A Cynical Distraction

I'm not sure if it was just pure luck or if it's set up so that I ended up in school on a Monday. Mondays aren't the worst day of the week, but it was also only two days after we'd "settled in" at our new house. I was disoriented enough as it was, but now I had to get a hold of all of my school stuff and find my way around a new town at seven o'clock in the morning. School didn't start until nine, and I have a better sense of direction than my mother does, but I also needed to find a good coffee shop that had something I would eat. Starbucks does coffee, lattes, hot chocolate, and cappuccinos, not food.

With my shirt hanging around my neck, my pants halfway up my legs, and a toothbrush in my mouth, I shuffled around my bedroom, opening every other box I could. It occurred to me to have done this yesterday, or the day before, but I'm not that on top of things.

I had no idea what was in most of the boxes in my room, and I was too tired to try and read the labels in the dark. Mom had crashed in my room last night since her bed wasn't up yet, so I couldn't exactly flip the overhead light on, either. I'd already come across five boxes filled with just clothes and four filled with books and picture frames. But I could not for the life of me find the one with my bag.

It had also occurred to me before we left to just keep my school bag in the front seat with me and not pack it and the stuff it was filled with away for the trip, but with all the other little things I'd kept on me, it didn't seem necessary. Either way, now I was screwed.

I gave up after another fifteen minutes of searching and pulled my pants all the way up. I finished brushing my teeth, found a supposedly clean pair of socks and tiptoed down the stairs. Pulling my shirt down fully across my chest and stomach, I paused. Mom wasn't starting work until next week, but that still didn’t give me full permission to just take the car. We were like a mile away from the school and pretty much in the middle of a city. I could walk.

I scribbled a note on the whiteboard to Mom and sat down in the front hall to put my shoes on. Right next to them was my bag.

~::::~

It wasn't very hard to find a good coffee shop. Chain-wise anyway. I passed about three Seattle's Bests on my walk. I'm not sure why I was surprised to see them here, in Seattle, but I was. I'd only ever seen them in airports before. Going to a real one was somewhat of a treat.

About three blocks away from school, and I had just finished a red kane cola, which was much better than I'd thought it would be, and the bagel I'd picked up. The weather was a lot warmer than I imagined it would be. Seattle, top left corner of the country on a map, if you don't count Alaska. Generally, in seaside, northern states, it shouldn't be sixty degrees and humid out a week before the end of October. Right?

One block and I had thrown out my trash and draped the hoodie I'd been wearing over my shoulders. It was too hot to keep going with it on and I wasn't wearing black. Sweat marks are unattractive. I had two first impressions to make today, the first being at school and the second being at a job interview at Burger King, and part of those impressions had to include somewhat good looks. Especially in school.

My first goal for the year was to find a group to latch myself to. Once I scoped out the sports scene, I'd probably end up on whatever team they had going for the winter. Then, in the spring, I'd try my luck in weaseling my way onto the baseball team, which I'd heard was pretty top notch. My second goal, to appeal to as many girls as possible and hook up with at least one before the calendar year was out, would be semi-fueled by the group I hung out with and the sport I played. And, of course, how I presented myself on my first day of school. My third goal? Making sure that girl never found out that I really wasn't into her.

My feet stopped moving at the corner directly across the street from the school. There were a few kids sitting around on the lawn or the steps, but most of them appeared to be either inside or not around yet. I flipped my hair away from my eyes and started forward, keeping account of the girls in my direct vision. It wasn't very hard to spot my number one target, and it wasn't very hard to tell what her social status was. Pretty high up on the food chain.

She was blonde, with greenish eyes that seemed to be assessing my every movement. Step one was completed. I'd shown up on her radar.

Step two; keep my spot on said radar. As I pulled closer to her on the walkway, she cast a flirtatious smile in my direction, her friends leaning together and whispering about something she'd obviously lost interest in. I met her gaze and grinned casually to let her know I'd noticed her. Then I pulled my eyes up again and continued up the steps and into the school. I was lucky enough to have to turn almost immediately after hitting the corridor, and a quick look over my shoulder confirmed that she was still looking.

