Paints stains, Edger Allen Poe, and my new Wingman

George's missed childhood best friend comes back into his life, and brings memories back to him.

Chapter 2: Paints stains, Edger Allen Poe, and my new Wingman

          As I trudged through the hallways of Gurmio Beet High School (Gurmio Beet was a Super Hero who saved  humans from a flood, so he got a super power high school named after him) , otherwise known as Beet High School or just Beet, on that Monday, I thought of Dani. She was all that had occupied my mind, over my averagely boring weekend.

As I was drifting towards my locker, I saw Dani walking confidently down the hallway. She was wearing a blue tank top with a panda on it, black skinny jeans, and star-printed Vans.

 I wanted to talk to her, maybe act like the party was super cool and fun and that her boyfriend didn’t hurl on me, say stuff like “The music at the party on Friday was kickass” and “Can’t wait for another party.”

          But I saw that on her right side was Jay, and on her left side was February Sylvia Cypress Denofield.

          I met February when I was six years old, in 1^st grade, I never thought much of her, being six years old and thinking girls were gross. But even then February was different, she was an old soul of sorts, though she was an old soul all her own, and she had a bit of a uni-brow to be honest. In second grade, I sat by her all year, and we constantly got in trouble for talking during class. We became best friends; still, I never really valued her friendship all through elementary school. Around 4^th grade, February lost her uni-brow, and she changed a lot. After that, we weren’t so close. She hung out with the mean girls of the school. It was so different from when we were kind of the school’s chubby class clowns, we were made fun of a lot, but school would have been really boring without us. In 5^th grade, she was suddenly was suddenly a popular mean girl.

          Then we made the transition to Middle School, and once again, February changed completely. She didn’t care about wearing UGG boots, or being invited to some person’s birthday party. After that, she dyed her hair red, and returned to being a class clown, but she was also kind of the rebel force of that blasted Middle School.

          Then as commonly happens in Middle School, she stopped talking to me suddenly and without explanation. And I lost my favorite part of Middle School.

          Jay and February were walking a little slower than Dani, and were fighting about something, animatedly. Jay was pointing and opening his mouth wide and yelling as he was when he was drunk. February was moving her hands around a lot, and she was yelling too. Dani was stifling a laugh. I was trying to stifle a laugh just watching the scene.

          What were they so passionately fighting about?

As I walked into 3^rd period Chemistry class, February was sitting in my conventional chemistry partner Hansen’s seat. “Hey Gee-orge! I’m your new Chemistry partner.”

          “February?” I asked, wondering when February was ever in my chemistry class.

          “No, it’s Osama Bin Laden. Yes, it’s me, Silly,” she said.

          I just stood there, completely confused.

          “Well pop a squat, Dumpling,” she said, patting the chair next to her.

          I sat down, then stared at her face. I hoped for an explanation for all those years of silence from her, hoped for a reason for her to avoid me since 7^th grade, hoped for an apology for leaving me without my best friend. I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me, and how much I missed her. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her thick dark brown curly hair, her huge, thick-rimmed, black glasses, her floral dresses, her paint stained artist hands, her green eyes, her always present humor, her lack of regard for authority, her ability to read minds and do some mind control, her want to be an artist instead of a Super Hero, her intelligence, I missed all of it. Instead of all I wanted to say, I asked, “Have you ever been thrown up on?”

          It was like old times, February and me making jokes and singing songs together. She reminded me how hilarious she was, and will always be. My usually boring Chemistry class, was suddenly my favorite class. I had more fun than I had in what seemed like years.

          As class ended, February turned toward me and looked directly into my eyes, she always did that, it made me uncomfortable, but it reminded me of when she used to do it when we were both little, and it brought me strange comfort. It reminded me of the time we sat underneath a huge oak tree in the park, the summer after 5^th grade, when she finally stopped caring about being a popular girl. She told me that someday we would be the happiest people in the world, that someday after all this crap; everyone would want to be us.

          I didn’t understand what she said then, when I was freckled, sun-burned, shaggy, blonde hair kid; I thought it was strange then. Now I understood, I understood what it was like to lose someone, to fail, to feel unworthy, to feel completely depressed. I guess when you go through things like the fear of your Mom dying, lose of a best friend, and total insecurity, that somehow makes you an adult, a man, a person with actual life experience. I didn’t understand how bad experiences seemed like the only real experience to people. Sometimes, I feel like that goofy, 5^th grade, kid, was wiser than the lonely, A+, 10^th grade “young man” I am now.

          “Can I be your wingman?” February asked, snapping me back to the present and unlife-changing Chemistry class.

          “Sure,” I responded.

          She held out her colorful hand, her right hand had a large powder blue stain on it, and some smaller red stains surrounding it, her left had green, purple, brown, and black stains on it. I wondered what she was painting. She had a hard time confining her painting tools to just brushes and sponges, using her hands just as much. I remembered how crazy it made her Mother that she always had multicolored hands, I wondered if her Mother had finally just gotten used to it. She still smelled like paint, coffee, peaches (her favorite food), and something she called “Chanel 5.” She had smelled like that since 4^th grade, I remember how cool I thought she was in Elementary because she drank coffee, coffee was such a grown-up thing to me then, it was almost next to cigarettes and alcohol on my mental scale of adult things. I looked at her stack of books, none of them regular school textbooks; they were all poetry and art books. Her favorite poem was “Annabel Lee” by Edger Allen Poe. She had always loved that poem, she had always loved writing poetry too, which gave her tormentors another unique thing she possessed to make fun of her about. I had always thought that “Annabel Lee” was creepy, but February seemed fond of creepy things.

            Why did I never understand her?

          I finally realized that she was trying to shake my hand. So I shook her hand. And she smiled and said, “You always over-thought things.”

          “You always knew that I wasn’t trying to be rude, I was just empty-brained,” I said, returning with a weak smile, somewhat trying to make her feel bad, and just trying to bring the past up.

          “See you later, Mr. Stanis,” she said, waving goodbye to me, and walking out the door.

Author's Note

I would appreciate comments.