Proud of You (Watty Awards Finalist 2012)

Proud of You

        The first time I saw you, you were sitting at a lunch table reading the first book of the Harry Potter series alone. You were dressed in the school uniform, but it seemed as if the khaki slacks and navy polo were carelessly draped over your thin and gangly frame as you ceremoniously shifted your frameless glasses upon your nose. Your eyes, hidden behind those glasses, were large and hazel resembling an innocent child's, and it matched perfectly with the shade of your pin straight hair that fell onto your forehead.

            So I walked up to you, and sat in front of you, and waited a whole two minutes before you decided to notice my presence and look up.

            "Hi," I said as I offered you a small smile.

            The look you gave me discouraged me to ever talk to you again, but I learned to ignore it. Full of confusion, surprise, sadness, and even anger flashed across your face before you lifted your glasses up again with your forefinger.

            "Are you talking to me?"

            The breath I didn't know I was holding was released in relief as I nodded. "There isn't anyone else here, right?" I laughed and gestured my hands around me, to point out that there was no one else sitting at this table.

            You looked around, as if you were taking my words seriously and you shook your head. "No, I guess not. Have you read any of the Harry Potter books?"

            We were eleven then, tiny and barely old enough to think for ourselves, but I befriended you that day, much to your disdain, as you preferred to be alone.

            Our class wasn't big; only thirty people in the sixth grade, but our peers were very judgmental.

            After a week of talking to you so you wouldn't be alone, people started noticing and they decided to tell me.

            But I would just ignore them all, and still talk to you, because you proved yourself as an interesting and amazing person full of laughter and love that no other child cared to seek in you. I now realize how lucky I was, to have a friend with qualities I've never seen in anyone else. You were something different.

            Remember; we talked about everything in the mornings and during our lunch hour. We started off with Harry Potter (I now thank J.K Rowling immensely for that), but then it shifted to others books and movies. I knew you weren't ready to talk about why you were so anti-social, and I understood that.

            But by a month later, people stopped picking on you. Naturally, I was curious as to why the abrupt changes occurred. So I asked you about it.

            "Because they feel sorry for me now."

            "Huh?" was my intelligent response, and you just rolled your eyes at me. You've become so much more comfortable around me, and I couldn't help but feel flattered.

            "It's because of you," you exasperated and put a bookmark in the third Harry Potter book. It was battered and worn, as it belonged to your uncaring cousin who wrecked his car three times. "You're scaring people away."

            I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't want to be known as 'scary'. "Huh?" I said again and you huffed.

            "You're... popular," you tried again, shifting your glasses up on your nose. "And when a popular girl like you in a school this small talks to a loser like me... people get curious and they, I don't know, stop bothering me, I guess."