Displacement // Shawn Mendes

Four: Bad Habits

Three full days ago, I'd been assigned the worst group of all time. It's not like they didn't work; because there was plenty of that. In fact, there was way too much of that. Observe:

"So, guys, does anyone want to pick up the papers after school?" Rey said, but Oliver continued to listen to music and ignore every single word she said; although I wasn't entirely convinced he was always listening to music. I think maybe she got too annoying with her constant repetition of the same question over and over again because we refused to answer her.

It was like a silent competition between me and Camryn— we didn't realize we were doing it, but we also knew that whoever spoke first and broke the silence between us two would lose.

Lose what, exactly? I have no idea, but I sure as hell did not want to lose.

"Okay," Rey said again, realizing we'd been ignoring her. "I guess I'll pick them up after school before practice. See you guys later." She finished putting her notebook inside her book bag and slung it over her shoulder as she walked away.

A part of me felt bad for Rey. She was trying her best to communicate with us, but she always ended up doing all the work. Along with Oliver, who helped a bit more than occasionally, but definitely more than Camryn and I, who helped a little less than occasionally. I'd also become more observant due to my newfound silence; Rey put up a nice front, but it was clearly hard for her not to get irritated whenever we ignored her or gave a nonchalant shrug as a response. She almost always applied chapstick when she was beginning to lose patience with us. It was a good technique, considering the fact that she could've mouthed us off whenever she wanted to.

As for Oliver, he always played the same song over and over again. "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones. As far as old classics go, he didn't have a bad music taste– even though he only ever listened to one song.

Now, Camryn, she was an entirely different story. Whenever she was bored, she either looked out the window (even when the blinds were closed), or braided a small section of her hair, specifically the piece behind her left ear. She always hated that habit, but I never failed to tell her how wonderful it was to watch her flustered self anxiously braiding that one piece of hair, then braiding it again whenever it came undone.

But, when she wasn't doing that, she was looking down at her phone with a grin on her face. I wondered then, if it was Samuel, a lifelong friend she knew since grade school. To her, he was always "just a friend", but to me, he appeared so much more. I had yet to figure out what he had that made him so much better than me, but that's when I realized I didn't have a normal habit like everyone else did. I had a bad one; much, much worse than listening to "Paint it Black" on repeat, or applying the same chapstick over and over again.

It was my addiction that I could never seem to quit; the thing that took over every cell in my brain, killing each one off slowly yet consuming them in the most pleasuring way possible. It was the thought of her that I couldn't seem to quit, despite my best efforts to. Maybe it was that I was never really trying, because my mind wanted nothing more to be as close to her as my body once was.

But, like all bad habits, there's always some sort of realization that strikes you and makes you aware of how badly you need to quit. Mine was this: I'd been so hung over Camryn, trying to win a nonexistent competition with her, that I'd forgotten to spare the feelings of a poor girl who didn't deserve to be surrounded by any of the resentment I had toward Cam. I had to apologize, and I knew my best bet was to meet her here after school, because stopping in the middle of the hallway in a high school filled with almost 2,500 teenagers was not exactly something people were a fan of.

Also, like bad habits, there's always a point where you need to get it together and make the first move for yourself. Communicating with someone face to face rather than through a cellphone was going to be that step for me.