Stay With Them Tonight

“Allie. Hey, Allie.” I felt a hand on my arm, shaking it. I looked up at Rachel, who had stolen Greg’s chair for second period, sitting closer to me. We had become, if not friends, friendly with each other. “You fell asleep,” she told me. Duh.

I hadn’t even made it past second period. And it was a half day. I naturally went closer to people while sleeping, and I had fallen asleep on her. I looked up from resting my head on her arm.

“Sorry about that, Rachel,” I said, rubbing the red mark on my forehead. Last night had really been hell. If I wasn’t calming my thoughts of Ryan and Kelly, I was thinking of Greg, which Kelly had told me was not Greg, Number-One-Guy-in-the-School, but was Greg the-Nice-Hockey-Player, or I was thinking of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. No, not Voldemort. Kelly’s brother. Why was I thinking about him in the middle of the night? I have no idea. Ask my brain.

At one point during the night, I had a brief but pleasant dream in which the Joker came and took Jason and dangled him like the Goblin did to Mary Jane and the bus of kids, and he was screaming like a girl and fell and Superman came and plucked him out of the sky and flew away into the sunset with him. Of course, when I woke up I felt like an idiot on crack, and I spent an hour contemplating how he came into one of my spandex-only dreams.

I think it might have had something to do with the fact that Jason and Ryan were coming over that Friday for dinner, and I was avoiding all mental images about it. Silly me, I had actually managed to stress about every other single inconsequential thing in the world except for the one that really mattered.

Unfortunately, I had always been a restless sleeper at the beginning of a new school year, anyway. It was my own mental plague. Rachel and her comfortable arm helped, but not very much.

Greg, Rachel and I talked quietly the rest of the period as I copied down Rachel’s notes. For a slutty-type girl, not that I held it against her, she did her work.

In English I managed to stay awake while Kelly told me that Ryan had asked her in the shared math class they had together again this year. Rachel wasn’t in their class this year, which is just as well because she still acts like a complete idiot around Ryan. Who would expect that kind of girl to be so smart?

I was coming to realize that she may be blonde (artificially and otherwise), but her idiot attitude covered a bright person. At least she had stopped saying “omigod” every other word around me, once I mentioned it.

My brain ran in circles while Kelly was talking in one of my ears, the teacher talking in the other.

*****

Jason had turned out to not only be in my other 2-day elective, Intro to Cinema, but he was also in my damn computer class. I thought I was going to go insane from having to listen to him every day for an hour and a half. Katie had the PE class with us, and Rachel had the Cinema class with us, but nobody else was in our Friday computer class that I knew of. I couldn’t believe that we had wound up in together in every single class that seniors and juniors were mixed together. Every single one of my electives.

By that first Friday and my first computer class, I wasn’t even surprised that he was there, too. I knew by then that someone was conspiring against me. No not really, but it was an interesting conspiracy theory to imagine some old bald geezer ruining my life from behind a curtain. Imagine Wizard of Oz meets High School Musical.

I suffered through the whole class with him sitting a table behind me, joking with some of his friends that I hadn’t met. He kept talking to me through the spaces between computers, teasing me about not going on the date with him. I stared straight at the teacher, while secretly trying Facebook and other websites until I found that Addicting Games wasn’t blocked. I started playing the porta potty game, not really finding anything else interesting.

“That looks fun,” Jason said. He didn’t even bother lowering his voice all that much. His voice was closer, and I knew he was leaning forwards.

“Jason, just shut up or go away.” By this time, I was really in a bad mood. I wished that I could trade Jason for Ryan in at least one of my classes. If I only I could convince Jason to do it- I knew he had too much fun tormenting me to ever give it up.

“But you love me too much to let me go.” I banged my head on the table.

“Are you serious?”

“You died.” Stupid subject change.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“You really don’t play video games, do you?”

I decided if I stopped replying, maybe he would stop talking. He went back to talking to his friends.

The bell finally, finally rang, and I ran to the cafeteria, ecstatic to get away from Jason and to get food. And by then I really needed a lot more coffee.

