Certain Taste Pt. 2

Chapter 5: Certain Taste Pt. 2

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch time approaching, he was getting anxious. He scurried to the lunch room as soon as the bell rang. Posted up in line, he got fast food. Not sure why. Standing between the tables and the courtyard doors outside, he was beginning to wonder if he’d see her.

He looked to his right and there she was near the back of the cafeteria. She was sitting, talking with her friend ignoring some homemade lunch in a soft-box cooler. He boldly sat down next to her. It didn’t take a tap on the shoulder or anything. He already had her attention. Sort-of unexpected actually, but not of this girl. “I knew you’d show up.” She smiled. “Well yeah, I gotta eat.” He said and cast away his glance. He started putting ketchup on his tray. “So. I’m here, you’re here. Let’s talk. I wouldn’t want to disturb your lunchtime.” He wasn’t sure why he was acting like this.  “Um, no, you’re not weaseling your way out of this. You said two more conversations like the last one and guess what? Number two.” He was confused by her determination. Also, if that expression was one she picked up from her Dad or something. He pushed his tray to the side. “Okay, what are you in this for?” he asked. “I’m in this for you. Idiot!” she cried.  That caught his attention. “I don’t think I understand. Is there something special about me?”

“Obviously. You’re extra cute. You’re the best boy I’ve ever seen. Plus, you’re not like other people.” Her friend seemed perturbed by this. “Um, what’s your friend’s name?” he asked. “Oh, not you Crystal.” She seemed to smile like it never bothered her to begin with. “Now, what’s it like being a sophomore?” she asked. “Lame. I have no friends now. I mean people still talk to me some. But, yeah.”

“Yes. People like me.” She batted her eyes in an astonishing way. It was kind of nice. “Indeed!” he chortled. “So now you have someone else to talk to. What’re you going to make of this?”

            “I was under the impression this was lunch time between you and I and some sort of debate about how you’re gonna win me as your prize.”

“I guess so but let’s forget about that for right now.” She said.. “Okay. Because I’m not sure if I mind that or not.”

“You like Paid-dues, huh?” she asked. “Yeah, their music is so good these days.”

            “Edgy as well. They made that song for that Netherworld movie.”

            “Yeah, Paint it Black or whatever. I still haven’t seen the movie.” He told her. “It was really good.” she said in this extreme sincerity that was entirely adorable. “It’s about vampires or something right?” he asked. “Yep you should watch it.” She told him.. “I will!”  He told her. She snuck in, “with me of course.”

            “Trying to pull a fast one on me now?” he gleamed. “Of course, that’s what I was going for.” She said with mock-sarcasm. This delighted him. He decided to change the subject. “It’s a nice day outside.”

            “I know you don’t care about what it looks like outside.”

            “That’s not true. I enjoy this a nice day. I just like this more.” She blushed. “What do you mean this?”

            “I don’t know. Talking to people, not just wasting the day away.”  He admitted. “That’s a good outlook. I can get behind that as well.”

            “Yeah it always feels better whenever I’m trying to focus if I’ve at least spoken to somebody.”

            “How does it feel to talk to me?” She asked. “Well, like… kind of refreshing actually. I know you want something and you’re upfront about it.”

            “Why does it feel that way?”

            “Well, I guess it’d be weird if you ran away without telling me and never came back.” He returned. “What do you mean run away?”

            “Just walking around looking at me, seeing me around and knowing every moment you wouldn’t meet me or get to be with me like you want to.”

            “That would suck. I’m not sure if I ever would’ve come up to you and told you I liked you without meeting you first.”

            “I think that would’ve been even more horrifyingly surprising to me.”  He told her. She was so pouty in this moment. “Ugh! What do you mean horrific?”

            “I mean just in front of anyone else. The fact I’ve never had a girlfriend or someone ask me to date them before.”

            “Like- like you?” she asked. “What?” he wondered. “Do you like-like me?”

            “I still don’t know yet.”

            “It kind of bothers me that I don’t too.” Trevor thought to himself. “Oh, that’s okay, only one more conversation and we’ll be together right?”

