Intro to Margot.

Chapter 1: The Introduction

My name is Wyatt Criswell. I am an awkward boy who grew up in a small town near a big city. Today was the last first day of highschool I will ever have. To be realistic, I am very indifferent about school. I don’t hate it like a lot of people, but I am not exactly enthusiastic about the idea that I spend around eight hours a day in a building full of people I don’t like, and teachers who expect me to act as an adult, but still think that it’s okay to treat me like a child.

I guess you could say that I have always been pretty shy. I try not to be because I don’t like being shy. I like to try to be involved in my friends lives and just be apart of this time in my life. I am planning on going into college and then I want to go into the military. My parents were both in it. My older sister Tiffany, she’s doing in her second year of college. I don’t know exactly what she’s doing with her life, but she is learning how to pole dance.
That’s right. There is a pole, right in the middle of my room. Tiff is pretty chill though, she helps me with girls and such. I am a believer that everyone has one thing that they are really good at, my thing is that I am seductive. I really think it’s a talent, I mean I don’t think I am the best looking kid in the world and to be honest I’m also not the worst looking. Girls like it when you tell them they are pretty. They like it when you smell nice. Out of the forty girls whose numbers are in my phone, I only like two. One I haven’t seen in a really long time. The other. That’s Sage Osburn. The way in which I met her I think is a little interesting. Last year around October this girl I know Fae Silverman, she was having a party, it wasn’t like the ones she usually has. It consisted of around fifty people. For a small Catholic school where my class has around a hundred and seventy three students that is a lot. But on this night a girl who was my girl friend once, Amelia Davis. She brought this girl, Sage Osburn. Amelia and I should have never happened. I liked her a lot, she didn’t really like me. As Sage told me later,
“She liked that idea that someone liked her.” Which is understandable. But Amelia and I hardly talk. Actually we never talk. In fact she’ll talk to all of our friends, but she won't talk to me. It makes me really sad and I hardly understand why. I know that Amelia is also an awkward girl, but really? But enough about that. Amelia brought Sage and Sage was the prettiest girl in the room.The kind of pretty where you think catalogue model, the kind of pretty dads kill boys who hurt their daughters, the kind of pretty where every boy gives her a double take. That is how I first met Sage. I had no idea that I would end up liking her as much as I do, but I do.

Today was the last first day of highschool. I got there, I went to all of my classes and at lunch I sat with the same people that I have sat with for the past three years. It didn’t feel any different. The only difference was that suddenly we were the big kids. We were the people that the freshman were scared of, that the juniors didn’t take seriously that the sophomores respected, we were the big kids. We were the ones who were going to be gone next year. We would be the names in the hallways that the now juniors who would be seniors speak of to their friends saying,
“Remember that stupid thing that Kyle did?”

“Do you remember when Austin pulled the fire alarm to ask Melony to the dance?” Things like that and the Freshman would have no idea who we were, because we would be gone, because we will have started our lives. As much as the idea to some people seemed amazing, and as much as people wanted to get out of their parents house and out of this city, and somewhere new. It scared me, because I realized, that we are the big kids.

“Wyatt where is my money?” My friend Emerson asked me. He’s a flamboyant guy, he is always really loud. In all bluntness Emerson Gardiner simply is an a*****e. He was my best friend.

“What are you talking about?”
“You owe me five dollars.”
“No I don’t I paid for your parking.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Biggs?” Emerson saw the stout boy walking in our direction. Immediately his face got all twisted like he was worried he did something wrong. “Did Wyatt here pay for parking on Friday?” Robby Biggs was a strange guy, but he was a good friend.
“I believe he did.” He said flatly. I looked at my phone it was a text from Sage, she and I had been talking a little bit and we hung around a few times over the summer, I hadn’t seen her for about three weeks, she was in Wisconsin visiting her best friend. It read; “Good luck today kid.” She did stuff like that. She always knew when something like the first day of school, or the ACT test, or something like that was going to happen, she remembered that stuff. She even remembered my sisters birthday and made sure I told her that she wished Tiff a happy birthday. That was just the kind of person Sage was. I didn’t want to reply in front of Emerson, he would probably take my phone and say something.

“Well fine then,” Emerson concluded, “If Biggs says it’s true then it must be.” We made our way down to the tables. It was weird not to have some people there, like Hendersen. He wasn’t exactly a good friend of mine, but he was Fae’s boyfriend. I didn’t know if they were still dating. Alec Henderson was going to MIT for school. I made a mental note to ask her about that later.