Complete. Now, assuming she held up her interest and that she wasn't into cash, I wouldn't have much of an issue getting that second goal off my list.

I pulled the map I'd been given out of my pocket and immediately decided that the main office was in the dumbest place it could ever be in for a new kid or a visitor. Off to the left at the very end of the hallway; what the hell was that?

I kept going, slowing down when I heard voices coming from a dip in the side of the hall. I had to admit it was a weird place for an extra hall to pull off, but as I got closer I noted a bathroom door on one side of it.

Oh.

Sitting on the floor next to that door was a group of three people, two guys and a girl. A once over of the girl and I pretty much lost interest. She was cute but not my type, I could tell. Plus she seemed to be pretty into the guy sitting next to her. They looked a lot alike, enough so to be siblings, but that didn't mean they actually were. Just as I was about to focus back on the hallway ahead of me, my eyes caught onto the third boy, sitting farthest into the hallway. He was in the middle of a laugh, brushing his hair out of his face, head turned in my direction. My mouth dropped. Our eyes met for a split second. I swear to God I almost tripped.

Before I could lose myself, I snapped my head forward again and quickened my pace. My third goal just became a lot harder to achieve.

~::::~

Coming out of the principal's office, schedule in hand, I was pleased to see that there were now several people in the halls. The bathrooms seemed to be a hot spot in the mornings, for girls especially, and the trio I'd seen before had moved on. With this knowledge in mind, it was a lot easier to keep my composure. And with the amount of people in the halls, that was a good thing.

The school was big, the size of a normal public high school, with about a thousand students or so. With big schools, it was best on your first day to stick out in a subtle way, so that only those who are really looking will see and take note of you. Especially if it was only your first day and if you didn't know anything about the kids at the school.

I wormed my way into the room marked on my schedule. First period was a free period for me. I was allowed to spend time in the library, cafeteria, computer labs (provided there were no classes in them at the time), or in the gym, I'd been told. But because it was first period, I was required to check in with the "free period advisor" for attendance and the like.

I scanned the room for a minute, more of showing myself off to the other students than looking for a place to sit, and chose a seat in the third row, two desks over from the wall. Almost as soon as I'd pulled a notebook out of my bag, I felt a brush on my shoulder. I glanced over and my eyes met a perfectly manicured hand followed by a smile as a cute little brunette lowered herself into the seat beside me.

"Sorry," she said, drawing back her hand and flicking something imaginary into the air, "you had a feather on your shirt. I'm a little OCD."

She giggled. I smiled. "It's not a problem. I'm a bit OCD myself."

"Oh, really?" She leaned forward and let the strap of her camisole fall down her shoulder.

Okay. Not gonna happen.

"So does that bother you...?

"Yeah, actually. It does," I reached over and pulled up the strap again, letting it rest where it should've stayed. "There. Much better."

She looked me up and down and snarled, deliberately making her desk bang against mine as she got up and moved. A couple kids across the room snickered at her and I grinned to myself.

Silly girls. I thought. And almost immediately after, Wait, no. I'm straight. She's not silly, just desperate.

I ran my fingers through my hair and turned my head to check out the clock above the door. Eight fifty-six. And below the clock was one girl, two girls, three girls, and finally Miss Blondie. What luck.

Her eyes locked onto me immediately and she stopped in the doorway. Her friends breezed past me towards the window. She flicked a look at them, then flipped her hair over her shoulder and quite pointedly took a seat one desk away from mine. She pulled out a notebook and started scribbling things down with a pink pen. One of the girls near the window came over and stood before her desk.

"Amy?"

"Let's sit here today," she said casually, looking up for about three seconds then turning back to her notebook. The girl standing above her nodded slightly and lowered herself into the seat in front of her. She cast a glance over her shoulder and the other two came and flocked around them as well. Then they went about chatting it up around the scribbling girl.

Amy waited for about a minute and then bit her lip and shot a glance in my direction. She smirked at me and I grinned.

A bell went off. "Alright, kids. Phones away. You've got one minute."