            “Well, I guess we’ll see. Good job this time though.” He said with a grin. “Wait, I did good?”

“yes.” He admitted. “Sweet, not bad for a second date.”

 

“I wouldn’t call this a date.”  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop that.” She kissed him on the cheek. Which was undoubtedly nice considering he’d never had a kiss from anyone besides his Mom. She told him. Bye upon the ring of the lunch bell. He still knew he would wait one more conversation and decide based on its outcome. The afternoon exhaustion started kicking in, but luckily it was near the end of fifth period. Leaving the building, the breeze outside was strong and warm, September weather. The bus entryway steps were hot and the entire thing smelled like cheap-leather and bad perfume. Everyone always seemed to have a bad attitude most of the time. It kind of bothered him. He drowned out the bus and went into daydream mode. All of a sudden here was his stop. He seemed to wake-up just before the lengthy part of his road. The weight of his backpack filling up the space between his seat and the one in front of him, he would always go into starting-gun mode when approaching his stop.

The sun beat down on his face in a luminous golden ray. He walked off and went back home into what seemed like a dark empty house and dropped his stuff on the floor. Lying down with a feeling of disparaging exhaustion. Waking up around ten P.M. The thoughts of the day were no-where to be found in the mind of Trevor. He got up shifting to the bathroom just to flip on the lights and stare at himself in the mirror. He could see a few small blemishes forming under the skin and the scum on his teeth. Focused on the front of his jaw he picked up his toothbrush, slabbed some toothpaste on it and started brushing. Two-minutes later, he was just staring at himself. Wondering why he thought he was so good looking. “What does it really mean to be? Nothing  probably.” He thought to himself. Forcing himself to read over some books, English, French, Chemistry, etc.

 

Realizing this weekend was probably going to be a dull one, he began thinking about Where We Sleep and what was going on with Jamie and possibly some of the others. Ron was still in middle-school and Michael was from out of town. Suburban life was dim and confusing. He decided he would get online. He sauntered out to the living room and powered-up the computer. With a blip, he had the Mindos™ operating system in front of him. Opening up Firebox, which he’d heard was the best browser to date. He took a look at his Myspace profile. Draped in color of what he though was suited for himself. Checking all the posts of friends, known or unknown, perplexed by some of the things he saw because he didn’t understand some of them. He added a few people by this time. The life he knew of seemed small with all the strange things he knew he knew nothing about being said. He decided he’d check out this band he’d been digging lately, The Devil Wears Collars. He listened to a few of their better songs and a new one they posted. Surprisingly having to do with internet related activities like HTML code, but most likely the intrinsic meaning of the song’s content, latent feelings from listening to the words over music, and holding a cup of water in his hand, he exited his browser and sat on the couch.

Turning on the TV he went to the PNN channel, hosting dramas, game shows, and documentaries geared towards males. He was watching a show about crime scene investigators doing scientific research and putting together pieces of homicide cases to solve them. It was so good that he almost got in a tizzy after it was over. After that he decided to make a sandwich and lie down. Thinking about his off-days at school and rolling around in his bed, he ended up thinking about girls. At school, or rather ones he thought were cute or even sexy. He ended up masturbating from upwards of half an hour before rolling over and falling asleep again. He popped up around eleven A.M. On a Saturday morning. Focusing on his homework for around an hour, along with a meager breakfast he made. Holding out till about four in the afternoon before making some type of lunch consisting of chicken nuggets, French fries, and some tea that was a little under-sweet, he started burning through his contacts in his phone-book looking to call one someone in his class about an assignment question. Before he could, he got a call from Jamie. He picked up. “Hey man, what’s up?” Jamie’s non-fazing voice coming through the line right away, “Oh, hey Jamie. Not much, just sitting around.”

“Word, we should get up. I know of something to do tonight.” He said. “What do you mean?” Trev asked, “Just people to hang out with tonight.”

