CHAPTER 20

Ruth

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GLENDALE HIGH HAS THIRTY times the number of students as my small town school. I’ve been with the same twenty-five kids my entire educated life. It’s my senior year. I’m new, and there are seven hundred in this year’s graduating class alone. Three thousand total in attendance. I do the math in my head as Lucy and I walk the five blocks of busy city street from our apartment to the entrance.

It’s the first day of the school year, so I should feel comforted that I’m not the only one figuring out my schedule, but it’s still overwhelming. The campus is huge. Multiple buildings surround an open quad that students cross and gather in as they make their way to class. Each section is at least three stories high, and I’m instantly lost in this massive penitentiary of learning. I watch as they lock the gate after the first bell, and keep my eyes on the tall fence locking us in.

“Hey, what’s up?” Lucy asks a passing student. “Do you know where the office is?”

I let her do the talking and follow in utter silence as my sister gabs with the rosy-cheeked brunette pointing us in the right direction. I wait for a while outside the admin door, marveling at her keen ability to make friends, but eventually go into the office on my own. I come back with our schedules and a map of the classrooms, but Lucy’s gone.

It doesn’t surprise me, so I head to class alone.

I come in late. Hardly anyone notices, including the teacher. I imagine new students are a dime a dozen here. There’s an open seat next to an Asian girl who is taking notes on graph paper. I sit next to her and smile. She smiles back, but that’s about all I get. From anyone. All day.

That’s how it plays out for at least a week at this new school. I sit in the back. I watch. I listen to the symphony of Armenian conversations that bleed together around me. But I don’t talk. I’ve tried. It gets me polite superficial conversation, but I haven’t made a single friend.

It doesn’t take me long to resign to the quiet, invisible world my social anxiety traps me in. At least it’s peaceful.

“Did I tell you I made the basketball team?” Lucy gushes on our way to school the following week. “Lindsey convinced the coach to watch me play even though I missed the official try out.”

“That’s awesome,” I say, appreciating her company for that first fifteen minutes of my day. “When do you practice?”

“It’s sixth period so we can keep practicing after school is out. Can you believe that? They actually made it into a class. Did you know they have dance class, too? They never had anything like that at Massack.”

“I know. I think I might try and switch out of Spanish and take that. The teacher is always calling on me to try and get me to participate. It makes me sweat the whole class worried he’s going to single me out. I can’t take it.”

“You should.”

I figure that’s the one good thing about this huge school. I might be completely overwhelmed by the amount of people, but at least I can fill my schedule with drama, choir, dance, and modern English. “It doesn’t even feel like school. It’s like summer camp or something.”

“It’s weird you like drama. You get all nervous around new people, but you’re willing to go on stage and perform in front of crowds? That doesn’t make sense.”

I laugh. “Well, I guess when I’m pretending to be someone else, it’s different.”

“So just pretend to be someone else all the time.”

“It’s not the same. People judge you in real life. When you’re acting, they judge the character. Who cares if they like the character or not? The person isn’t real.”

“I don’t get it. Who cares what people think either way?”

“Whatever. It’s hard to explain, okay?”

She leaves me in the quad and takes off with a group of girls waiting for her by the gym. I head to class feeling annoyed with myself for not being more like her.

By the time school lets out for lunch, the air outside is cool with the chill of oncoming rain. The clouds stir in dark clusters, threatening to release their downpour and I completely forgot a jacket.

I huddle under an overhang near the art quad, which is separate from the main quad and nearly half the size. The cement is cold on my thighs, but the brick wall blocks the wind. I unzip my navy Jansport backpack and hug it to my chest for warmth as I eat my sandwich. Teens collect in tight circles, talking amongst their cliques and sharing headphones.

I don’t even look up when a pair of shoes stops in my line of sight. Only when the black suede Vans linger do I make eye contact.

“Hey.”

I can’t tell if the greeting is accusatory or curious. His narrow eyes are almost Asian, but not completely, and I wonder if he’s glaring at me or if that’s just the way he looks. The drizzle of rain has made his already curly black hair a little frizzy. His large lips pout at me as he sits down.

I start to get up. “Oh sorry. Is this your spot? I can—”

He laughs, a quiet gentle laugh, revealing straight white teeth. “No.”

I sit back down, confused and flustered. I don’t know what to say to him.

“I’m Josh,” he says while I flounder in my head.

“Hi.” I give him my timid, closed lipped smile. It’s my first gut reaction when I meet someone, but it always comes off bitchy. It’s meant to say: Hi I’m shy. I don’t know what to say to you so I’m going to smile. Most people read it as: What do you want? Please don’t talk to me.

“So you’re new?”

My eyebrows furrow. “How’d you know?”

He opens a wrinkled up brown paper sack and pulls out a leftover burrito wrapped in foil.

“It’s the art quad. If you’re not a freshman and we don’t know you, you’re new.”

We eat our lunches in an awkward silence that makes me so uncomfortable I try and think of reasons to get up and leave.

“So are you in band?” I ask, forcing myself to be social.

He tugs on the harness he has strapped to his upper body, kind of like a gun holster but with a clip in the center of his chest. “Baritone sax.”

I don’t know what the strappy thing has to do with a saxophone, but I use the focal point as an excuse to look at him. He’s wearing a white polo beneath a forest green unzipped hoodie and blue Dickies that are too short. I glance at his face, then away again.

“That’s cool. I wish I could play an instrument.”

“Choir huh?”

“Yeah.”

I shove the remnants of my lunch into my bag and pretend to look for chapstick, though I know I don’t have any.

The bell rings, and I’m so grateful for the escape. Not because I don’t like him. He’s seems sweet, and he’s cute, the kind of cute you might miss if you weren’t looking for it. But it’s too much pressure. I’m in flight mode.

“Wait,” he says as I throw my backpack over one shoulder. He shrugs off his forest green sweatshirt and hands it to me. “It’s why I came over. You looked cold. You should take this.”

I stare at his outstretched hand, shocked by the gesture. “Thanks,” I say, accepting it.

I slip it on and the cedar wood smell of him emanates from the warmth he’s left behind.

“See you around.” I smile before taking off in a rush.

The rest of the day I obsess over the sweater. It makes me smile to myself when I glance down in class. I analyze the fibers of the pockets, the imperfections. I breathe through the sleeves, trying to memorize the smell. It’s the sweetest thing a boy has ever done for me.

I don’t see him during break or after school, even though I look for him, but I replay the moment in my head again and again.

And I take the memory home with me.