3.5. My CJ?

Don't we all hate involuntary love triangles?

Carrie Thompson wasn’t the only new face I met that week. The next day, on the walk to my locker after the last class, Theo, Travis and I became acquainted with Steve McLeary. We were minding our business and just happened to be looking in the same direction, happening to see this short, scrawny, bespectacled ginger kid with an inhaler hanging out his mouth and a pile of books in his arms that looked like they weighed more than he did. The three of us happened to watch as some jock dude who looked like one of Grant Peters’ friends walked past him and knocked the books out of his hands.

McLeary was a loser by all definitions, but the thing is he wasn’t rude or annoying or weird or anything like that, he just had a hundred and one medical problems and was too shy to stand up for himself against the classmates who relentlessly roasted him every chance they got, and thus found his place at the bottom of the social food chain pretty quickly.

“Come on!” he whined, as someone walking by kicked one of his books further away. Theo, Travis and I met eyes, mutually wondering if his entire school life consisted of stuff like this.

See, movies and TV always make high school look like some giant tier system where the popular kids culminate together in one elite circle and the rest grovel beneath them, where bullies hold you down and take your lunch money and where your life is going to be ruined by being embarrassed in front of your peers. I can’t speak for every high school in the world, but in my experience at Midtown, that was BS. Popular kids like Theo aren’t in some higher class, they’re just guys and girls like me who happen to know everybody and always get invited to stuff. Being a ‘nerd’ or whatever wasn’t determined by how you dressed or what you were into- (Heck, Theo himself watches anime on his laptop in the locker rooms between football practice -) it just depended on how well you could socialize; how confident you were in yourself and how fun you were to be around. And even if you were a geek or a loser or whatever, you didn’t get beat up or jacked for lunch money, you just kinda got made fun of every now and again, maybe a book or two knocked out of your hand, but mostly just kinda ignored. No one paid you any attention or knew who you were. I was never the most popular kid in school, but I made enough people laugh to where I was somewhat known, and alongside Theo and Travis I never really felt excluded or anything. I wonder how Steve McLeary felt, if getting physically assaulted and harassed every day like in the movies would be better than being ignored.

“Yo, kid,” Theo called as the three of us walked over to him. “What’s your name?”

He instantly backed up and got a scared look on his face, as if he thought we were about to beat him up or something.

“St… Steve…” he eventually mustered. Travis stifled a laugh at his nervousness.

“You take the bus, Steve?” I asked.

“Well, yeah…” he answered, a little less trepidation.

“Well today you’re riding with us.” Theo replied.

“Yeah,” Travis added, patting the kid on the shoulder. “We’ll get you home safe, don’t worry.”

The kid looked at us curiously, not fully trusting yet. I shrugged.

“Well,” I sighed. “Would you rather take the bus with people like that?”

I motioned over to behind him, where the guy who knocked his books down stood in the distance. The jerk flipped him off and started laughing obnoxiously. Steve looked back at us and shuttered.

“That’s what we thought,” Theo laughed, starting to walk away. “Come on.”

The kid followed us outside, into the school’s parking lot, and into Theo’s beamer. He shared the backseat with Travis and froze when Theo cranked up the stereo system, filling the car with loud, obscene trap music I’m sure his parents didn’t allow him to listen to. Theo put his address into his built in GPS system (Yes his car had one of those, he’s rich, I know) and aside from that Steve didn’t make a sound the whole ride. He pretty much blended into the seat. Halfway to his house, Theo stopped at a mini-mart to run in and buy a sports drink or something. As soon as he left us, Travis leapt forward and turned the volume knob, cutting off the music abruptly.

“Hey, Rich,” he sighed. “I gotta talk to you about something.”

I raised a brow, unsure what to expect. “And that is…?”

“I have a little problem.”

“Who’d you knock up?”

He ignored my sarcasm and went on,

“I don’t know what to do. I’ve been feeling this way for a while and you’re gonna be the first one I tell right now: I think I’m in love.”

I rolled my eyes, ready to be completely dismissive of everything he said beyond this point.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll bite. With who? Some bimbo you met at a party?”

