1. Round One

I have no friends. Well, at least not at school. The school Improv team is probably the closest thing that I have to a group of friends. We get along and can always have a good laugh. But never outside of school. And hardly ever outside of the Drama room/Stage.

I joined the Improv team because of Ryan Proctor. I idolize him. He’s the kind of guy you can never hate. He is friends with everybody. The nicest, funniest, most talented guy in school. You can’t not like him. Quirky. That’s a good word to describe him. I guess you can call him the most popular guy in school. But he’s not a typical popular guy. It’s like he doesn’t even realize it. Because of this he doesn’t flaunt it like most people do when they know they’re popular.

We had gone to school together since about grade seven or eight (I can’t be sure) but I never really noticed him until grade twelve. The first class we ever had together was grade 12 Drama (which explains the reasoning behind me on the Improv team but I’ll get into that in a second). In Drama, he started talking to me like we were old friends because we’ve been in the same school for a few years. I vaguely recognized him. (Had he lost weight?)

We didn’t really have a lengthy conversation. Basically just a quick ‘Hey! How’ve you been?’ thing. But from that moment I realized he was cool and I wanted to be his friend.

I knew at the time that I had no friends at school. My best friend, Shawn, had dropped out at the beginning of grade eleven. So at school, I was kind of a loner. But I wanted a friend. And Ryan seemed like the kind of person who could be a really good friend.

So, when the Drama teacher, Mr. Levesque announced that the Improv team was meeting at lunch, and I heard Ryan saying that he’d be there, that’s when I decided to join the Improv team.

The Improv team was full of chatty and hilarious people. We all became really good friends within a couple of weeks, but we never really talked outside of it. I didn’t know how to approach them in the halls. I was a bit shy.

Occasionally, at the end of Drama class or as we were leaving an Improv meeting, Ryan would invite me to come sit with his best friends at they’re table at lunch. I felt awkward sitting around a bunch of people I didn’t know. But at the same time, it felt good to maybe even have the illusion that I belonged.

There is something you need to know about me. When I was about three years old I had a stroke. Ever since then I’ve only had about thirty percent use of the left side of my body. My arm and leg were affected the most.

When it comes to my arm, at this point of my life, at the age of seventeen, my arm is about the size of a nine-year-old’s arm. It has no muscle on it because I hardly use it. There are some things I can still manage to do like the basics (getting dressed, taking showers, etc.), but there are other things (like tying shoes, cutting my food with a knife and fork, playing guitar, etc.) I can’t do. I think of it more as a limitation then a disability. I can only open my finger and thumb by myself on my hand. But if I pry the fingers open with my right hand, then that’s useful.

When it comes to my leg/foot, I can’t move my toes at all, I have no sense of balance on that leg alone, and because it’s about three quarters of an inch shorter than my right leg, I have a small limp.

I’ve tried the whole physiotherapy thing, but it was hard to get motivated into it when I was a toddler. And now they’ve all just about given up on me on trying to get me back to ‘normal’. At least, to their standards of normal. But I’ve had these limitations for as long as I could remember. So, for me, this is normal. I don’t know any different. I’ve managed so far. I’ve learned to adapt. I understand that there are going to be some things I can never do and for the most part I’m okay with that.

There is something else you need to know about me.

I have an obsession with girls.

Not just the whole ‘Wow. That girl is hot. I’m going to remember her so that I could imagine her face for when I go home to jack off.’

I mean I worship the ground females walk on. I’ve never had a crush on one specific girl before. I look at all of them as potential girlfriends. I figure that if I tell enough of them that I like them that, by process of elimination, eventually one of them would like me back.

That’s how it happened with my last girlfriend, Molly. She didn’t go to our school so she didn’t really know how much of a loner I was. She was visiting a friend that went to my school and when she saw me she approached me. I was dumbfounded as she flirted with me. I forgot all my lines. Eventually she asked if I wanted to hang out later that day. At that point, I was half in love with her. By ten o’clock that night we were going out.

It lasted about two weeks. Apparently, I was her rebound guy. She said that before she met me she had just got out of a long serious relationship and that she wasn’t ready to commit to another one. I was crushed. I’ve had other girlfriends before her so this was nothing new. I cried. I begged. I tried to make her feel sorry for me and take me back out of pity. But I knew it was over.

So there I was, about a week after Molly dumped me and I had decided to steal some of my dad’s Smirnoff vodka to bring to school so that I could spend the day in a haze of drunkenness and try to forget about Molly. I had brought it in a large coffee thermos and mixed it with orange juice so that the teachers wouldn’t suspect anything. I drank it conservatively. Enough to keep a constant buzz but not enough so that I couldn’t even stand up without falling flat on my face. I was feeling gooood. I’m a happy drinker and I like to talk a lot. Occasionally, I’d laugh maybe a little too hard at a joke that wasn’t really that funny or I’d begin to sway and had to remember to keep my balance. People would give me questioning looks but eventually dismiss it as goofing off.

That day, the Improv team was let out of class to help set up the stage in the cafeteria for the beginning of the Improv tournament. Teams from three other schools in our district were coming so that we could all compete against each other and have judges decide which team had better acting skills. While Mr. Levesque set up the sound system, the team had to clear everything else off the stage and set up blocks so the teams could have somewhere to sit. Between classes, some people would come into the cafeteria to see what was going on.

One of the guys on the team, Derek, was at the edge of the stage talking to a couple people, telling them about the Improv tournament. By then, the mixed vodka had been finished for about an hour and I only had the slightest hint of a buzz. Armed with my chatty mood - due to consumption of alcohol – and the gooood feeling that hadn’t completely worn off, I walked over and completely forgot about my shyness.