“Alright, I’m down. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He immediately got in the shower and rinsed off with extra-hot water. Fixed his hair in an enhancing way and immediately asked Mom to take him to Jamie’s. There he arrived. Thinking Jamie probably would think he got there sooner than expected. He walked up to the door nervously. Trev had never rung his doorbell before. Around two-minutes passed, then Jamie opened up the door. An entrancing warmth and homeliness about the place. Invited in, with a passing of a fairly used couch and entertainment system. The kitchen smelled like a million meals and the gathering of family.

            “Yo bro, come here for a second.” Jamie said. Trev walked over to the center of the kitchen and Jamie opened a cabinet and reached up, pulling a miniature tequila bottle from the highest shelf. “So tonight, we’re going to get out of here to have some fun.”

 

He began to twist off the cap and proceeded to lick the edge of the tiny bottle and take it all down. He then handed Trevor one of the same little bottles. Trevor was hesitant at first, but then decided it was okay, and did the very same licking and swallowing motion. Trevor suddenly felt an intense burning in his esophagus. He immediately had to spit in the sink. The spit was forming faster than he could spit and the next wad he had to swallow. “That’ll put some hair on your boys.” Jamie said. Trevor couldn’t help but laugh. After trashing the plastic bottles, Jamie made a phone call.  Succeeding the call, they went outside to wait for whoever was giving them a ride. Jamie said that they were going to a party out in the country and that it would be a blast. He wasn’t kidding. Some girl he’d never met before was taking them wherever they were going and talking about how she went to school in the next town over. Reaching the destination, it was certainly a place unlike he’d seen before. Far from the suburban conventions, they walked into a small place. People were everywhere all over the floors and couches. They sat down in a circle in one of the rooms and began talking about drinking or rather drinking alcohol. They sat like Indians in a drum circle and passed out beers to everyone to drink. Most were talking like they knew each other, because well, they probably did. Trevor felt kind of out of place, but he didn’t really mind the watching and listening.  Plus the beer was pretty refreshing. Some of the people were younger than him but he didn’t care about that either. Everyone was really nice and there were some pretty girls there as well. Apparently, it was someone’s birthday, but they were locked in the bathroom. He’d already drunk too much.

Fast forward a dozen conversations and a couple dozen songs. Trev and Jamie were drinking some vodka straight from the bottle. Trevor had only had the one beer, but Jamie was quite drunk. After about ten more minutes, Trev was stumbling out the front door. He moves out to the back door where they came in near some electrical unit and tosses cookies. Really vomit. Not only that, but black vomit.  Little did he know that this was alcohol poisoning. “I need to stop this now.” He threw up about four times before finally taking off his shirt and wiping his mouth off. A daze back to the car with Jamie and that chic, lead to hitting the road all the way to his own house. He realized he had someone else’s jacket on. Not sure how it got there he decided to leave it in the car for safe measure. Before trying to walk to his room with difficulty even getting to the hall he thought to himself. “I’m never doing that again.” Monday morning. The feeling of uneasiness still lingered. Not physical, just a mental unsteady feeling. He tried to do well in his chemistry class. He knew this was the one that required the most thinking. French was a drag. He wasn’t retaining very much of anything that was going on.

Tying his shoes before walking to lunch, he looked around for Michelle, nowhere to be found. He sat down and ate quietly for around ten minutes and walked out. He wandered around the halls of the first floor for about five minutes before walking into English II. He decided to lay his head down for a minute until class started. He found himself awake in a filled classroom discussing The Odyssey. Immediately paying attention, luckily they hadn’t started actually reading yet. The day wasn’t finished yet. When the last class, Music Theory was flying by, he just thought about the previous weekend. What was it about school and personal lives that were so different? The whole reason he went to school was to learn. But, it was like he wasn’t learning the things he really wanted to. But, he decided that was okay. I mean, anything is worth learning, really. The idea puzzled him. If he could get a job in the future, what would it be? On the way home, he found the time flying by. It was like it really wasn’t happening. The burden of school weighed heavily on his mind. He fell down almost immediately after eating a bit. Dreams were a constant every time he ever fell asleep. It was like they were forming something.