“CJ.”

My whole body froze.

“CJ?” I repeated, my mind trying to make sense of the series of words leaving Travis’ mouth.

“Yeah.”

“CJ Wellings?”

“Yeah.”

“Cecilia-Jane Wellings, my CJ!?”

Is he serious?!

“Are you serious?!”

“What,” he asked with such a dumbfoundedness that I wanted to smack him. “We’ve been getting really close lately. I don’t catch feelings easily but I think she might be the one.”

This mothaf-... I stopped that thought and tried to calm my instinctual anger with reason. But how could Travis legitimately not see any problem with this?

“I thought you didn’t like her anymore?” Travis defended.

“Well I don’t,” I replied with more hesitation than I should have had. “But come on, man! Of every girl in this school you pick her?”

“You don’t pick who you start liking, Richie. I can’t help it, she’s just…  Wow.”

“You talk to a different chick every three days, since when do actually like them?”

“Since CJ and I started getting close.”

Getting close?

“She makes me wanna get it together, you know,” Travis continued. “When I talk to her I don’t think about smashing or anything, I just wanna be close to her. She’s cute, she’s smart, she’s just got everything, man. When I’m around her it’s like can’t even talk.”

“You realize that’s all a trap, right? She acts all nice and perfect to lure you in, makes you think she cares then she switches it up on you.”

“I know she doesn’t care about me yet. I mean, she’s a player. They come in all shapes and sizes, both men and women. But she’s a player just like me, and that means I’ll know how to handle her.”

I couldn’t believe it. This was actually happening.

“Look, bro,” he said, trying to get through to me. “I know it might be a little awkward, but I really care about this girl. I wanna try talking to her but because of your history with her I gotta know that’s okay with you.”

A little awkward? What an understatement! I closed my eyes shut and sighed my lungs flat.

“Fine,” I heard myself say. “Knock yourself out, Trav.”

“Thanks, Richie!”

He was ecstatic, as if he heard none of the reluctance in my tone. I had just verbally signed my approval. There was no going back now. Yup, this was happening.

My agreement to Travis was, being a supportive friend and all, I would let CJ hang out with us. It didn’t seem too bad, so long as I didn’t have to talk to her too much. Then again, she is trying to reinstate contact with me lately… Should I tell Travis about the ‘I miss you texts’?

“Guys…” Steve peeped, speaking for the first time since he’d entered Theo’s car. “Thanks for this.”

I had completely forgotten he was even here. I sighed and leaned against the window, peering out into the town.

“Any time, kid.”

“Uncle T, I’m home.” I called as I swung open the door. The aroma of overcooked spaghetti and meatballs filled the air.

“Dinner’s ready whenever you want it.” his voice carried from the kitchen. I made my way upstairs and beelined to my room. A vibration from the pocket of my hoodie alerted me that I had a text. I pulled my phone out, glancing down to see it was from Theo.

I took off my backpack and tossed it onto my bed, then froze and looked up from my phone, completely disregarding Theo’s text. It might have been a really weird and random reaction, but at that moment all I could think about was all the times before I’d thrown my backpack onto my bed; how it was pretty much every day. I began to think about all the other things I did every day, like waiting for my uncle to finish showering in the morning so I could brush my teeth, or setting my alarm clock app on my phone at night before I went to bed. Then the next morning some simulated sirens would wake me up and I’d go wait outside the bathroom again. Wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, sleep, wake up, repeat; that’s the cycle. I calmed myself down a little by thinking I was just a highschool student and that maybe everyone my age lived this cycle, that it was just a small stage of life I would move past soon. But then I had the scariest thought of my life up to that point: What if everyone’s lives at every stage are just different variations of that same cycle?

The rest of my day pretty much consisted of doing homework, flipping channels, eating spaghetti, then doing more homework. For the first time I finally cracked open the SAT preparation book my uncle had gotten me, but by that time my body’s need for sleep was already taking its effect. I slowly drifted off, knowing I was going to wake up to the same old day.