Who I Want to Be

Anna's Worry

The week carries on like a ripple of my error. Clo is disdainful towards me and Marion follows suit. Although I still hang around them, they do not speak with me, or give any indication that I exist. The only person who acknowledges me is Emma, and even then she is cold.

By the end of Thursday I am very defeated. Last period is Physed, and there is a supply teacher, so my class pretty much has free time in the back field. Already half the class has preemptively gone home. I sit on the ground alone, leaning against the wire fence that lines one end of the school property, writing in my notebook. I sigh and look around the field, where students goof off out of the teacher's sight. Words still elude me; escape me before pen hits paper. Maybe if I squeeze really tightly, I can trap them, I can write them down, I can make something of myself. Yet that is impossible. They are feather light and I am stuck to the earth like a boulder.

When I look up again, Tobias is hovering over me. Surprised, I lean further back into the wire fence. So much so that I'm sure the pattern will imprint in my skin.

"Are you writing something?" My gut does little flip flops.

"Uh, sorta. Trying." He leans over me, squinting at my notebook.

"Can I join you?" Before I answer he sits down next to me, forcing me to shuffle over a little. During the process our shoulders briefly meet and warmth flares where they touch.

"Do you have a spare period or something?" I ask with weak words.

"Yeah," he responds awkwardly, half laughing. I pull into myself a little more, looking back out to the field. As I do so, I choke my notebook.

"How long have you known Marion?" Tobias turns towards me, surprised that I can speak. My face is violently flaring up.

"Since the first grade. We went to McGilvary Primary." I know that McGilvary is just around the block, closest to our Winoden High. Sometimes we even pass during lunch.

"Oh. Cool." I watch Tobias dig his heel into the dirt. Small clouds of dust billow up; a few leaves of grass upheave into the air. "You must be quite close then." Abruptly, he freezes.

"I guess so." He looks back over at my notebook. By now, it is shut tight on my lap. If there was a lock on it, I'm certain it would be in use. "Really, though, what are you writing?" The grasp on my poor book further tightens.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" He questions. "I doubt that." He smiles and reaches for it. I suddenly flash back to that day on the bus, when Marion mocked me. The idiocy of my writing. Imagine how he would react. Desperate to keep my awful words to myself, I pull the diary to my chest.

"It's really embarrassing." His hand pauses then recedes.

"I'm sorry." Another long moment between us passes. In the silence, though, I find chaos. It is exhilarating and nerve-wracking and amazingly terrible.

"Are you on spare?" He eventually asks.

"No," I reply, hopelessly relieved that he spoke. "Gym."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Not really. But I get the credit over with now, and I don't have to worry about it for the next three years."

"Smart," Tobias says, nodding his head in agreeance. A small butterfly in my chest flutters.

"Uh, are you?" He furrows his eyebrows.

"Am I what?"

"Oh sorry." I bury my face in my lap. My voice goes small and weak all over again. "I meant to ask if you're taking gym. This year. Sorry."