask, "why don't you like him? He's so awkward and adorable towards you!" Her answer surprised me and caught me off guard because she responded with her own question, "a better question would be why do YOU like him, Mariah?" I tried to laugh it off but it was hard because I ended up thinking about it all day, I only ever hugged him in the halls after he bombarded us both with one everyday after lunch, which became routine.

It's time to introduce one of my favorite people. Cat was in my Spanish class, which was usually right after lunch, depending on the day. Probably into our second week of school, Katherine was already dating cats ex-boyfriend, Bryan. Cat hated Katherine, (only because Katherine hated her for no reason at all). By this time I was starting to realize how petty Katherine could be.. considering she would scream "slut"out of the car window at Cat when her cousin, Richie would pick us up after school.

"why do you do that? She's not bad at all,"

"I don't know," she laughed about it, "she's just Bryan's ex"

Made perfect sense to me. Not really, I didn't hate people without a reason until I was older and everything started to suck. I actually really liked Cat and we both disliked our Spanish teacher, Ms. Snottface.. we just clicked.

This weekend would be when Katherine and I decided to go to Jessie's house to hang out with Brian, Dylan, and Nick. Jesse was seeing a girl named Amber and they were all a rich either the entire night. Meanwhile Katherine and Brian were obviously together while Dylan tried to snuggle up to me. They were all video game crazed and nerdy but super funny 24/7 so it wasn't all bad. I don't even remember what Nick was doing, he was solo. At some point the guys decided to lick Amber and Katherine's faces for whatever reason so I looked at Dylan and said, "yeah don't." It was awkward. I liked Dylan but honestly figured he'd be better friend-zoned, and a week later, that's what he was.

Miss Birch announced we were getting a transfer into her English class. It was cat and I made her sit by me, behind Dylan, and next Amber. Jesse was also in this class with us. You can imagine how often we were all told to stop talking, it was great I had a lot of friends and these were my people. We didn't have any drama, in fact I had more drama at lunch sitting with Catherine than I did sitting in two classes with Cat. She and I became Eskimo Besties, because we had hoodies on regardless of the temperature inside or out. Still a nickname we go by, several years later.

Homecoming was approaching and of Katherine was constantly on my case about going, she was obviously linked up with Bryan but I turned down anyone who asked me. The idea of having a date made me feel gross, I didn't want to be obligated to dance with someone and that's exactly how it felt once I finally decided to go with Justin. I knew Justin from kindergarten, we were each other's first kiss and we were always getting in trouble for it. Oddly enough, now kissing freaked me out just as much as a school dance because one time this boy named Novice, tried to kiss me in 6th grade and I practically choked on his tongue, obviously not expecting it to be in my mouth. Long story short, I passed out and when I came to.. I was covered in slobber and called my dad crying. Yeah. Hell of a guy.

I told Justin we could go together but I didn't want to dance with him because again, the obligation. And my awkwardness. He agreed that it was fine and got his black tux with purple detail. (btw, he also took another girl I knew from a different school to her homecoming in the same tux the next week, I later found out). Katherine wore a silver and blue dress that looked like a short version of Cinderella's ball gown. But you could see through Katherine's, straight to her polkadot underwear. I wore the same sparkly black dress that I wore to my 8th grade graduation, it was over 8 years old because my sister wore it to her homecoming too. Justin got me an ugly necklace made of metal that matched his tux. It literally made me want to puke when he put it on me, I hated when guys would buy me things. I once broke up with a boy for buying me chocolates one year.

We took pictures and I was too nerved up to eat, so we went to the dance. Justin was exceptionally douchey about me not dancing with him so I took one for the team and did my hoe thing by using him as an object to dance on. Not my proudest moment, but hey. We all make mistakes. I distinctly remember him having an "uncontrollable reaction" to this altercation but he swore it was his phone in his pocket.

Once the slow songs came on, I booked it to the nearest door outside until Bryan and Katherine came to tell me Justin was acting like a baby back bitch because I wouldn't dance with him. I went to find him, literally called him a bitch and then kissed him before I brought him back out to the dance floor. We slow danced and it was horrible,I went too fast and he needed up running to the bathroom. I suppose the strobe lights and my fast feet made him throw up because that's exactly what happened. I ran into Cat on my way out to leave, she told me about how her boyfriend JT wouldn't kiss her after a month of them dating. He then became infamous "Pussy Boy" who isn't very important these days, however he did start all kinds of shit when they called it quits.

Homecoming was short lived and the excitement died off. I was hoping nothing would come of Justin and I, but he followed me around for weeks. Always touching me, putting his things in my locker, texting me nonstop. We were never even dating. At any point. Things went sour once he got pissy over us not dating when he posted all over Facebook that I had a mustache and horrid breath. The mustache part was true but he was definitely the one with ass breath.

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