Awkward

Life Is Complicated

When I get to school, Izzy's not waiting in the playground, and I wonder if she skipped again because she WAS texting me at 07:25.

I walk up the stairs, hoping I'd run into her, and suddenly she calls out my name. "I thought you ditched me," I tell her, laughing, and we walk to class together.

"So, did you manage to save the seats?"

She shakes her head. "I only managed to save your front seat."

I walk into the classroom and see that she actually has saved the seats, and put my bag in the seat behind hers, which happens to be adjacent to Nate's.

"I'm taller than  you," she suddenly says.

"No, I am," I tell her. 

"No, you're just too embarrassed to say you're shorter."

"Look," I say, getting a ruler out of my bag, and balancing it on the top of our heads, and it slopes downward to touch Izzy's head. "I'm taller, the ruler doesn't lie."

Before she can say anything, Alice suddenly comes and asks if we can move to the other row so that she and Sonya can sit together. 

I immediately turn to Izzy, who's about to say yes. "No."

"Look, you're separating two best friends," Alice tries to plead, but I'm not having any of it.

"Yeah? Well, she's my best friend," I say.

"But you'll still be sitting together," she points out, but I prefer Izzy sitting in front of me because it works better.

"Nope. She got that seat, she keeps that seat."

Alice tries to move Izzy's bag anyways, but I move it back, and Sonya says, "Don't do this. They didn't give us permission."

As I continue balancing the ruler above our heads, Alice comes and suggests that she'd move to my seat, and that way we could all be happy. I'm a little unwilling to do that because if I sit beside Nate it'll be harder to stare at him...But Izzy's all for it and agrees.

Seriously, she reminds me a little of Chai from My Girlfriend Is An Alien, because all Chai would think of was how to get Xiaqi betrothed with Fang Leng.

"I'm taller than you," I say for the millionth time and attempt to use the ruler again.

"Let's just ask some seventh grader and you'll see I'm taller!" she says, and we both go.

...While the random girl said Izzy was taller, at first she said I was taller so  yeah...

As we walk downstairs because it's boring, Izzy says, "We left no seat for Emily!"

I shrug, not really bothered, but I can't let Izzy know that, so I say, "Well, it's not that bad?"

Ironically, we run into Emily and go back to class with her as Izzy tells her about how there's no seat near us left for her.

Emily originally sits in the fourth seat, but has to move to the front seat because if it was left empty, we'd get fixed seats.

I spend most of the time talking to Izzy, and Emily occasionally glances at us sadly. Perhaps if I didn't feel emotionally numb at the moment, I would've felt pity for her, but I feel nothing.

Seriously, why doesn't she talk to her beloved Helene now? When I pay her attention, she ignores me, and when I find someone else to talk to, she tries to make me feel guilty? No, that's not working on me.

During the English class, the Grammar teacher comes instead of the usual one- I guess Mrs Clark is still in India- and we have to do free writing about "The Strangest Thing I Ever Saw."

"Once when I was six years old, I thought that humans were robots," says Izzy, and I laugh.

"Write the story from a six year's old point of view," I suggest, and she seems to take it seriously.

I start writing, planning to make it a horror story that involves vampires, but Izzy keeps talking about random stuff.

"Izzy, I really need to write, so perhaps we could talk later?" She blushes, and I finish my story in peace, just with her occasionally asking me spellings.

I glance at Nate. His handwriting is beautiful- it's cursive and neat, unlike most boy's handwriting.

I give my copy to the teacher, and she looks over my one and quarter page within a few minutes. "Good," she says, and gives it back.

It's Business class. As a substitute teacher came instead, everyone's talking rather than focusing on their work. 

"Izzy...If I went from the friends to lovers route, I could've asked him what he wrote for English. "

"I know how to get you an excuse to talk to him. Chuck your pen under his table but far enough that you can't reach it, and ask him to give it."

I flip my pen put of my hand and it goes next to Blake instead of Nathaniel.  "Blake, can you pass my pen?" I ask, but he gives it to Nate, who gives it to Mike for a reason I don't know. I go to get it, but Mike chucks it to Blake, saying he won't give it, and I  just sigh and go to my seat. 

"Izzy," I choke out dramatically, "all because of you my pen is missing... All because of your idea..."

I get up again, but the same thing happens. "What the fuck," I mutter as I return to my seat, confused as to why they're doing this.

While lamenting over the loss of my pen I nearly strangle Izzy by accident. I decide to just get a new pen out, but then Nate turns towards me and says, "Here," holding my pen out.

"Thanks," I say, taking it.

I've just started writing when Izzy asks, "Why didn't you touch his hand?"

"Why would I touch his hand for?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes. "To get closer to him, duh! Look, let me show you how."

She holds her pen out, and I take it. She rolls her eyes again and touches my hand as she takes it. "Now you try."

This time I touch her hand and do it.

"Next time, touch his hand."

"He'll get creeped out," I say. "And my mother told me that touching someone without their consent is a crime."

"Yeah, well, how many times have you listened to her?"

I shrug. "But he'd get creeped out," I say, and then notice Emily trying to get Izzy's attention,  so I tap Izzy. "Emily wants to say something to you."

I see Emily give Izzy a piece of paper and look over her shoulder to read it, but all I can make out is my name and Izzy doesn't let me read it, under orders from Emily. 

A bit later, Izzy gives me a chit from Emily, and I open it.

I get that you have a new friend. But you're acting like I'm invisible. It's not that you aren't letting me copy you anymore but how you act. Do you change every year? Ever since you met Izzy you acted different. Let's be just friends from now on.

I'm actually fine with that because I'm not that close to Emily anymore. "Don't write anything that'll make me feel guilty," says Izzy as I pick my pen up, so I decide to not write that I was perfectly fine with Emily's decision, and instead write:

Izzy hasn't done anything other than making me more confident. I'm not letting you copy me because you're too dependent, and I'm not ignoring you. 

"Like, seriously, I did talk to her today!" I say to Izzy, who reads what I've written.

"Now I feel guilty..."

"Don't be guilty because you've done nothing wrong."

Emily passes another chit. 

i clearly said it wasn't about you not letting me copy. You know what let's forget about this. We are still besties.

I roll my eyes. What was the point of her even writing all that if she's gonna be like, 'oh nothing happened'?

Author's Note: If someone decided to denote themselves to just a friend, and later wanted to be best friends again, would you accept?