“Hey, Derek. What’s goin’ on?” I said, slurring a little bit. Apparently, the buzz hadn’t worn off as much as I had thought.

“Hey, Justin. Not much,” Derek replied.

I sat down on the edge of the stage.

“How’s it going?” I said to the guy and girl Derek was talking to, directing the question more to the girl.

She was a cute native girl. She had dark skin, dark hair and she was taller than most of the girls at our school. But then again, most of the girls here were barely even five feet tall. She had a bit of weight on her, but I preferred that over the girls who could rival some of those bulimic models. I tried to look her up and down but couldn’t really get her features down well due to the fact that the main lights were off in the cafeteria because Mr. Levesque was testing the stage lights.

The guy was average, geeky with glasses and tucked in shirt. Whatever. Who cares? I didn’t really pay much attention to him. I was too focused on this girl.

“Good,” the girl replied. “You?”

The guy said something but I wasn’t paying enough attention to him to even hear it.

“I’m good,” I replied to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Melissa,” she said.

The other guy said something again but I still didn’t hear it. It kind of bothered me. Like a fly buzzing around in my ear. An annoyance.

Derek, getting bored of the conversation, said, “See ya,” and walked away.

“I’m Justin,” I said. “Are you going to come by and watch me do some Improv?”

Finally, the guy’s voice broke through my sound barrier. “I can’t. I have to get to class.”

“Oh well. That’s too bad,” I said to him forcing myself to sound disappointed. A group of guys sitting at one of the lunch tables starting calling out over to us. “Who are they?” I asked, nodding towards them.

“They’re my possy,” geeky kid said.

Who the hell says that? I thought. But I figured I’d humour him. I didn’t want to seem rude in case Melissa was friends with him.

“Oh, sweet. You have a possy? You’re so lucky. Can I be a part of your possy?” I asked enthusiastically.

Melissa laughed. She had a high squeaky voice. But a cute one, not the kind that gets on your nerves. I loved it.

Faintly, my thoughts registered the fact that geeky kid laughed too.

“Sure. If you want,” he replied. “Anyways, I have to go.” He gestured to the guys at the lunch table.

“All right,” I said to him. “See you around.”

He walked off and I never saw him again. Or if I did, I didn’t realize it. I forgot about him the second he walked away. I turned back to Melissa.

“I have class too,” she said, responding to my earlier question. “But I can ask my teacher if I can come watch.”

“You should. It’s going to be sweet.”

Suddenly, the bell rang. Derek began calling me over to help him with moving a particularly heavy block and Melissa started walking away.

“See you later,” she called and she was gone.

The Improv tournament is organized into three rounds, each round hosted by a different school. The other teams finally showed up at our school for the first round around the beginning of third period. All the teams had to wait backstage and then go on stage to take turns introducing ourselves to the judges by doing a little skit that had to be relevant with our team name. Our team was the Guitar Heroes. We came out on stage last. As we were doing our opening skit, I scanned the cafeteria for Melissa but I couldn’t see her. We finished our skit and sat down on a group of empty blocks. Apparently, our skit was funny because after we sat down a couple of people were still chuckling. The different announcers introduced themselves, the judges, the referee, and us. When the referee came out he took a couple minutes to explain some ground rules and then the tournament began.

To determine who wins the Improv tournament points are accumulated based on voting from the judges after each improvised skit. Each skit takes up about five minutes and then another five minutes for the judges to decide who to vote for.

After five skits (I had been up to perform once), the bell to end class sounded and people began to fill the cafeteria. The main lights were still off so it was difficult to recognize anyone who came in. It was hard enough to see past the action on the stage in the first place. When the current skit finished and everyone sat down, I noticed – barely – Melissa sitting at one of the tables closest to the stage. After about ten minutes the next bell for class sounded. Melissa stayed sitting. A couple more skits went by and I didn’t get to go up at all. I thought about waving to her but my shyness was coming back and I didn’t want to bring unnecessary attention to myself.

As time went on the tournament was dragging out. I wasn’t really keeping track of who was getting points because I could feel Melissa’s eyes on me. Eventually, the bell for the end of school sounded and Melissa had to leave. I didn’t get to perform for her or even say hi to her. It was Friday, which means that if she left, I wouldn’t get to talk to her until Monday. How seriously tragic.

Improv lasted for about another hour and a half. I got to perform about two more times. I had no idea what I was doing. My mind was somewhere else. Apparently, by the end of the first round the Guitar Heroes were in first place. When we all got to go home I got my stuff from my locker and walked twenty minutes to my house. All the late busses had already gone.

When I got home I took a nap, had supper with my dad and sister, and went on to the computer. I checked my emails (0 messages), updated my Facebook page (my thirty or so ‘friends’ haven’t acknowledged my existence in about a month), and signed on to MSN (the entire world was offline). Then I just sat there constantly refreshing my Facebook page, waiting for something to happen.

After about half an hour a conversation popped up.

x_molly_x: hi

{‡}لµ§‍ŧï‍ת{‡}: …hi

x_molly_x: you wanna come over tomorrow?

I didn’t know what to say. Maybe she wanted to stay friends or something. I thought about it for a minute until I figured that it didn’t hurt to try. I mean, I’ll take what I can get. I still wasn’t completely over her.

{‡}لµ§‍ŧï‍ת{‡}: uhm sure

{‡}لµ§‍ŧï‍ת{‡}: what time?

x_molly_x: whenever. i’ll be home all day

{‡}لµ§‍ŧï‍ת{‡}: okay. i’ll come at around 2

I wasn’t able to message her again because she went offline.

I spent the rest of the night trying to get on to porn sites. My dad had blocked them all when he first set up the computer. I gave up after about three hours and settled on bikini babes (not going in to details). After that, I went straight to bed.

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