Johnny Baby

💙8💙

Johnny

    It’s been maybe a week and half since I’ve spoken to Nico.
    After that extreme explanation I gave him that night, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed about my dumb feelings. I don’t often vent about feelings much. Usually because they’re dumb and don’t deserve to be explained.
    Feelings are something I’m just not great at expressing or understanding. Of course, that usually means dealing emotions in usually unhealthy ways. They become bad habits and they happen to suck ass a majority of the time.
    Anyways. I haven’t spoken to him since that night. We see each other in the halls sometimes but, I pretty much make it my main goal not to talk to him.
    I’m pretty sure this is considered running away but, nobody has to know that.
    At first, I noticed he would come up to me as if ready to start conversion, but soon enough, he started to notice my avoidance and become less pursuing. He still will give me small waves or head nods in the halls, but he doesn’t try to approach me anymore.
    I can’t help but feel a little bad for that. What if I lead him on? What if I made him believe that we were suddenly okay to be friends then I start avoiding him right away? Will he actually hate me this time?
    That thought made me pause in my tracks.
    Why do I care? We weren’t friends. We weren’t close. I usually try not to care what people think so why do I feel so bad about something like this? I didn’t intend to lead him on or make him feel bad, so, do I even have a reason to feel bad about it? I may not be the nicest person in the world….or very nice at all, I guess. But, I never intended to cause any harm, so, do I really need to feel bad?
    Nah, that excuse doesn’t make much sense either. Just because I didn’t intend to doesn’t really make it okay. So, I should feel bad then?
    I could almost feel a headache coming on from my internal arguing.
    I would have probably kept going if I hadn’t felt a baby carrot hit my shoulder, causing me to look up at my friends sitting across the lunch table from me.
    “Jeez, what are you thinking about?” Megan asks as she leans over Joey and Markus who are currently staring at me like I have a second head.
    “Nothing. I just didn’t sleep much last night.” I lie, rubbing my eyes then quickly stopping when I remember I have my contacts in and feel that odd fear of losing contacts behind my eyes.
    “When do you?” Joey playfully comments, nudging my foot with his under the table.
    “You got me there.” I laugh, lightly ruffling my own hair.
    “Anyways,” Megan says, walking around to plop into the seat next to me. “I was gonna ask you to do something for me.” They said, grabbing my knee and turning my towards them as they rested their head in their hand.
    “Uhm, okay. Maybe I can help you.” I laugh, copying her position.
    “You know how to play guitar, right?” She asks.
    “I sure do. Why do you ask?”
    “Well, there is this talent show going on in a couple weeks-” I accidentally cut her off.
    “There’s a talent show?” I ask. Since when does our school do anything fun like that?
    “Yes, there is, now shush.” She says with a playful eyeroll before continuing. “I already have two other people but I need one more since none of the others can play a leading guitar and they don’t sing either so-” Once again, I interrupt her.
    “Singing? I never said I could sing.” I laugh.
    “Well, I know you didn’t say it but we’ve literally been in choir together and I’ve seen you in musicals, I know you can sing.” They laugh.
    “You are very pushy, I hope you realize.” I laugh.
    “Yes, I am aware, but you obviously tolerate it enough to keep me around since I know for a fact you would have went of on me by now if I crossed any boundaries.” She laughs. I could see a sort of playful look in her eyes.
    Megan could come off as a lot sometimes. Butm she’s right. I have a bit of a temper so if she really crossed my boundaries, I probably would have snapped at her.
    Megan could be seen as mean to some people, but this is just how we interact. After they saw just how my friends and I act, they usually just let their sort of pushy, extroverted personality take over. When we first became friends, they were pretty careful about boundaries since I was “really shy and quiet” apparently.     I wouldn’t call myself either of those things, but, I guess it might seem like that to strangers.
