It was the beginning of October, and it was the week of homecoming, because it was homecoming each day we got to dress up a certain way. The first day was supposed to be superhero day. We weren’t aloud to wear masks which basically left only Superman and I didn’t like superman. I wanted to be Iron man, but I didn’t want to wear a corney costume. So what I did was I wore a pinstriped suit and the I did my hair like Tony Stark. The way that Robert Downey Jr. would do it. I was Iron man. Emerson showed up with a T-shirt that said Super Hero on it.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
“Wait you haven’t see the best part!” He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a folder.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s my resume.” He said matter of factly. “I am a person auditioning for the spot of the Super Hero.” I thought it was actually a bit of a funny idea. He pulled a paper out of it and it included a headshot and an action shot. the Head Shot was Emerson peering over a pair of glasses he didn’t need, and the action shot was him running and he made a really intense face like he was about to save the day. It was pretty hilarious at the time. His list of special skills included:
Appear hunky on command.
Ability to walk intensely away from an exploding building and still look good.
Looks good in tights.
At lunch I saw Margot. I have to say she looked really hot.
“What are you supposed to be exactly?” Emerson asked her.
“I’m Baby Doll, from Sucker Punch.” She told us. I hadn’t ever seen the movie but Emerson did.
“Wait, the nerd porn movie?” She got really defensive.
“It is not a porm movie. It is motivational s**t. Have you ever paid attention to the script?” Emerson raised his eyebrows.
“Explain.” He prompted.
“It’s the only movie I have ever seen where the girls kick a*s and there isn’t some love story involved. Blue Jones tried to rape Baby Doll, you know what she does? She stabs him in the f*****g shoulder! It’s the first movie I have ever seen that they could have made to be crap but made it to be motivational. You know what the whole point of that movie is? To get up and f*****g fight. I’ve seen and read too many movies and books where the girl has to wait for the guy to come save her because she’s helpless. I hate that, that is what girls are taught to believe. That you have to wait for a guy to come save you.” I never really thought of it that way. I mean my sister tried to teach me about feminism, I just didn’t really understand it. But Margot did have a point.
But why I was too attracted to Margot at the time was that her hair was in pigtails, and she wore a high waisted mini skirt, and a really tight polo that was a crop top. She had knee sock and wore the same Army boots that she wore everyday. Bottom line she looked really hot. Not to mention the fact that she did have a really nice body that before that point I failed to notice. Probably because I saw her as one of the guys. She had really nice curves and a really solid a*s. I know that sounds like I’m an a*s hole. But when you see a hot girl you’re going to notice. I’m not going to go and demand that she makes out and what not like some guys do. I don’t think that is okay. I also had no intention of dating her at all and I didn’t want to screw with our friendship by hooking up with her. Even if I tried she seemed like the king of girl who would beat the crap out of me if I did.
The next day was Sherlock day, where basically everyone dressed up like Sherlock. I wanted to be John Watson. So I did that I was one of the only few who dressed up as Doctor John Watson.
Wednesday, it was dress like your favorite celebrity. I didn’t have a favorite celebrity really. I liked Macklemore so I went for him. Emerson was some rapper I’d never heard of. Biggs was John Green the writer. I never read his books though. I didn’t read much, I have developing Dyslexia. Margot showed up with really wavy curly hair and she had purple lipstick and wore all black. I had no idea who she was but some people got it right away.
Oh my gosh you look just like her!” Fae said to her at lunch. A lot of people came over to talk to her including Amelia, who was still ignoring me.
“You look like Lorde.” Was basically what everyone told her. Margot seemed pleased with her accomplishment to look like the Alternative Pop star Lorde. It made sense. She had a very particular taste in music which much of it included Lorde and music like that. The next day was fictional character day. I dressed like a character from Percy Jackson. I was Jason. I wore a purple t-shirt and called it good. I didn’t even read the books it was what Margot told me to do because I didn’t know what to do. Margot said that she was going to be Katniss along with almost every other girl.
“Katniss will never be overdone.” She told me. I loved her views on certain things. On friday we had to dress nice for school spirit. Which bummed out Margot because she had to look like everyone else. She was the absolute non conformist. It made her probably the most interesting girl I’d ever met. She was my friend and I liked having her around. That weekend after the game Fae had a get together and I was informed that Sage was to be there. I decided to go. I didn’t go the the dance, I didn’t feel like it.
I told Margot about Sage and the not nice thing that she did to me which I don’t like talking much about.
“She doesn’t sound like a very nice person.” She said hesitantly.
“I don’t even know anymore.”
“I think that you are a really nice boy, I don’t think you are nice just to get a girl to like you I think you are nice because you are a nice person. The fact that she treated you like s**t, not even simply rejecting you but let you believe that she also liked you and then it turned out she had a boyfriend, says a lot about her integrity.” I knew she was right. That was not an okay thing to do. It seemed ridiculous to me that I still liked her after almost an entire year.
