Serenading Sirens

I thought about Alex's words well after I left school. They ran a marathon in my brain as I walked to my car. Part of my mind still worked, at least, to tell me I needed to head to work. It would have been ten times worse if I missed the first day of co-op because of him. Then I would finally have a reason for my dislike.

What exactly did he mean by pursuing me? The basic meaning of being pursued was that someone was running after another in hopes of becoming a couple. This is obviously what he had to mean, and I didn't want that at all. Unless you count David McCaully in the second grade, I had never had a boyfriend. In my senior year, I really wasn't looking for that to change.

And why would he want me? I definitely was not anything special. No one liked me that way, and obviously any other way since they made as little effort to communicate as I did. As if this had made any sense to me before, this information Alex had given me had thrown me for an entirely new loop. It took me almost eighteen years to agree with every other woman alive, but boys were a complete mystery.

I finally reached work, wanting this whole situation behind me. That didn't happen, of course. Not only did the thoughts stick in my mind, but also as I walked in the door, Zack was behind the counter. This time I was sure I groaned out loud. I had never done anything wrong in my life. Why was this all happening?

"Was it Alex's plan that you get a job here?" I demanded to know as I threw my things in the back room. I'd pick them up after I knew what I needed.

Zack's eyes widened, surprised by my hostility when he'd done nothing. "What? No!" he stuttered. "He doesn't even know you work here. Neither did I!" he exclaimed, just trying to reassure me.

Suddenly, I felt bad for snapping at him. He had no idea that I had just endured five periods of Alex's antics and a bit of embarrassment with Jack. Of course it wouldn't take me long to apologize. "Sorry," I mumbled before joining my things in the back room. It probably hadn't been the best idea to throw my purse, I discovered, once I was close enough to it. Curling my legs under me, I started collecting everything that had scattered out of it.

"Here, let me help you," I heard from behind me. Zack knelt down beside me and began to pick everything up that I had missed the first time around.

I sat back and sighed, blowing my bangs off my forehead. This was such a long day, and I still had hours to go.

"So Alex didn't leave you alone today?" Zack inquired, handing me my refilled purse. He got back up swiftly and offered me a hand in the same second.

After my feet were flat on the ground, I nodded. "He's a very persistent boy," I said. To myself, I begged that his determination wore off very soon.

Zack laughed a little. "He is. But you're the first girl that's ever given him a run for his money. I think he's panicking by now," he stated. He followed me back to my small locker, where I stored my purse and pulled out my vest and hat. I grimaced at them before he said anything else. "You're training me, by the way." He beamed when my expression was nothing short of dismay.

It softened quickly when I realized it was no trouble. "It's a bowling alley. There's not much to learn until around midnight on Friday," I told him.

Again, he followed close behind me as I exited to the front. Even if Alex hadn't demanded that Zack get a new job -where I now worked- I was sure that the latter was on strict orders to keep me close whenever he happened to see me. Now I wondered how they lived under such a dictator of a friend. This whole situation had me going off on tangents when they were definitely not necessary. I pulled a stool out at the counter, watching as Zack did the same, and settled in for a few hours of what I could only explain as numbing myself to the woes of working.

________________________________________________

Work wasn't half as bad as I had imagined it to be. Unlike I had been expecting we did get a few customers. Zack was quick to learn everything I told him, showing off by the time we left. The two of us even shared a basket of fries as we talked over break. Sometime during our conversation, he voiced his thoughts on my social skills. He hardly believed that I was quiet and didn't talk to anyone. I always used my vocal cords around him. This was the first time it was ever brought to my attention. But it made no logical sense why it was so easy to talk to him.

"We're friends," he answered when I said this.

I hadn't wanted an answer. The statement wasn't helping me think any better. "I only have one friend," I informed, and rather boldly. There was no intention of ever altering that. I really didn't need more than one, did I?

"Well, you don't think we're just coworkers, do you? Coworkers don't have twenty-minute conversations on why Scooby and Shaggy were always hungry. But," he exclaimed the word like it was a great epiphany, "friends do." A smirk was left on his face from this. He was obviously exuberant, as if triumphant.

I didn't have a retort to make his triumph false. So I crossed my arms over my chest until he finished off the greasy, golden fries and we got back to work.

So what if we were friends; was that such a bad thing? I forced myself to think that it was. Inside my chest, my heart told me it was perfectly normal and about time. No one else ever shuddered at the fact of having more than just your best friend. If she had other people, I certainly should. Hadley had been telling me this for years. It was normal. Though I was anything but, I decided that I was going to accept this. I couldn't do anything to change it now anyway.