Katie laughed at me as I piled a variety of foods onto my tray, and sat down with a smile. I was so glad it was a half day, but it messed me up going into the elective before lunch. And nobody should have to endure Jason before lunch; he’s just his normal self and makes you want to stab him, except you can’t because you haven’t had lunch yet, so you don’t have a fork to stab him with.

Greg and Rachel had sat at tables next to ours in the medium-sized cafeteria, so they were always close enough to talk to during lunch. Kelly was still talking about the date, and we were all discussing it but stopped when Ryan started approaching us from a few tables away.

“Hey,” he said to us, sitting down in a free chair. “Allie, I know you hate Jason, but-”

“No. A thousand times no, whatever it is. I just got rid of him five minutes ago.”

“So you won’t triple date with us Sunday?”

“Sunday?” I asked, distracted from absolutely turning him down.

“Kev’s girlfriend couldn’t come Saturday, so we changed it to Sunday. Kelly knew,” he said, looking over at her. I looked at her accusingly.

“Hey, I thought you knew, Mrs. I-Know-Everything.” Kelly defended herself. I rolled my eyes and remembered the main point.

“Hell no. Not with Jason,” I said, referring back to his question.

“It could be more a group thing,” he coaxed. I saw Kelly’s face fall a little bit, although she was still smiling.

“Never.”

Greg spoke up. “Then would you go on a date with me?”

“Over Jason? Any day,” I replied, instantly liking the idea. “Ry, can I bring him?”

He looked uneasy, thinking about it. “Sure. I guess Jason can still go if he brings a date. We’re going out to dinner and then seeing a movie.”

“Jason would have to go to a blind and dumb ward to find a date. But it’s okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll let Kev know and stuff.” He smiled at me, and I grinned, bouncing a little in my seat. My energy had slightly returned. I had a feeling I might crash again later, but I didn’t care. I high-fived Greg, suddenly excited for Sunday. At least I wouldn’t have to stay at home, without Kelly or Ryan to keep me company.

*****

After we got out of school we decided to go to a local park and just hang out on the bridge at the park, which looked over onto the little river that ran through the town. Ryan had a spare sheet to sit on in his trunk (He said he and Danny always went to the park- suuuure), and we laid it out on it. Kelly was sitting next to Ryan, I was beside her and on the other side of me was Jason. We were listening to music off of Kelly’s phone.

Even after a week of being with Jason daily, he still drove me nuts. Abstractly, I wondered why he even continued to hang out with us, being mostly silent every day. He was a weird one. Perhaps his mom dropped him on his head. Or he was a cross between being an evil clone of Ryan and a hyena.

I couldn’t figure out his annoyingness, or him in general, so I just laid down, closed my eyes, and fell asleep on the blanket. I thought I would scoot closer to Kelly in my sleep, like I usually did. What I should have realized is that with Jason sprawled out, laying down on one side of me and Kelly sitting on the other side, I would naturally cuddle towards Jason.

I didn’t realize that, and because I was tired and my food energy had burned off and I hadn’t slept, I didn’t question the warm body I subconsciously turned to while sleeping.

When I woke up, it was because someone was rudely telling me to get up, we had to go, right next to me ear. I opened my eyes, seeing that shadows were stretched further than they had been when I had last seen them, making the trees seem to stretch along the ground forever. I woke up a little more and felt the warm shirt beneath my fingers.

I looked up, still lying down because I was too lazy to move yet. Jason was smiling down at me, although it was still pretty amused and not entirely innocent-looking. He was still smiling at me, and I leapt up and away from him like he was a three-headed purple alien. Had I really just been attached to his side like a . . . poodle!? I almost screamed. He was not a very good person to wake up to for me.

My head spun from moving back so fast, but I ignored it. I glared at him, knowing it was my fault but still blaming him. I looked around and saw that Ryan and Kelly were staring at us while collecting their stuff. Either they really hadn’t been paying attention, or I hadn’t been there long.

“Shotgun!” I yelled, rushing towards the car. It would mean there was no way I would have to sit next to him. He had smiled, and I actually thought he was kind of . . . cute. I felt my face burn as I dived into the car as quickly as humanly possible, and I hit my head against the seat.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Allie, I chanted until the other three piled into the car. Jason chuckled when I refused to look to him. I hurried into my house after we dropped Kelly off, shutting the door and leaning against it. Shit.