Josh
I hate school. I’m not good at it and I don’t get the point. I have no idea what I’m going to do once I graduate Healy High, but I can tell you that it sure as hell isn’t going to involve Algebra or Chemistry or the Gettysburg Address.
But I still try to do good. I mean, I don’t want to end up in summer school. It wasn’t so bad when I would go with Brandon. We would sit in the back row and make stupid jokes. But this summer Brandon won’t be around to make summer school less painful. He won’t be around to make Two-A-Days less painful.
He just won’t be around.
The other day I had to research this history paper that was already late, so I went down to the library during study hall to mess around on one of the computers. I have a computer at home and everything, but my brother is always screwing around on it or my mom is on it or whatever, so I figured I would just go down to the Healy High library and do my research there.
I was hoping someone from my class would be in there so we could joke around and make the whole research thing not so painful, even though most kids spend Study Hall in the auditorium where they let you talk. Maybe if there was some girl I knew in the library I could even get her to help me do the work. I’m always looking for someone to help me do the work.
But when I walked into the library, the only person in the whole entire place was Alice Franklin.
I didn’t see her when I walked in because she was sort of hidden in the back at a table behind some reference books no one hardly even uses anymore. I just saw her because I was walking around in that part of the library. She had some math homework in front of her.
It was weird because I just turned the corner and there she was. Sitting all alone at this table, her book open and this spiral notebook full of problems. She heard me come up, I guess, because she looked up and there we were, staring at each another.
She looked shocked to see me for a second, but that only lasted for a second. She mostly just stared at me. At first it was like she was just looking me over, and then maybe I think I saw her eyebrows sort of come together a little, like she was mad. But maybe almost like she was scared to get mad.
She knew I’d said she’d been texting Brandon. She knew everyone blamed Brandon’s death on her because of me. I mean, I don’t know who exactly told her I’d said anything, but it took about twenty seconds for everyone in Healy to find out about that, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.
I can’t believe I just stood there, looking at Alice like some big dummy. I don’t know what my face looked like. Alice took a deep breath and then when it came out it sounded all shaky. Real fast she stood up and slammed her books and held them across her chest and just walked past me. Real quickly, and she didn’t look at me either when she walked by.
I stood there for a second watching her go. Then Mrs. Long, the librarian, came up to me.
“Josh, honey, do you need some assistance?”
I nodded yes and told her about the paper, and then I followed her to the computers so she could look stuff up for me. I knew if I smiled and was real sweet, she would really help me out. It’s one of the perks of being me, I guess.
As Mrs. Long was typing stuff into one of the databases, my brain remembered this one time in middle school when Alice and me had been assigned to be partners for this autobiography project. By this time I was cool enough not to throw paper wads in her hair anymore, and we were sort of even friends.
“I really want to do our project on Vince Young,” I remembered telling her.
“Who is Vince Young?” Alice asked, and she wrinkled up her nose.
“Oh my God, Alice, how do you not know who Vince Young is?” I remembered how I pretended to pass out from the shock, and Alice had laughed that loud funny laugh she has.
But she gave in, and we did do our project on Vince Young. She even did almost all the work anyway and she wasn’t even nasty about it.
As Mrs. Long hummed and typed and talked, I just kept remembering that project. I kept thinking about how I made Alice laugh and how nice she had been about the whole thing.
The deal is, I know I’m dumb sometimes, but I try real hard most of the time not to be an asshole. And I guess that day in the library, I just felt like an asshole.