Give Me Anything

I guess you could say that when I walked into my film class the next day, I was a little more than nervous. As I took my seat at the back of the room, I (discretely, of course) looked around to see if she was actually here early today. And by early I mean a few minutes before the bell rings instead of a few seconds, like yesterday. To my surprise, she was and had easily found herself in a conversation with over 4 people, a skill I had never been capable of.

Soon enough, the bell had rung and our teacher --what was her name? Ms. Larson? I guess that was it-- was passing out sheets of paper.

"These are going to be your basic guide to your profiling project. I've put together a list of questions for you to use in order to get to know each other better. Now, because we have all year to complete this project, we won't be working on it everyday, but I figured we could get started anyway. I'll give you this whole period to work and learn a few things about each other." Ms. Larson looked around the room for our reactions, and nodded in satisfaction when no one protested. "Okay, get to work."

I let out a rather unsteady breath as I looked around for Aleta. I spotted her across the room, and before I knew it, she had sauntered over, hand extended for me to shake, and sat down in the seat directly to my left. "You're Benjamin Reid, right?" I simply nodded, and rubbed my hand on my jeans, hoping to get rid of the warm, sticky feeling the sweat left on my palms.

"You can just call me Ben," I mumbled, and briefly shook her hand. I hesitantly turned my gaze to her and, for the first time ever, I really looked at her. She had the deepest, calmest emerald green eyes I had ever seen and long brown hair that cascaded down her body like a water fall. It didn't stop until it reached the top of her high-waisted, navy shorts, where I could see a bit of exposed skin from a loose button on her white blouse. I quickly adverted my eyes after realizing I had been staring, she didn't seem to notice or mind though.

"I'm Aleta, it's nice to meet you," she smiled as she spoke, even though she was the one doing a majority of the talking in our more-than-awkward conversation. I just nodded again and forced a small smile onto my lips. It probably ended up looking like a half-smirk or something, nothing in comparison to her radiant grin. I tried so hard to seem indifferent, but it was hard to take my eyes off of her; I guess now I knew what everyone had been talking about.

"So," for the first time since she had come over, she wasn't smiling, but instead focusing on the sheet of paper in front of her. "I guess we should start with these questions, huh?" She glanced at me, but didn't wait for my response. By now, she had probably realized I wasn't very talkative. "Number one, what is their name? Benjamin, preferably Ben, Reid. Number two, how old are they and what is their birthday?" her eyes flickered to me once more, and I cleared my throat as I searched for the answer. My birthday, I couldn't even remember right now, I was so focused on how long and tan her legs are....

Don't judge me. I am a teenage boy, remember?

"I'll be 18 on October 23rd," my words sounded weird and jumbled to me, but she was able to understand. She jotted it down on the paper in smooth, elegant cursive, her many bracelets jingling as she wrote. "And yours..?"

"Oh," she seemed almost caught off guard that I had actually been capable of speaking up, "my birthday isn't until April 4th. I'm still 17 too."

"Hmm," I muttered as I copied her words onto my page. Looking at both of our papers so close together really made my sloppy handwriting look much more terrible in next to her neat, swirly letters.

"Number three, do you have any siblings?" I couldn't help but notice she licked her lips after she had finished speaking, and I had to mentally slap myself in order to get my attention away from her mouth. "If yes, what are their names, ages, occupations and so on..." This time she pursed her lips into a thin line. I would have guessed that something about this question had bothered her, but before I could even contemplate it the look was gone and she was smiling again.

"Uh, yeah," I cringed inwardly at how lame and boring I was sounding, but I didn't really know how to talk to this girl. " I have two older brothers, twins, Matt and Craig. They're both out of college already. One's studying to be a lawyer and the other plays minor league baseball. My sister is a junior in college. Her name is Laura. She got there on a swimming scholarship. My family is big on sports," I tried to make the last part sound less bitter than I felt, but it still managed to come out sounding sharp. My lack of athletic ability had been the main reason for my parent's inability to be close with me. "What about you?"