Something about our friend group is that we tended to call each other by our last names except for a few of us, like Emerson, myself, and a lot of the girls. We all sat at a long table at lunch. Our friend group was a bit big I guess you could say. The reason for that was because of Fae. She was the glue in a way. I probably wouldn’t be friends with a lot of the people I am friends with now without her. We are like one big group and we kind of branch off each other. But Fae is the one who keeps all of us together. The only problem is that I have to be nice to Amelia, I mean she is a nice girl, but it’s hard to be nice to someone who simply doesn’t like you.

When I got home that night I decided to answer Sage finally and said, “Thanks, I appreciate it.” She was always pretty fast in answering it made me feel bad that I waited so long to answer her because she was so fast and it wasn’t that I was slow I just didn’t want Emerson to say anything. She said; “How was it?” I asked her if we could skype because I didn’t like texting it was too tedious for me. She said that she could in ten minutes so I waited for her to call. When she did I answered and she was sitting on a bed with her legs crossed. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail and she

“Hi.” She smiled.
“Hey there, how’s it going?”
“It’s okay, Zelma just went to bed.” Zelma was her best friend. “How was school?” She asked me.
“It was school, I mean I know it’s the last first day of highschool I will ever have. I just don’t feel that scared about it you know? I feel like maybe I should be more excited or feel something more to it. I just don’t.” She nodded.
“I understand.” We talked for a while. Things were different for us. I wasn’t a person she wanted more than a friend but I still was hoping. I knew that it was stupid. But I did. That night when I went to sleep I had a dream about her and we were both Naked and she was on top. I wished that I didn’t dream that way. It just made me sad when I woke up because I hated how much I liked her and how much I knew she didn’t like me back. I was a sucker for sweet girls and that is exactly what my impression of Sage was, she was a sweet girl.

The weeks went by pretty fast at first, I still thought about Sage a lot and how pretty I thought that she was. We didn’t talk much during that time. It had been about a month into school now, and a new girl sat by me in my AP English class. She had brown hair she didn’t say much she was pretty quiet, I think she thought I was annoying because I would always debate with the teacher. One day I took it kind of far, and we were reading the Great Gatsby a classic book and I was saying how I thought that Gatsby was the protagonist, and my teacher was insisting that it was Nick. But all of the sudden she said,
“Shut your pretentious mouth.” She looked at me. Everyone was kind of stunned because this really quiet girl was speaking.
“Margot, would you like to tell us who you think the protagonist is?” As if she suddenly realized that she had just spoken out she said really quietly.
“No thank you.” Mr. Caldwell insisted that she please explain why I had such a pretentious mouth. She stood up and went to the front of the room.
“The protagonist of the Great Gatsby, is not a direct character, the protagonist is the era itself. The nineteen twenties in Fitzgerald's mind was confusing and haunting and just like how at the end of the book Nick is haunted by the East coast, Fitzgerald is haunted by the era. Like how Gatsby obsesses over Daisy, and how Nick has an obsession with Gatsby, he obsessed over this era, where for the rich and upper class everything was pretty and glamorous, there was a sleazy underbelly of it all.” She was looking down at the ground. “Fitzgerald wants people to recognize that the 1920’s is just a clunk of iron covered in a thin layer of gold.” She looked at Mr. Caldwell,
“That is actually a very good observation.” He said, “I was going to reveal that when we collectively finished the book as a class, I see that you’ve read ahead.”
“No,” She said, “I’ve read it before only a hundred times.” She said with a bit of snark in her voice.
“I see, well it looks like Margot just gave us her essay on the book so I wont make her write one.” No one said anything people were pretty quiet about that. Mr. Caldwell liked a student, for the first time anyone has ever seen Mr. Caldwell liked the student who proved him wrong, which also proved me wrong. I guess I was wrong about the protagonist. She sat down next to me. I was staring at her.
“What?” She turned sharply to me.
“Oh, nothing.” I said. I hadn’t really looked at her before then. She wore fishnet tights with her skirt and black boots. She wore a ring on her right hand. The one with the heart and the hands. I was pretty sure it was a Scottish, or Celtic thing. I just couldn’t remember for sure. Her hair was slightly wavy, and she had a silver coin it looked like that hung around her neck by a leather string. “Thanks for teaching me something.” I said. “It’s not often that someone proves me wrong.”
“You would have been closer to right to say that Nick is the protagonist. Not Gatsby, he doesn’t do anything interesting till the middle of the book, and neither does Nick.” I thought about this she had a very valid point.
“What does that ring mean?” I asked. Her face changed, it got bright and excited. I realized how pretty she was when she smiled.
“When the heart is facing out on your right hand, that means your heart is open.” She turned it around so the heart faced toward her. “This means that your heart is taken. Aka, in a relationship.” She changed it to her left hand. “When the heart faces out on this hand it means you are engaged, when it faces toward you it means you are married.” Her enthusiasm about the subject made her seem like a interesting person. Not just the quiet girl who sits next to me in AP English. Later that day I realized that she sat at the table at lunch with us. She sat next to Fae and Amelia, suddenly her attitude toward me made sense. Amelia didn’t like me. So she probably told her to stay away or something. That Wednesday Fae told everyone that she was having a party that Friday, that meant that Sage might come… Suddenly I found myself texting her asking if she was going to come. She didn’t answer me. So I never knew if she was going to, which gave me anxiety.

