Out Of Place

We’d been in Baltimore for a month. It was almost the end of July. The weather was hot and I’d been working on my tan heaps. I didn’t really do much, seeing as the only person I knew here was Dan. Mostly, I was watching TV in my room, listening to music on my little spot on the roof or out on the deck soaking up the sun. In my first week, I went to the beach with Dan and his friends, but it was way awkward. They all just stared at me like they’d never seen a girl in a bikini before. I overheard a couple of Dan’s friends talking about me while we were there. It was pretty suggestive to say the least.

“Shut the fuck up man!” Dan exclaimed at one of the boys. He’d heard the last comment wondering how good the ‘Australian girl’ was in bed.
“Dude, chill out! I was just saying. Anyway, she's hot as,” the kid replied.
“You go anywhere fucking near her and I will break your neck,” Dan said in an extremely threatening manner. I thought it was cute that Dan was being protective. It reminded me of Lake and Mark. Fuck I missed them.

After that day at the beach, I decided that it was best for me just to stay at home. Whenever Dan’s friends were around I made sure I was nowhere around them. They were all jocks and they just really annoyed me.

As July drew to a close and August began, something dawned on me. Two weeks until school was meant to start. I’d been enrolled at Dan’s high school, Dulaney, and their semester started on August 18th. I hadn’t even started getting school supplies. Not that I planned on being here long, but Aunt Deb wasn’t getting better and I didn’t want to stress her out.

Mum had been going crazy looking after Aunt Deb. Dad had gotten a job at a local advertising firm and was working fairly long hours, which meant mum was running Aunt Deb to all her doctor’s appointments. I realised that if I wanted to get any shopping done, it was going to have to be Dan that took me. I knew he wasn’t with his friends today, thankfully. I went up the hallway to his room and knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” he called out.
“Danny, I need a favour,” I said as I pushed the door open.
“What’s up Megan?”
“I need to get stuff for school and I have no idea where the shopping centre is. Could you drop me off? Please?”
“It’s called a mall, Megan,” he said laughing. “But, yeah sure. I need to get a few things anyway.”

I went back into my room to grab my bag. Mum had given me a heap of money to go shopping ages ago, but I just never got around to it. I hurried downstairs, where Dan was waiting at the front door.
“Aunt Kel, Megs and I are going to the mall. We’ll be back later,” he called, not really aiming it anywhere, just hoping she’d hear.
“Don’t be too late,” she called back, even though we were already almost out the door.
Dan and I got into the car and he started driving, making small talk. Asking me about Australia and if I was excited to be here. I lied through my teeth, saying that I was stoked we were here, even though the circumstances that brought us were unfortunate.

Five short minutes later, we pulled up in the parking lot. Dan took me everywhere I needed. I got all my school supplies and bought some clothes too.
“You look too Indie,” he said as I came out of the dressing room in some store. All I’d put on was a pair of dark skinny jeans.
“Well deal with it Danny-boy, coz I like them.”

After literally hours of shopping, we went into the food court for lunch. The place was over run by teenagers. Dan spotted a bunch of his friends and dragged me over. He introduced me and I couldn’t help but notice they all looked me up and down. The guys all seemed impressed, but the girls just rolled their eyes. I excused myself to go and get food, glad to be away from them. In my rush to leave, I was almost knocked out by some tall, lanky kid with some weird skunk looking strip going through his fringe.
“Shit, sorry! I wasn’t paying attention!” he said in a panicked voice.
“S’all good. I'm still in one piece.” I looked up and smiled at him. He was sort of good-looking in a weird way. I went to walk away when Dan pipped in.
“Jack-off, you better fucking apologise,” he said as he sauntered over. All his friends seem to become interested all of a sudden.
“I did, Dan. It was an accident.”
“Sure, Barakat. You go anywhere near her ever again and I’ll cut your balls off.”
“Dan, back off. He apologised. I'm fine,” I defended the stranger. He looked sort of thankful that I had.
“Whatever Megs. Barakat, I'm serious. Now piss off, loser.” The kid did as he was told and all of Dan’s friends started laughing.
“Dan, what the hell? That was so mean!” I yelled at him. His friends all sniggered.
“Trust me Megan; you don’t want that freak anywhere near you. I did you a favour.” He ended the discussion and turned back to his friends. I stormed off in the direction of some Chinese fast food shop. I couldn’t believe how he had talked to that kid. Clearly, they weren’t friends and it made it obvious to me that Dan was one of ‘those’ jocks. The ones that think they’re better than everyone.

About half an hour later, we left. I sat in the car silently. Dan didn’t try to explain himself. We pulled into the driveway and I was out of the car before it had even stopped moving. I went upstairs, put my shopping down and climbed out the window with my iPod. I closed my eyes and the lanky kids face popped into my head. I wonder why Dan hates him so much, I couldn’t help but think.