Not Exactly What it Seems

I still don’t know her name, though I’ve tried to get it out of her. She seems extremely annoyed with me but I can’t figure out why that is. But I guess it didn’t really matter, it’s not like it would be any different than everywhere else. Having a friend was overrated I guess. Though I wish it was easy to convince myself that.

Two weeks later and I was still being trailed by Hayden, like a lost puppy waiting for me to take pity on him. Pity was a wasted effort though; it only made me feel useless if someone pitied me so I never pitied anyone else. Could he really want to be my friend that badly? Did my friendship mean that much? Mr. Haner told me that I needed to be nice to him, even if it was only at school, but I didn’t see the point.

“Why are you pushing him away so much?” he wondered during study hall one Wednesday afternoon. There were a few other students in the classroom, one being Hayden so I was sitting at Mr. Haner’s desk with him, talking about random things. “What would be wrong with just being his friend?”

“You know how I feel about my situation. If I become his friend then he will think that means I’m willing to do things with him on weekends and stuff, then he’ll get disappointed that I can never do anything. And then what? We start to like each other? I’m his friend and then can never hang out with him? What’s he going to think then?”

“Would you rather continue to be basically alone when you’re yourself? Have the fake friends all your life? If he decides that he can’t handle it then he’ll tell you.”

“But seriously, can you-”

“No. As a teacher, it’s my job to make you see things clearly. You don’t have to like it, but I think that’s best. Take what you want from it.”

I sighed, knowing that he was right. “I’ll try to be nice to him, that’s all I can promise. But how’s the girlfriend?” Clearly, my subject changes left something to be desired.

He laughed slightly, obviously noting my subtlety. But his eyes became kind of sad. “She is no more. She just wasn’t right for me.”

“Aw, why? You always really liked her.”

“She was doing things that I didn’t like. Started acting like what she wasn’t. We fought more than anything else, so I didn’t think it was really worth it.”

“I’m sorry. Anyone else you have in mind, though?” I found it slightly hilarious that I had no problem talking to him about things like that. We were just able to talk about pretty much everything.

“Not exactly, but maybe. I’m not sure how I feel about her. What about you? Are your parents making you date anyone?”

Yeah, my parents set me up with guys and I had no choice or say in the matter. “Yeah, his name is Nathanial. His father is the owner of some big bank. I guess he’s okay, but I just don’t want to date him. It could be worse though.”

For the rest of the period, we talked about random things. None of them had any relevance to school or anything about school but whatever. We talked about the Avenged Sevenfold concert that was coming up, and the Alesana concert that was a few days before. He loved all the same bands that I did, so we always ended up talking about them in some way. I had known him before he started teaching at my school, met him at some save the arts functions when I was maybe thirteen and we’d been friends ever since. That’s why we had such a weird relationship at school. But like I said, I couldn’t really help it.

I made a conscious effort to be nice to Hayden throughout the rest of the week. He seemed encouraged by this and was slightly clingy, but I found that he was a pretty okay guy. Then he asked me if I wanted to hang out over the weekend. That’s where the trouble lay. Although he was not too bummed since it was kind of last minute and everything, if I kept it up, he was sure to notice. Being his friend was a bad idea.