Chex Mix

The unconscious girl’s awake now. She’s trying to talk to a dude who she referred to as Owen. And the Asian guy and the barfy girl are having a little conversation. So that just leaves the handsome Prince Seth and Chocolate Eyes over here. So I turn slightly to my left and clear my throat quietly and look her square in the face and say,

“So what brought you in here?”

Then the Prince realizes how stupid and invasive he sounds, and he mentally kicks himself.

“Uh…” says Choco-Eyes, her flawless forehead wrinkling.

“Eh – sorry. You don’t have to answer that,” I say awkwardly and cough into my hand. “Um. But I’ll tell you why I’m in here. It’s because some jerk-wad pushed me into a locker and I was stuck in there for well over an hour. And then the vice principal found me and – “ I stopped to look at her. Like, really look at her. She seemed to think I was an even bigger idiot than before. “ – You really don’t want to hear this story, do you?”

Her beautiful chocolate eyes widen slightly and her perfect little lips purse into a little wrinkled ‘O’. “Oh, no, it’s fine. You can talk all you want,” she replies, making a shrugging, ‘what the hell’ type motion with her hands.

“But I don’t wanna talk,” I say back.

I want you to talk.

She’s got the prettiest little voice. It’s like… an angel from Mars came down and gifted her with the special voice that only beautiful girls get: not too high, not too low. Kinda scratchy, but I find it endearing.

“Then don’t talk.”

“What about you? Do you want to talk?”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Prince Seth in one of his darkest of hours.

Choco-Eyes does the little shruggy motion again. “Sure, why not?” She mumbles something I can’t make out, then continues. “I’m in here because… Because I had a panic attack.” She sighs like she just told me the heaviest news in the world.

“Oh, well that’s not so bad,” I say, shrugging along with her.

Her eyes widen even more. “Not so bad? What do you mean? Panic attacks are like… Sirius Black serious, man. You can’t just brush off a panic attack like it’s nothing.” She seems like she’s getting slightly angry.

I blink, my eyebrows knitting together. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were that serious.”

“Well, they are.” She sits there for a while, playing with the hem of her dress, which is just the right length to tease me, make me wonder what could be under there, but shows just enough skin that my imagination can bloom. Trying not to let my imagination blossom, I look back up at her face. She’s looking at me. “I’m Ry,” she says sticking a hand out towards me.

“Uh…” I take her hand. It’s warm and soft. It’s like she uses lotion from heaven or something. “Uh, Seth,” I say, shaking her hand vigorously. Then I realize how retarded I look, bobbing our clasped hands up and down, up and down. So I let go and set my hands by my sides.

There’s an awkward silence, and the Prince thinks to himself, ‘Well, I’ve totally screwed up my chances with her.’ He knows he’s been a complete idiot, like he always is around girls. The Prince decides instead of trying and failing to talk to the beautiful maiden named Ry, he would simply look around the room. There’s a clock, that’s slowly ticking away the silence. There’s a desk, with papers scattered all over it. Then, the Prince sees a series of plastic boxes screwed to the wall next to him. Inside said boxes are pamphlets, each printed on different colored papers, some on white and printed in color, and some are just plain black and white.

Curious, I pick one of the colored ones from the bottom box and read the title of the pamphlet aloud:

“What are your goals in life?”