A woman who looked to be about seventy-something waltzed into the room. She was large and wearing gray tweed skirt that probably dated back to the days of Ellis Isle and an ivory blouse that made her look like an early 1800's seamstress. Her glasses were about as thick as the bottom of a wine bottle.

Wow.

Another bell sounded and she pulled out a clipboard from her desk. She leaned against said desk and propped the clipboard up with her stomach.

"Attendance," she said, announcing the obvious. Then she began to list off names. Mine came in fifth. "Ryan Burke?"

"Here."

"You new or something?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Just moved here."

She gave me the once over and snorted. "Heh. Welcome to hell, kid."

The class giggled and I smirked. She grinned at us and continued. So this lady wasn't the old fart she looked like.

Amy leaned over and bumped my wrist with her hand. "That's Ms. Hanson," she whispered. "She's probably the coolest teacher you'll ever meet here. Her husband is the sports coach here, Jim Mannings. He's like thirty years younger than her. You didn't hear it from me."

"My lips are sealed."

She smiled at me and Ms. Hanson called her name. "Amy Springstein?"

"Present," she said, straightening her back for a split second to respond. Then she slouched over her desk again and turned back to me. "You're cute. Where'd you move from?"

"Florida," I said. Then I frowned. "It's a horrible place to live. The people suck there."

"Tell me about it. My uncle lives down there. Ass. How long did you live there for?"

"About a year."

"Before that?"

"Jersey. Two years."

"Before that?"

"Massachusetts. One year."

"Before that?"

"Arizona for three years. And before that it was New York."

"So you're what. Sixteen?"

I nodded and grinned. "Nice math skills."

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Uh-huh. So, why have you moved so much?"

"My, uh, my dad's job."

"Oh, yeah? What's he do?"

"He's in the army." I swallowed hard. Short answers now.

This was one subject I didn't feel like talking about. Not that it was deathly painful for me that my father was constantly moving us from one place to the next, or that I was worried about something happening to him if he ever got sent away to fight. He already fought. Or used to rather. And his job had absolutely nothing to do with the army.

"Oh, so you're an army brat?"

"Yup," I said, smiling again. I was regaining the composure I'd just barely lost and the stability in my voice. This story was well-rehearsed in my mind. It was the same one I told every single time the reason for my moves came up. The actual reason lay with my mom and her unswayable fear of meeting up with her exes after they'd broken up with her. Her relationships always ended badly.

That always lead to the question of where my dad was in all of this and, next to people thinking badly of my mother, was the top reason as to why I hated talking about my moves. Dad was gone. Maybe dead, maybe not. But gone for sure.

For the rest of first period, Amy drilled me with questions about my past and I lied my way through all of them. She seemed satisfied with my answers because she didn't question any of them too deeply.

My next class was math which was, as usual, boring. I didn't need to worry about confusion though because they were doing a chapter that covered things I'd just finished learning about in my previous math class. It gave me time to scribble down exactly what I'd told Amy rather than pay attention. I also jotted down things that I'd noticed about her; things that would become problems if we ever ended up dating and things that I could use to my advantage in getting to that point.

As much as I hate to admit it, that boy in the hallway crossed my mind several times as well. He was handsome. Really, really handsome. Longish, blonde hair, dark brown eyes. Everything about him was slender. I guessed that he'd be pretty tall standing up. The shape of his face was strong and soft at the same time. Uggh, he was hot. And sadly, I noticed this. Had he not been there this morning, had he just been in the center of a crowd or wearing horribly unfashionable horn-rimmed glasses and parachute pants I wouldn't be having this awful dilemma right now. The dilemma of being reminded that I'm gay.
I also wouldn't need to worry about what would happen if I felt myself going weak at the knees again or if I tripped up upon seeing him or hearing his laugh while I was in the presence of Amy. Or any other girl I decided to snag. And how was I to keep up my mysterious, cool, sexy, semi-self absorbed demeanor if I ended up in the same room as him? If he talked to me? Though a little known fact, I had trouble staying away from the timid side of me whenever super hot guys were around. As my cousin had put it, certain guys made me seem "adorable." That was not okay.