Friday afternoon Emerson and I were at my house,
“Is Sage going to be there?” He asked me.

“I have no idea.” I said a little nervously. I put on a hoodie and a pair of jeans. I wasn’t going to try to hard just incase she wasn’t there, but I wanted to look decent enough.

“Why do you keep trying with her?” Emerson asked me, “I mean as pretty and nice as she is to you, she isn’t to the rest of us. She only likes Amelia, Fae and you.”
“Who said I like her?”
“Really?” He laughed at me. “You’re a really bad liar.” We were getting ready to go when Tiff said,
“Wyatt, I need the car.”
“No you don’t.” I said and I took the keys and left. When we arrived, there wasn’t a whole lot of people there. There was Amelia, she was with Fae, and there was Biggs, and Whitfield and a couple others who I knew. I sat at a kitchen counter in Fae’s basement with Emerson. They got out the rock band and people started playing I had meaningless conversations with people. I never really understood parties. I mean I always had fun. Just the idea of making small talk with the same people I see every day except now we’re in jeans instead of skirts and khakis.

I saw Margot enter, she was wearing skinny jeans and she has a t-shirt with a weird graphic on it. She looked around and looked at me. I quickly turned my head away. Goddamnit! I thought to myself I hated it when that happened. I wasn’t even staring at her, I was observing her and she looked at me and I really hope she didn’t think I was staring at her. She walked up behind me and tapped my shoulder. I turned around and she smiled. It was a really nice smiled.
“Hey!” I said, I had to be sort of loud. They were doing Karaoke. She sat next to me then Emerson suddenly turned to see what was happening. So of course he had to be an a*****e and ruin it.
“Wyatt who is this?”
“This is…” I temporarily forgot her name.
“Margot.” She said. She suddenly wasn’t that quiet girl in my English class. She talked to Emerson and played along with all of his games. They were really random conversations. It was weird to see her being so wild. I was used to seeing her quiet and silent and not saying much. I guess there was more to her than just what I was in English. After a while I saw Sage walk down with Amelia.
“Margot!” she called her, ignoring me and exchanging words with Emerson, “I want you to meet Sage.” Sage gave her smile that was pretty and pink. Margot and Amelia walked away. Sage gave me a little hug and said.

“I’ve missed you.” I didn’t really believe it. Though I really wanted to. I talked to her but then she got bored and left. I walked into to the living room where there people filled up the couches. I found an empty seat next to Margot.
“Having fun?” I asked her.
“More than I usually have.” She said blatantly.
“I’m going to get water, you want any?” I told her no and she got up when she came back I noticed for the first time how pretty she was. Not in the conventional way that Sage was pretty. Sage was the kind of girl who would deny at all costs that she was pretty. At that moment I saw almost every boy glance twice at Margot. She was the kind of girl who knew she was pretty, she was the kind of girl who didn’t exactly care for looks because that was what she was born with, for her, it was obvious that it didn’t matter. She wore a simple t shirt and jeans. Her hair was lazily dangled over her shoulders and she didn’t seem to care what she looked like. Regardless of that, she was still very pretty. Suddenly on the karaoke, a rap song came on and Margots expression became determined. I didn’t know the song, but Margot did. She took the mic from the person who was last there. To everyone's surprise the quiet girl who didn’t say very much at school was rapping, Fae did the singing portion. Margot had refused to do it before that point because she claimed to not be able to sing, but that girl could definitely rap. I saw Sage walk in the room. I watched her across the room. She was flirting with a boy. She caught my eye for a second but then she went back to her conversation. People were high fiving Margot and she had this grin on her face, it was pleased. She was having fun and that made me happy. I decided at that moment I wanted Margot to be my friend. She seemed like a different person. Maybe she was good at advice with girls too.

