I was feeling really lost in high school. During the summer I would go back to the United States to visit my parents every year. One day my dad got mad and started yelling at me because he found I failed three of my classes. Being so sad during that time of my life I didn’t really focus on studies. I would rush out the first moment of school to get away from them. Instead of asking me about the horrible things that happened in first year of high school he just though I was being hard headed with my school work. After I told him he went on to tell everybody that I was weak.

I was crushed. I thought if my parents and “best friend” the ones that I spend most of my time with then nobody would. I spent the entire summer detached. I felt like I was trapped inside a little box where I was slowly dying and I couldn’t contact the people outside no matter how hard I tried.

Then I met him and I felt hope.

It was the first week of my second year in high school and I wasn’t talking to anybody and I was also classmates with her again. A student who enrolled late was placed in our class. What was my first impression of him? Scary. He looked like one of those guys who would beat you up if you looked at him funny.

Some time later we had a group activity. The teacher separated us in groups to make a poster or something. I was six feet away from my group leaning against the wall looking at my arms. I didn’t even realized that he was standing next to me for sometime.

Then he said “Exene right?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“My friend was in your class last year”
Oh he’s one of them. I thought. But I might as well be polite.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He said his first and last named excitedly twice, like he actually wanted me to remember it. That was strange.

I also noticed that he was leaning against the wall the same way I was. His arms were crossed and his legs were in the same position too. Maybe I smiled when I saw that.

In the second quarter of the year the teacher fixed up a new seating arrangement and he sat behind me. He was very talkative and others sitting around me were very talkative too. I was the quite one around that seating area. He could’ve talked to his much prettier seat mate or the class clown that was my seat mate but he wanted to talk to me. He wasn’t one of them.

Second part about him in the next post! Gahhh if he ever finds my blog he’s going to think that I’m sort of obsessive freak who remembers all these stupid details. And he’s going to think I’m corny.