Once home, I finally felt the weight of the day leave my shoulders. I took a deep breath, just to enjoy the fresh air that came with this, before walking through the door. My parents were both in the kitchen, making dinner for the three of us. The smells made my mouth water since they were automatically better than bowling alley French fries. I followed them, greeting my mom and dad at the end of the path.

"How was school?" my mom asked once she saw me, smiling wide.

"Tiring," I replied, shoving my bag under my chair and setting my purse on the table. "What do you guys think about home school this year?" I asked once I finally sat, letting my chin rest in my hands.

My father laughed his deep, throaty chuckle. "Oh, Clarke. You crack me up," he said. I was hardly ever funny, but my dad thought I was hilarious when I wasn't even trying. He turned back to the stove to stir the rice he was making, still laughing as he thought back on my words.

Shaking my head, I just lay it on the table. Suddenly, I wasn't that hungry. Sure, I wasn't serious. But in the back of my head I knew that I would have loved if they agreed to my suggestion. I needed to deal with whatever Alex was going to throw my way though.

My parents sat down, dinner finally ready. Conversation continued on my school day, leading into one involving just the two of them. I still listened as I sat, taking in the details of their lives. My mom was going back to school, hoping to do something that would make them a lot of money in a state that wasn't Maryland. So my father supported us at his hardly horrible job as an accountant. They both enjoyed their lives, always speaking for hours of the events of each day.

I had already come up with a theory that that was why I was so quiet. Since I was younger I hadn't really been able to get a word in edgewise. They did care about what I had to say and asked me frequently what I thought about various things. They just enjoyed each other's company more. And I was completely comfortable with that preference. I enjoyed my quiet little world with the friendly interruptions from them.

I excused myself from the table and dropped my plate in the sink before heading to my room. The first few days of school were always torture for me without the distraction of homework. There were hours left of the day, keeping me from going to sleep. I thought back to a year previous, trying to think what I had filled this time with. I drew a blank and it was clear I wasn't going to draw something colorful up anytime soon.

I sat down at my desk, moving the mouse hastily to wake the computer from its slumber. I watched impatiently as the screen slowly turned from black to a dark gray as it began to light. It was only fully loaded for about five seconds before I was clicking on things. Hadley definitely had to hear about my day, no matter what she was doing. A greeting or even an explanation wasn't needed before I said, "Alex Gaskarth definitely has some problems he needs to work out. Maybe his parents should have hugged him more." She had already endured my babbling of the stories from last year. At the time, she really had no opinion or evaluation. But she'd made fun of them with me just as easily as if she had known them.

"Maybe I'll hug him," Hadley replied. The wink she probably did was obvious in the text. She also liked to joke about how hot she thought Alex was.

"Ugh," I sent back, "be my guest."

"We'll get back to that later. But tell me what happened," she demanded.

My fingers had already been moving over the keyboard before she said anything. It took a few minutes to get all the horror points right, making sure they screamed of how horrid the whole thing was. I finished in a hurry with Zack's insisting of the fact that he and I were friends. I sat back in my chair, waiting for her reply. My imagination was already coming up with the clever things that she would say. It was only a minute before there was a response, but my head was filled with all the possibilities of her wittiness.

"You're giving in," I read her words, plain and simple.

My eyes scanned it several times before my mouth fell open. All that imagination for nothing. She was telling me what I didn't want to hear, didn't want to believe. It was everything I was going to deny to anyone else that may ask. But she had observably already figured it out. "I know," I typed with a long sigh. "You could have at least tried to help and pretend that I wasn't though."

"Well now, how much fun would that be?" she asked. "But I'm demanding that you don't replace me with this Zack kid. Or you'll have more problems than possibly getting a sex kitten for a boyfriend."

I grimaced at the words. That surely wasn't going to happen as long as I was alive. And if there was a possibility that it may still happen when I wasn't alive, then Alex really did have some problems.

"Call me. My pillow is calling."

She wasn't even signed off before the other line was ringing. I lay on my own bed as she answered, settling in for a long discussion. No longer wanting to think about my dilemma, I offered to talk about what had happened with her since we last talked. She was well into telling me about her next potential boyfriend when there was a chime from my computer. In my need to get away from it I had forgotten to go away.

I got up and approached it. A screen name I didn't recognize was on my screen, the window flashing to alert me. The text read, "Hey there, best friend."