The In-Betweeners

I remember my first day of freshman year at Wilmington High School. I remember the way the concrete sidewalk sliced through the perfectly manicured lawn, leading the eye to the old brick building. I remember the way the heavy glass door squeaked on its hinges as I entered the main lobby, ten minutes before home room started. I remember the seemingly endless hallway with its infinite rows of lockers and numbered oak classroom doors. I remember how I thought I would be invincible.

Freshman year is the year that I realized I was a nobody.

I had just moved to town in sixth grade. I had never been good at making friends, so throughout middle school I just went without. The way I saw it, I would be entering a new high school in a few years, and when that happened I would make friends. In high school, I would become the kid who had friends. I didn’t even care about how popular I was, I just wanted friends. If I left high school with just one or two friends that I could rely on, friends that I knew I could talk to about anything without any repercussions, then I would be happy.

Freshman year is the year that I realized sometimes things don’t work out the way they’re planned; freshman year is the year I met Shane Dorsey.

One thing I don’t remember about freshman year is how I first talked to Shane. I think it was just one of those things that happened. It was natural. I was a nobody who cared too much, she was a could-have-been-somebody that didn’t care. The funny thing about our friendship is we didn’t have anything in common. She was beautiful in a weird way, a kind of exotic way, which is odd in its own way because she was the epitome of a modern American girl. She had long blonde hair, naturally tanned skin, she was wiry and thin and simply breath-taking. I guess it was her expression and mannerism that made her exotic, foreign almost to the high school world. She just did not care. It wasn’t even that she hated everything, or even that she disliked anything, she really just did not care in the truest meaning of the word.

I, on the other hand, cared far too much. I cared about my grades. I cared about what the other kids thought of me. I cared about what my teachers thought of me. I cared about making my parents proud. I cared about anything you could possibly care about.

Shane and I had homeroom together. I was the first to arrive, and therefore had the privilege of watching my peers file slowly into the classroom. I had the privilege of watching each and every one of those peers, the peers I had hoped would become my friends, gather together into their already decided friend groups and catch up on everything that had happened during the summer. See I had miscalculated. I had forgotten that the very people I was hoping to make my friends already had friends. While I had been daydreaming away my middle school days, my fellow students were busy making my dream their reality. And once that reality had been set, locked in place, those students would not want to bother their perfect little world by getting to know me.

By the time homeroom started, I was the only person in the classroom sitting alone. The teacher explained the rules of homeroom, took attendance, and then left us alone. And then Shane walked into the room, five minutes late and appearing as if nothing bothered her. By default she sat down next to me. There were no other open desks left. And I guess that moment is when our friendship began. The laid back, pretty blonde girl sitting next to the kid with the too-scuffed up ratty old sneakers and the out-of-style blue jeans and the overly casual T-shirt; it was an odd scene to behold.

There is one other thing that I don’t remember about that first year of high school.

I don’t remember when Shane and I became best friends.

I remember the moment when I realized Shane and I were best friends, or considered to be so by other people. Shane was absent from school one day, which in itself was not really an odd occurrence. She often skipped school just because; no reason, just because. I was leaving math class on one of these such days, and the teacher, Mr. Burns, called me back.

“Mr. Wheeler,” he said.

I turned to face him. He was one of those teachers that rarely talked to students after class. You could get away with murder in math class freshman year.

“Will you be seeing Ms. Dorsey over this weekend?”

“Umm,” I said, unsure of why he was asking me this.

“I was just wondering if you would be kind enough to bring her the homework. I’m sure you’ll be seeing her right?” Mr. Burns added, seeing my confusion.

“Oh, yeah. Sure, I guess.” I said, accepting the packet of math problems.

I guess I can see where Mr. Burns would assume that Shane and I were best friends. We were always in the halls together, we had almost every class together, we sat together at lunch. And I guess I can understand why he would think I would see her over the weekend. Best friends hang out over the weekends, right?

It’s not like I would know.