“I know,” I told her. “I just think that despite those things she’s a really nice person she just has a funny way of showing it.”
“You don’t believe that do you?”
“Believe what?” I was a little confused the question was vague.
“Believe that people are good even when they don’t show it. I hate people who say, ‘They love me they just have a funny way of showing it.’ If you love someone you owe it to yourself to say it and show it.” She told me. I hadn’t heard her talk that way before. I observed her.
“Have you loved anyone ever?” I asked her. I felt a heart to heart about to happen. People usually had a easy time talking to me. I am a pretty good listener. She was quiet and she wouldn’t look at me. “Are you okay?” She didn’t say anything. We were at my house and I was helping her with Pre Calc. She didn’t like math so much.
“I’m fine.” she said.
“You don’t have to answer my question if you don’t want to.” I said feeling like I stepped somewhere that I wasn’t wanted.
“No, it’s fine.” She said sensing my uncomfortableness. “I just don’t like to talk a lot about those things. It takes a while to get me to open up.” She was pretty quiet in that moment.
“Well, I’m here.” I told her. I didn’t know why I said that, it just felt right. She smiled and said.
“Thanks bud.”
At the party that weekend it was on a Sunday. It was the middle of October and I felt fine. I actually hoped that Sage would be there. Not so I could try to impress her. But because I wanted to see her face when she realized how much I didn’t care anymore, and how I wouldn’t be there for her because she wasn’t worth my time anymore. She wasn’t there. Margot was the “official person in charge of music” according to Fae, no one was allowed to play anything except for Margot because she had music that everyone liked. I didn’t argue, it was better than the stuff her boyfriend Hendersen would play.
We had a good time and I met a girl, her name was Carly I think I can’t remember for sure, but she was really attractive. She had tan long legs. I ended up getting her number I was really happy about it. I also took her home as well, she didn’t live very far from me so that made it easier. But she invited me inside and we sat on her couch for a while and talked for a while. She kept getting more and more tired.
That was when she leaned in and kissed me. I got really excited because the last girl that I had kissed had been Sage, so I felt really okay about this. She was kind out of it making her awkward a little but I didn’t care that much.I left around 12:30 which was past my curfew, but I was in such a good mood that when I got home and my dad came out to yell at me I didn’t mind all that much. I got a text from Margot and it said: “Did you get her?” It also had a winky face. I decided to go to bed because I had school and I’d see her for my second period regardless.
The next morning I woke up late, School started at eight am always and it was seven thirty. I scrambled for my uniform and I put my stuff in my backpack and left and got to school with five minutes to spare. I had to admit… I looked like s**t. My hair was all ruffled in an awkward way and I was really tired from not getting to bed until one. But at the same time, I felt awesome. I had my first class with Emerson. I told him all about it. He was really happy for me. He gave me a high five and was congratulating me. The only difference is I didn’t feel like a champion. I made out with a girl who I have no intention of talking to ever again. Before now I would have been fine with it, but for the first time I had also been on the other end. I felt like a jerk.
About two weeks later there was a day that was really rainy, it was really nice and the whether was still at it’s average sixty and it was so nice. It was really pretty too. That was a Tuesday. I went on a drive with Margot. She and I had the same truck. It was a Ford Explorer, mine was green and hers was white. But they were basically the same thing. We drove and we had the music on really loud and it was really pretty music that reminded me of rain and it fit the rainy weather and it was such a good moment.
Later I found out that she made a playlist for that ride. The playlist was really good I asked her if she could make me a CD or something. I know that was old fashioned. But I liked the idea that I could have it as a CD and remember this drive that I had with Margot was a really wonderful idea to me. These were the songs on it;
Emmylou - Vance Joy
World Alone - Lorde
The Fear - Ben Howard
One Red Thread - Blind Pilot
Wooden Chair - Angus Stone
Blood - Middle East
We Don’t Eat - James Vincent McMorrow
Silhouettes - Of Monsters and Men
Swan - Unkle Bob
Youth - Daughter
Stubborn Love - Lumineers
Someday Soon - Alexi Murdoch
That was one of my favorite moments last year with Margot. It was just a pretty day and I was with a good friend and I was happy about it all. We later sat in her car and we were just talking, that was when I told her all about that night with Carly.
“I don’t know, I feel like I shouldn’t do that, I don’t know if she even liked me at all, but I wouldn’t ever have found out I just thought that she was hot and I just wanted to make out and if this was last year I wouldn’t have cared either way because I would have forgotten it by now. But I just can’t think of every putting that same thing that Sage put on me to anyone else, I don’t want to do that.” I told her.