    “Alright, you got a good point. Anyways, continue.” I tell them, shifting the position of my legs a little before focusing on them again.
    “Right, well. I figured, you’d be a great candidate for this since A. You’re one of the best singers I know at the moment and B. You’re my only other friend who’d be interested in this so, if you say no you’re gonna put me in quite the pickle.” She says, her words speeding up a bit as she continued.
    I can’t help but laugh a little at that.
    I look over at Joey and Markus to see what they thought.
    “That sounds perfect for Johnny since we all know his wet dream is to be in a band as the lead singer.” Joey jokes, earning a playful jab from Markus.
    “What?” He laughs, blowing a long strand of black hair from his face.
    “”Wet dream” is a bit of a stretch, but he isn’t far off.” I laugh then look over at Markus.
    “I say go for it. We’ll be your first big fans.” He says with a little thumbs up.
    Markus was always so supportive. Everyone’s number one cheerleader.
    I think about it for a couple more seconds before turning to look at Megan again. She stares at me expectantly, a grin spreading across her face.
    “Alright, I’ll join your band.” I finally say with a shrug, smiling at the way she cheers and throws her long arms in the air before throwing them around me tightly.
    “You’re awesome, Johnny! Thank you!” They squeal, hugging me tighter.
    “You’re welcome!...Now please let go.” I wheeze, lightly squirming around in her tight hug.
    “Right, my bad.” She laughs, quickly letting me go to catch my breath.
    “We’re meeting up after school today in the band room, so, I’d appreciate it if you could make it to that. I can introduce you to the rest of the band!” They cheer, quickly hopping out of the lunch table seat.
    “Yeah, I can do that.”
    “Awesome! I’ll see you later then.” They said, adjusting their headband and turning away. “See you guys!” They say bye to Markus and Joey before jogging away to wherever they usually hang out at lunch.
    “Aww.” Markus’ voice pulls my attention away from Megan. “Look, our little boy is growing so fast.” He teases.
    “Shut up, Markus.” I laugh.
    “Can you believe it, Joey? He’s going on to bigger and better things. He’s gonna have to leave his weirdo friends behind.” He chuckles.
    “Speak for yourself.” Joey scoffs. “I’m no weirdo.” He laughs.
    “Are you sure about that?” Markus asks, his curly hair bouncing around his face as he dramatically turns his head towards Joey.
    “Neither of you guys are weirdos.” I chuckle. “You guys are way cooler than I am. Maybe now I’ll meet your levels of cool and popularity or whatever.”
    “Oh please, you don’t actually care about being popular, do you?” Joey asked, raising a thick eyebrow.
    “Nah, but it might be nice. We’d be a truly tactical trio if we all were popular for something.”  I joked.
    “Oh yeah. The biggest triple threat.” Markus agrees.
    Joey pauses and tries to repress a small grin.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Listen guy, just cause y’all are gay doesn’t mean I’m gonna join your threesome.” Joey jokes.
    “Hey!”
    “Hey! I’m Bi! Stop Bi-erasing me!” Markus playfully shouted at him, making Joey laugh as he deflected Markus’ gentle punches.
    I can’t help but glance around the cafeteria. We sometimes get a little too loud and I feel a little embarrassed. I’m not ashamed of my friends or anything. I just don’t want anyone to be looking at us weird.
    Luckily for us, I don’t think we kept much attention on us, or caught any in the first place.
    My eyes get caught on a very specific someone. Someone that makes my hands feel even more jittery than usual.
    Nico.
    He was sitting with his friends at their normal table. There was really nothing out of the ordinary, but I can’t help but stare for a minute. My anxiety filled thoughts from earlier slowly start to fly around my mind. Suddenly, his eyes are meeting with mine, causing me to whirl around in my chair and stare at the lunch table in front of me.
    The thoughts that were slowly flying around my mind suddenly seemed to shatter, leaving my brain with a sense of internal screaming that is only interrupted by the school bell alerting me that lunch was over.
    With a rushed goodbye to my friend, I toss my lunch into the trash and rush to my class.
    Let’s hope today goes by fast.