Later that night when I was ready to go home I saw Sage sitting sleepily on the floor. I nudged her and her brown eyes looked at me and they smiled.
“Want me to take you home?” I asked her. She hesitated,
“Only if you want to.” She said.
“I’ll take you home.” First I dropped Emerson off. Then I drove twenty minutes to Downtown and dropped her off at her family apartment. She waved good bye. If this went to my expectations, she would have invited me in and I would have made out with her, but that wasn’t my reality. My reality was that I was I drove all the way downtown to take the girl I’ve had a crush on for almost a year now home. I went home, I laid on my bed for a while, I was pissed off at Sage, I had no reason to be, I just hated that I let myself like her for this long and after her not liking me and letting her toy with my mind she didn’t like me. That was when I deleted my number from my phone, I didn’t want to like her anymore, it wasn’t practical for me to like this girl anymore, she had no interest in me.

On Sunday I went over to Emersons house. He was telling me about how cool Margot was. He said she was a bro. I laughed at that. After a while of doing calculous, Emerson asked me about Sage. I told him how I was done with her. He nodded and told me that she just isn’t interested and she isn’t that nice anyways, I wished that he didn’t say that because she was nice to me.

“She isn’t nice and you know it.” He said, “She’s not even decent, she’s really rude when you aren’t around.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” I said, “It’s not worth it anymore.”
“Are we getting the old Wyatt back?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A different girl every weekend, come on, that was the greatest.”
“I don’t know about that, I’ve gotten a lot of crap for it since then, mainly from girls who I actually like.”

“Who cares about that?” He asked, “One day you’ll meet a girl you like who will like you, what does it matter what other people think as long as you are happy, you have the rest of your life to make a relationship work.” He had a point. The next day at school I had English with Margot. This time we talked to each other when we could she would start to ignore me when something was happening I had learned a few things about Margot in that class.

She knew a lot about astrology. All of that zodiac stuff. She told me all about being a Gemini and stuff then she asked me what I was, truth was that I didn’t know. She asked me my birthday.

“December Seventh.”. She told me that I was a Sagittarius, what ever that was. I didn’t really understand it, apparently it was the symbol of the archer.

“Sagittarius is of the Sun transit area.” It meant absolutely nothing to me but I decided to let her keep talking because I think that she liked talking when people asked her about things that she liked. “The Ruler of it is Jupiter, and it’s one of the three fire signs.”

“To be honest this doesn’t make any sense to me.” She smiled and said,
“Don’t worry about it, I just like informing people on their astrological symbol.” She knew a lot about lots of things I thought it was interesting how much she knew about various subjects. I liked her, she was one of those people who if you pushed the right buttons could talk for hours.

“How do you know all this stuff?” I asked her.
“I know a lot of things and when you are quiet like me you have to find something to occupy your time.” She told me. I liked how l she was blunt, if she didn’t like something you did or thought you were being an a*s for no good reason she would let you know about it. She constantly did with Emerson, though they got along pretty well, after a while she migrated her way in to my section of our gigantic group. At lunch she would sit with Emerson, Biggs, our other friend Leo, and I. To us she was just another guy. She usually listened during lunch time unless we talked to her specifically. I just thought she was a great girl. Over the next few weeks I learned about her life. She wanted to be a journalist, she wanted to travel the world and write about peoples lives. She read a lot. The first time I went over to her house, there were books everywhere, she told me that she was pretty much the only one who read them. But in her room one of her walls wasn’t a wall, it was a bookshelf and it had books that filled up the wall. She didn’t care about much, but where she did care, she cared a lot. She told me she had a best friend who lived in Chicago, that was where she was from. She moved here because she couldn’t stand living with her mom anymore.
“We’re really similar to the point where we clash because we are so similar. And where we are not similar she doesn’t understand at all.” Her dad was rarely home though. He owned a warehousing company that shipped things across the world. I assumed he made a lot of money because they had a really nice home. It sat at the top of this hill and you could see all of the city lights and it was really pretty. The entire basement was basically Margot’s living area. She had a little mini kitchen, and her room was down there and then there was a tv and a little area with couches and stuff, it was like her own little apartment and she called it her place. Every time people came over before we went down to the basement she’d say,
“Let’s go to my place.” I thought it was kind of funny but I liked it. In her basement there was a wall that was basically just a window and I liked that place best at night because you could see all the city lights and it was all really pretty and Margot always had music playing in the background I think she left it on even when she wasn’t home. Or at least I hoped she did. I liked the idea that even when people weren’t down here having fun like we did or even when Margot wasn’t down here, that music was always playing and the ghosts of all the people who had ever stepped down here and had a good time were watching the city and all of what you could see, which felt like the whole world.

There was also something about Margot that I couldn’t quite figure out. As much fun as she was when we were in a group or even when we were talking, I would notice that she just didn’t seem whole I can’t quite explain it. I don’t think I’ll try, but there was an emptiness that would be in her body language when she thought that no one was watching. I now know that she would only show how she was really feeling when she thought no one was watching. But I noticed these things and I hated that I did because it made me curious about things that are none of my business.