We're Still So Young, Desperate For Attention

“But mooooooooooom,” I whined loudly, using a proper whinging voice to accompany my complaining “I had planned to spend my day off work looking up criminals on MySpace!”

“You...what?” My mother blinked in disbelief, giving me such a weird look I'm not sure what message her body language was trying to convey.

“Oh don't worry, I'd never make contact or anything. I just planned to skim through news articles online to find names of recent arrests and convictions. Then I was going to find them on MySpace and pray they're all unintelligent enough to leave their profiles completely open to the public, so I can monitor the train wreck that is their life.” I grinned to her.

“I um...Kate, that's a complete waste of an afternoon!” Mom said angrily, after stuttering for a few seconds as she had no idea what part of my statement to be angry about.

“No it's not. It's a scientific experiment. Is there a direct correlation between being a degenerate on social media and the real world?” I teased, deciding to push her buttons.

“That's not science.” Mom said, her face scrunching up as she knew what I was doing and was trying to not give me the satisfaction of riling her up.

“Whilst many would agree that Psychology is not a real science, we do not have access to peer-reviewed journals and articles that argue for and against that claim.” I smirked, taking it up a notch.

“No Kate. I'm not letting you do this. You're coming along, or the computer goes back in the lounge room, where you can look up criminals to your heart's content in full view of my prying eye. Then we can look up Psychology articles together and have a family debate. How does that sound?” Mom asked.

Dammit. She has me there. Ever since we got a computer when I was thirteen (It was Windows ME edition. What a piece of shit operating system) I had to have it in full view of my mother, in case pedos tried to cause me trouble or something. What she didn't get is that the filth of the internet should be worried about me, not the other way around.

With the move and all though, I finally got what I wanted. A state of the art, Windows XP computer in my own room, ready for senior year. I did not want my overprotective mother hovering over my shoulder, trying to decipher my lame MSN and AIM conversations again. It was getting tiresome switching from POS ('parent over shoulder') when she learnt of that to the '9' code – which not many people knew anyway. (Type 9 to the person you’re talking to when your parent is in the room. When the coast is clear – type 99) so I wasn't going to give that away to win a silly argument.

“You know what? Spending my day off my part time job with a Mormon family in the neighbourhood sounds absolutely lovely. I'll even turn my sarcasm off, because sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, right? Just kidding. Let me get changed though, sweat pants aren't a great look for impressing fundamental strangers.” I smiled sweetly, disappearing into my room before my mother could say another word.

***

“I'm incredibly sorry, Kate. Our youngest Brendon is your age, we requested him to be home to keep you company, but he's unfortunately not requested our wishes.” The Mormon father, or Boyd which was his name, whatever you prefer, said to me.

“Yeah, that's okay.” I said awkwardly, bobbing my head, unsure of what to say or do.

My mother had met the Mormon mother – Grace at the local grocery store. They do their shopping at the same time each day, so they stopped to get coffee one afternoon to have a chat. They had heaps of mutual interests, we had only just moved here from Chicago, so Grace suggested for mom to bring me around for coffee one day. Unfortunately, that day was today.

We moved here days after I finished my junior year at my school in Chicago. I got a transfer from the supermarket chain I worked at, and was managing to work lots of hours to distract myself from the fact I was a crippling loner in a new city with no friends.

So I was pretty unhappy I had to awkwardly meet strangers on one of very few days I had off work. I honestly would have preferred to sit on my computer and speak to randoms on the Internet. Maybe if they weren't Mormons I wouldn't have minded, it would have been a chance to make new friends. But whatever, at least it's done now. I can go home and that will be the end of it.

“So what do you hope to do after you finish this year at school, Kate? Are you intending to apply to any colleges?” Grace asked politely.

I put on a fake smile and was ready to wing this. I was good at being fake polite. Besides, I would admit it was very lovely of this family to invite my mother and I over, and try to introduce me to their son to make some friends. I just didn't want to be here, and I would make sure they didn't know that.