"Um, I," for the first time, she almost seemed uncomfortable, something I never thought I could make her feel, "I don't have any siblings, no," she shook her head and kept her eyes distant. Something told me she wasn't telling me everything, but I didn't dare push her further.

"And moving on to number four," suddenly, the awkwardness from the last question disappeared, and she let her lips pull up into her usual smile, "What is your relationship with your parents like?" I wish we could have gotten that question later on, because explaining my relationship (or lack there of) with my parents wasn't really something I wanted to share with someone I had just met.

"It's..." I was stalling, but I really wasn't someone to be completely open with people, not even people I've known for years. "Could we just... skip that question for now?" By the end of my sentence, my voice had gotten much quieter and less confident (even though I hadn't believed it had any confidence in the first place).

"Sure," she seemed surprised by my request to leave number four behind.For the rest of the period until the bell rang, we continued asking and answering Ms. Larson's various questions. They were all pretty basic and easy to answer, but I could still feel the awkwardness in the air as we spoke. I felt huge surge of relief wash over me as the bell finally rang at the end of the period.

"Okay, no homework for tonight, see everyone tomorrow!" Ms. Larson's words were barely heard as the class seemed to all rush to get out of the classroom as fast as possible. Luckily, I missed the inevitable jam of students in the door and was able to make it out before anyone else. I had practically raced out of the classroom and to my locker, where I saw a familiar head of straggly brown hair waiting for me.

"Hey, Mya," I muttered as I spun my combination into my lock. Not even a moment later, the green metal door popped open, revealing my books and bag (my locker had already become messy), which had been thrown aimlessly inside.

"You sound... off," she observed. Mya was always very good at reading me. Then again, she was practically just me in girl form, but with a better personality.

"Remember that project I told you about? The one where I have to basically document someone's whole life?" She nodded, waiting patiently for me to continue. "You'll never guess who I was paired with."

"Who?" She asked, (a little too enthusiastically, if you ask me) curiously apparent in her tone. I wasn't really facing her, my focus was mostly on the books I was pulling out of my locker. I could tell she was getting impatient already. "Bennie, tell me." I winced slightly at the nickname, she knew I hated it and sometimes used it to her advantage. I felt her tug on the sleeve of my t-shirt, and she whined at me, not really making any real words as she did so.

"Okay, okay, calm down," I chuckled, enjoying the torture I was putting her through. One thing about Mya was that she was entertained very easily, even more so than me. "I was-" as if on cue, I watched as Aleta strolled down the hallway, a group of friends clustered around her as she walked. I watched as she laughed and joked with them, even stopping mid-sentence to say 'hello' to someone as they passed her. Watching her like this, so happy and outgoing, made me feel extremely uncomfortable about our time in class together. Even someone as confident and sociable as her was quiet and awkward around me. Did I really come off as that shy to her? I guess so.

"No way!" Mya shouted, tearing my gaze away from Aleta as she continued passed us. Apparently, my staring was enough for Mya to put two and two together. "You're with her? That's..." I could tell she was trying to pick her words carefully, but it was hard to describe the situation when neither of us had really known much about Aleta in the first place. "Interesting."

"Uh huh," I agreed and slammed my locker shut. "C'mon, lets just get to lunch," with that, I slung my drawstring backpack over my shoulders and headed in the opposite direction. I could see Mya's hands going in my peripheral vision. Apparently, the story she was telling was very interesting, but I was too distracted to hear it. I was too busy trying to ignore the thousands of thoughts racing through my mind.

Am I really that boring? That even Aleta couldn't relate to me? I'm such a pussy. She's not that intimidating, I should just talk to her like I can talk to Mya. I mean, really what's so differen-

"Ben, what are you doing?" I looked around and noticed I had walked right past the doors to the cafeteria. What was wrong with me today?

"Oh, sorry," I quickly caught back up to Mya and followed her into the cafeteria.The rest of the day had gone by fairy uneventfully, besides a few snide comments from Carey as I passed him in the hallways. But now, I could finally go home; to my comfort zone, my save haven. Nothing would bother me now, not even the millions of questions surrounding Aleta surging through my brain.