“You’re not the same person you were a year ago Wyatt.” She told me. “No one is the same person they were last year, a month ago, or even last week. You have to understand that you have developed morals of what is right and wrong for you personally.” She told me. I always thought she was really wise for a seventeen year old. I mean I was also seventeen, but I knew people who were in their twenties who couldn’t have told me what she just told me. That was when I asked her.
“How are you so good at this stuff? Knowing what to say, most people couldn’t have told me that.” I told her she smiled and said,
“What was the age you first realized how s****y the world really is?” She asked me.
“I think I was fifteen.” I told her. She smiled and said.
“I figured out how s****y the world was when I was about twelve.” She said. “My life isn’t all that great and I don’t want to give you my whole sob story because I don’t want you to think of me differently because that has been what everyone has done to me so far.”
“I won't.” I said to her, “I promise.” She gave a sigh and said.
“Not today,” she looked out the windshield. “Not yet.” It made me want to know more about her, why she was so distant about these things. What was her sob story? I’ve never met a person more excitingly mysterious as her. She was a puzzle that I wanted to solve. Not only did I want to solve it. I wanted to figure out what the answer was, what the answer meant.
She dropped me off at home and I invited her in but she said that she had to do school. So I let her alone. At this point Emerson had called me three times already. I found him in my room waiting for me.
“Why haven’t you answered me?” He sounded incredibly aggravated.
“Sorry I was with Margot.” I told him.
“This is important a*s hole.” I shot a look at him, Margot was our friend and I really didn’t like that he said that like she wasn’t important.
“Sorry.” He said. He looked upset.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“It’s a girl.” He said.
“What about a girl?”
“I like one.”
“So?” I said idiotically not catching the signs.
“I like a girl you dumbass!”
“Who is it?”
“I’d rather not say because I don’t want her to find out.”
“Well, how are you going to know if she likes you if she doesn’t even know you like her.”
“This is my idea…” He told me. “I want you, Biggs, and Leo, to all go snooping around to see if she would be interested, you know, in me.”
“I think she’d want you in her, not the other way around.”
“Shut the f**k up.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
“Well you’re going to have to, God.” He was completely serious about this. That was what shocked me the most is that he was so serious about this.
“I’ll help.”
“We need a name for it or something so that way people will be confused when we talk about it.”
“Operation Girl?” I asked.
“No,” He paused. “Project M.”
‘Well who is it?” I asked him.
“Margot.” I was really shocked by this.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He told me.
“This was weird mostly because to me she’s just another one of the guys.” I said. “Is that why she doesn’t know about this?”
“Obviously.” He rolled his eyes at me. He was really good at it. Almost as good as Tiff. “but no one can know.” He stressed that part to me. “I want you guys to find out if she likes me or not okay, or if it’s something that she would be interested in.”
“How long have you liked her?” I asked him.
“I don’t even know. I have always thought she’s pretty, but I first realized it a few weeks ago. At first I thought it was nothing and then I realized yesterday how much I actually like her…” I understood that feeling. That was how it was with Sage, at first I thought she was just pretty and that she had a nice body. I know that was really shallow of me but that was why I got to know her that was the reason. That was when I realized that I would never truly like a girl because she was good looking. In the case of Sage I just looked at her and had lust for her. Later it developed into a bit of an obsession which I was over with at that point. But I don’t think that I have ever liked a girl simply because I thought she was nice. I thought that was really bad of me. I never thought of it that way before. I made the decision that day to only date a girl because I actually like who she is rather than only liking what she looks like. I mean if I can get both that would be really great. But I want to be with someone where to me they are a beautiful person because of who they are, not what they look like, I want to like them so much that no matter what they look like I will think they are perfect no matter what they look like.
I was going to help Emerson with Margot because they were both my friends and it would make me really happy to see them together, I just needed to find out if Margot would be interested in him.
That Wednesday we all met up at lunch and we kept saying Project M and Margot wasn’t sitting with us because we told her we had guy stuff to talk about and she naturally left and went to sit by Fae and some others. The four of us huddled together. We determined that I was the best of friends with Margot so I would be the one to ask a general question of who she likes, if anyone at all. We were hoping that it would be no one particular that way we could nudge her in the direction of Emerson. I felt funny because we were doing the match making. Not even match making, just telling a girl that Emerson would be really great for her and what not. I actually had no idea how their relationship would work. I didn’t know if they were compatible or not. I didn’t care really. I was doing a favor for one of my friends and possibly Margot to if it worked out well enough. I hope it did for the both of them because even though Emerson was an a*s ninety percent of the time, he was a really nice guy otherwise and he is only an a*s hole so people wont think that he’ll just do things for people and not expect a thank you. Margot was also a really nice girl and the more I thought about it I hoped that they would get together because it would make me happy to see my two friends happy.
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