“I definitely am, I can't imagine doing anything without a tertiary education. I'm going to major in business, and I guess at college I can decide what kind of business I do, whether that be marketing, accounting or maybe HR. It's kind of bad I don't know exactly what I want to do yet, but at least I'm on the right path.” I replied, smiling, trying to not let my smile falter at the end.

“Well, that's great! If only our son were more like you. Where on earth is he? Maybe I should try calling him...” Grace muttered.

I heard a door being quietly shut around the corner from the living room, and it appears others did too. I curiously peaked at the entrance of the living room, waiting for the person who entered to come into sight, as the stairs were right next to the room we were seated in.

I caught a glimpse at the boy my age, who must have been “Brendon their youngest” as he looked like a deer caught in headlights. I didn’t get a good look at him, but he was completely soaked, as if he’d taken a bath with all his clothes on. Without saying a word, he quickly scampered up the stairs, but Grace was just as fast as him as she followed him up.

“Where on earth have you been?! I told you that Martha and Kate were coming over for afternoon tea and I told you to be here!” Grace screamed up the stairs at her son.

“Mom! I swear, I can explain!” Brendon quickly said back to her, in a panicked voice.

“My gosh! You're soaking wet. Head to toe! Your hair and clothes are drenched! March yourself into that bathroom young mister, before you get any water on the carpet. I want you downstairs in ten minutes, and please, wear some nice clothes.”

The next few minutes consisted of both Grace and Boyd apologising for their son’s “bad behaviour” and Grace gushing that I should still like him. After that, it was forced conversation until the boy awkwardly slunk into the room, I was guessing he was afraid of the extent of his parent’s anger, shy because two strangers were in the room, and probably embarrassed he got yelled at in front of us.
“There he is. Please introduce yourself to our guests.” Grace smiled, nodding her head towards my mother and I.

“Hello. Nice to meet you. I am Brendon. I’m seventeen, turning eighteen in April.” Brendon awkwardly introduced, and it appeared to me this was the way his parents made him introduce himself to new people, and I could easily tell he definitely did not like it.

I think mom picked up on it too, as she sent him a sad smile, and followed his lead.

“Hi Brendon, I’m Martha. This is my daughter Kate, she’s the same age as you. She turns eighteen in June next year, at the end of the school year.” My mother introduced.

Brendon’s glance turned to me, and I gave him a shy smile and a wave, and he seemed to ease up a bit.

It was now that I got to take a good look at him. He had long-ish hair. Well, not really long, it wasn’t past his ears or anything. But he was growing it out, and it wasn’t styled into anything. He had big brown eyes, and large lips for a guy. He was average looking, he looked like just a normal teen guy about to enter senior year.

His clothes were odd though. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans, and a button up light grey top. It was odd for this time of year, especially Nevada as it was summer, and I had quickly learned Nevada summers were brutal. I was guessing these were the “nice clothes” his mom told him to wear.

I bit my lip, and decided to take a plunge. I was getting bored of awkward, forced conversations with a heavily religious middle aged couple, even if what I was about to propose meant I had to awkwardly spend one on one time with one of their offspring – a boy my age who I hardly knew. He seemed nice enough, if he were a douche I wouldn’t want to, but he seemed alright.

“Um…would you guys mind if Brendon and I took a walk? Since I only live a couple of streets away it’s my neighbourhood too. It would be good to get a guide of the neighbourhood from someone my own age.” I awkwardly asked out loud.

Grace beamed brightly, and my mother had a small smile on her face. I was finally making progress to be a bit more social, and I’m guessing she and Grace wanted alone time to do what middle aged women do best: gossip like a high schooler.

“Here, take this ten dollar note. You can walk to the local shops and buy something for yourselves. Brendon, no sugar, got it? It’s too late in the afternoon.” Grace said to Brendon, and made him agree before she passed him the note.

We said bye and walked out the front door, and the gravity of the situation hit me. I was with some kid I didn’t know, and we were about to spend some time together. Awkward.

“Can we get the elephant in the room out of the way and admit this is weird? Nothing against you, just think it would be better to admit this seems awkward and forced now than make bullshit conversations up about school and all that.” The Brendon kid said to me, as he began walking and I followed him, unsure of what direction we were going. He also took this time to roll up his sleeves, the outside heat hitting him.

