Tenth Grade Sucks - Chapter 2

So when I walk into English on a Monday Morning, I don’t expect Tony to look at me, or even act like he notices my existence. My expectations are accurate. He’s in a deep conversation with the red-head, popular girl of the class, Nina (who just so happens to have a locker next to mine). She twirls her hair around her finger constantly. Her hair is kind of perfect, so I don’t blame her. Tony wastes no time stealing glances at her chest.

                Ever since we’ve stopped being friends, he’s started talking to the more popular girls, and making small talk with popular guys in the grade. I can’t see why; he used to always complain about them to me, saying how stupid they act. We’d ridicule them together. It was one of our many shared interests.

                I reach my seat in the middle of the room, kind of close to Tony’s, and take out my text book. The teacher isn’t in the room yet, but I feel like I have to at least pretend I’m doing something or Tony will get the idea that I’m staring at him or something. Which, I’m not. Well, at least there isn’t any way he would know that.

                I still think he’s cute, even if he does hate me.

                I hear Nina giggle that high-pitched girl laugh that every female in my school seems to have mastered. Her voice drops to a whisper. “So…did you hear about last Friday?” she asks, her voice dripping with gossip. Tony shakes his head. “Well, Leah told me that she heard from Samantha that Josh and Anna broke up,” she says. “He dumped her hard.”

                Josh and Anna are, well, were a popular couple at my school. From what I can tell, Anna is one of those whiny girls who’s always gotten whatever she wanted at home, and expects the same from her peers. Josh is just a poor guy who’s fallen into her trap.

                “What happened?” Tony asks Nina, looking a little surprised. I didn’t think he would care about this kind of stuff.

                “I hear he likes someone else,” she says coolly. “But God, Anna was upset. She slapped him and everything. Everyone kind of hates him now.” She shakes her head. “What a jerk.”

                Tony nods sympathetically right as a young man walks into the room, decked out in a suit and tie. He looks young, maybe early twenties. Immediately, half the girls in the class turn their attention to him, and it’s obvious how attractive he is. He looks a little uncomfortable and busies himself with his briefcase, which seems a little unnecessary to me, before setting it on the table at the front of the room and finally looking at the class. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Mr. Austin. This is my first day subbing, so um…bear with me.” A few of the girls laugh. “Okay, so, your teacher says in this note that you should continue reading The Odyssey in your textbook. Understand?” We nod, he nods, and that’s where the discussion ends. I open up my book, but find it difficult to concentrate for some reason. Probably because of how complex The Odyssey is to someone as simple-minded as me.

                I hear Mr. Austin ruffling papers around in his briefcase, and look up to find him taking a paperback book out of it, along with a pair of reading glasses. I can’t make out from here what book it is. He flips through the pages until he finds the dog-eared one three-fourths of the way through, then begins reading intently, the glasses slipping down his nose a bit. I clear my head and go back to my textbook.

                The period crawls by, and I’ve barely read two pages by the time the bell rings. As I stand up, my hand brushes the pile of books on my desk and they clatter to the floor, pages spilling out of my notebook. I swear and bend down to pick them up while the students who sit behind me squeeze around me to exit the room. Everyone’s left by the time I manage to pick everything up, but all of my papers are unorganized and I’m pretty sure my math homework is ripped in a few spots. Mr. Austin eyes me from the table at the front of the room. I see the title of his book, Watership Down, and smile to myself. One of my favorites. As I exit the room, I hear him mutter, “Nice going.”

                After a boring Algebra lesson and an embarrassing, forty-five minute pregnancy lecture in Health, I make it to lunch. I usually sit at a table with a few other guys who I’ve known since elementary school, but haven’t actually developed friendships with. They’re just nice to talk to.

                I decide on pizza for lunch and a side of curly fries, and then slide into my normal seat at the table. There are five of us: Brandon, Sam, Nick, Ryan, and me. Tony isn’t in this lunch, thankfully. Brandon is quiet and a little awkward, but is hilarious whenever he does talk. Sam and Nick are twin brothers who are practically nothing alike; Sam Is really smart, while Nick is just easy-going and careless. Ryan is probably the one I’m closest to, since he sits right across from me, but we’ve never done anything together outside of school. Luckily, I have classes with each of them.

                “Hey guys,” I say, and Nick mutters a reply with his mouth full of lasagna. Ryan immediately begins talking. “Alex, did you hear about Josh and Anna?” he asks. I nod slowly. “Well Anna isn’t here today, and someone said she ran away last night. Like, her parents can’t find her. She’s missing. Isn’t that a little pathetic?” I’m taken aback, but decide to give him a slight not and a worried look, not wanting to get into the issue. I do think it’s a little pathetic to run away past the age of twelve, but I couldn’t care less what she does with her life. 

                Sam is drawn into the conversation, and I wonder what made Josh and Anna become such a hit subject of gossip, especially among boys. After a few minutes of listening to their conversation, my mind wanders to English class, to Tony and Nina. I can’t help but feel jealous of Nina, of Tony’s obvious attraction to her. It kills me inside to think he will never feel attracted to me, but I can’t blame him, because he can’t decide his feelings.

                I’ve thought a lot of how difficult it will be for me to find someone who likes me back. Through the years, there have been a handful of girls that have expressed their like for me, especially in elementary school when love was simple. But there hasn’t been anyone since probably seventh grade, and the only person I’ve been attracted to since then is Tony, which is really pathetic.

                And he’s the only person in which I’ve felt confident enough to express my feelings to.

                Even if I did develop feelings for another person, there’s a very small chance they would be gay, and even if they were, they wouldn’t necessarily like me. I can only think of one boy in the entire school who I know for a fact is gay, and that’s a freshman named Michael who wears makeup and hangs out with girls. I’m obviously more muted about my feelings, and being gay doesn’t define my life. It’s just a quality I have, and maybe not even that. I just like boys instead of girls. Big deal. Being ‘straight’ doesn’t define people either, it’s just what they are.

                I get up to throw away my meal, only having eaten half of the pizza and a few fries. As I’m walking back to my seat, a girl in my Math, Kaitlyn, stops me. “Hey, Alex. Did you get the Algebra assignment?” she asks. Kaitlyn is one of the smartest in the class, but often comes to me for the assignment or with a question, as if she needs reassuring that she knows what she’s doing.

                “Uh, yeah. It’s evens on the worksheet she gave us.”

                “Oh yeah,” she says, smiling. “Thanks a bunch.” I smile back and head back to my table. Ryan smirks at me as I sit down.

                “What” I ask him warily. 

                “Nothing,” he replies, shaking his head and smiling. “Nothing at all.”