“Um…okay,” I said, a little taken aback “Look I’m sorry you’re being forced to hang with me, I’m not some weird loner, I just literally haven’t had a chance to meet anyone my own age yet.”

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean I don’t want to hang with you. I don’t even know you and I can already tell you’re my favourite person my mom has tried to make me be friends with. It’s just…have you ever been forced to hang with someone, and it’s awkward. So you make small talk in an attempt to conquer the awkwardness, but the small talk just makes it more awkward? I’m just trying to avoid that.” Brendon said, stopping for a second to read my reaction when he thought he offended me.

“The amount of times the word ‘awkward’ has been both said and thought by me today, wow. Word of the day that’s for sure. But yeah, okay, cool.” I smiled softly, and Brendon smiled and continued walking.

“So, um, yeah. Summerlin is pretty boring, there’s a few bus stops scattered around to get to different parts of town and the main mall. There’s a few parks around to meet friends or whatever, but on weekends they’re full of screaming children during the day and screaming children at night, but by screaming children at night I mean sixteen year olds drinking in the park.” Brendon mumbled, as we walked on.

“Is that the kind of dig one makes when they feel they’re getting too old? Like anyone who’s the age of fourteen or younger is referred to as an eight year old regardless, even though they’re not that much younger than you?” I asked Brendon.

“Yes! You get it. Not many people do.” Brendon said loudly, putting an arm roughly around my shoulders as we kept walking.

It then dawned on me that Brendon was already stepping out of whatever shell he was in when he first walked into the lounge room to meet my mother and I. Well, if you can call it “a shell” considering it lasted what, ten minutes? He wasn’t a shy, unfortunate religious kid. He was actually pretty cool.

“So uh, what’s the whole no sugar thing? Do your parents treat you like you’re eight or something?” I asked, moving away from him as it was uncomfortable to keep walking like that.

“Nah. Look, I’ll put it out there. I have ADHD. I’m not on anything for it anymore, but mom falls for the whole ‘healthy diet’ stuff and believes the whole stereotype about sugar making people hyper. So apologies in advance if I’m a bit too much to handle.” Brendon sheepishly grinned.

“Okay. So when were you diagnosed? As a child before the hype, or in your teen years did a teacher pull your parents aside and say your interesting personality was something they couldn’t explain so as educators with absolutely no training on anything else and with no qualifications or reasons to diagnose kids with disorders you suddenly had it?” I asked Brendon curiously, as a group of shops came into view.

“As a child. So I guess I’m pure ADHD. None of this poser shit.” Brendon said to me.

“Ah, alright. Then you shouldn’t be apologising if you’re ‘too much’ or whatever, because if it’s a real disorder then wouldn’t I technically be an asshole for discriminating against it?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow.

“I dunno, whatever. Hey, wanna conduct a scientific experiment?” Brendon asked, immediately shifting the topic as we made our way through the car park to the front of the shops.

“Um, it depends. If it’s blowing shit up or something then sure. If it’s writing out formulas or whatever, then no.” I responded, unsure of what exactly was going on.

“Let’s buy some straight red cordial, and see what effect it has on us. We can drink it in a park or whatever, it’ll be like drinking but we won’t come home smelling like alcohol. What do you say?” Brendon asked me.

“I’m supposed to be weirded out right now, aren’t I? You know what? Sure. Let’s rebel against our parents by having sugar, that’s what teen angst is all about.” I smiled at him.

“You’re definitely the best person my parents have forced me to become friends with. You’re now above the girl who rolled around in the dirt and rubbed it all over her body, and then went crying to her mother when it got in her eyes.” Brendon explained to me, as we walked in.

“Kids will be kids.” I shrugged.

“It happened last year.” Brendon explained, holding back laughter at the weird face I made.

I was actually having a great time with this kid. I never thought I’d enjoy the company of someone from what my mother described his family to be, but it was nice to finally make a friend nearby who was my age. It also seemed like this kid would be making life very interesting, and I was curious to see what was in store for us.