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Greg & Angel |
| ...Is
this bad?
“Yes, it’s bad. What made you think it’s not bad?” ...Ah... “Can’t think of anything?” ... “Well?” ...No. “Alright, I’ll think of a few reasons for you. One, she’s the most unattainable girl in school. If you fear for you life, you’ll stay away from her. Two, if you fear the jocks, you’ll stay away from her. Three, if you fear Janie Goodfellow, you’ll stay away from her. Remember what happened to the last guy who had a crush on her?” You know very well that that Armstrong guy was a lecherous perv. “I know, but still, I’ve heard some pretty scary shit about that Janie. I don’t ever wanna talk to her, or get close to her, ‘cause I think she’ll beat the crap outta me for just looking at her wrong. Anyway, four, her uncles are nuts. All five of ‘em are friggin’ psychos, and I should know. I met one of ‘em.” I did too once, and he seemed like a nice guy... “That was in what, first, second grade? Time changes people.” ... “...” But maybe she likes me! “And that’s a big maybe. I think she really likes your sappy poetry though. Besides, you know her. If she likes a person, she lets them know flat out, no questions asked. She’s blunt like that... But I will admit man, you have good taste in women...” Oh, um, hi. I’m Greg. Greg Coppersmith. If you don’t know who I am, I don’t blame you. I’m just one of those hole-in-the-wall guys at school that no one really notices. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, then don’t worry, I’m not really sure what either. I was talking to my best and probably only friend, Tim Parden. Everybody calls ‘em Pard, ‘cause Tim’s just too unoriginal for someone like him. And he does this great Tom Pardo imitation. Kinda strange, he has the last name to go along, oh, back to what we were talking about... I have a crush on Angel McCoy, and have ever since first grade. Yep, ever since we were little kids, I’ve liked her. A lot of the other guys did, but we were stupid when we were little. I don’t think it’s one of those stupid childhood crush things. At least I hope it’s not. I’d really like to get to know her better. I personally think she the kindest, gentlest, nicest, prettiest girl there ever was on the face of the planet. And there’s probably a bunch of people that would agree. She just came in on a snowy December morning, the new kid in school. I still remember that morning. It was pretty out, with all the snow and the trees reaching up like bony hands into the sky... And it was one of those good winter days, where there was no slush on the driveways or ice on the sidewalk. It was perfect snowball weather. Well, yeah, it looked nice, but not as nice as she did. She just walked in with this aura of confidence, like she didn’t have a worry in the world. Not like the other kids didn’t worry, I mean she just was like someone we hadn’t seen before. She had that easy smile of hers, she always looks like she’s smiling. The teacher introduced her to the class, and... I don’t think there was ever utter silence in our little classroom. It could get quiet, but not as absolutely silent as it was that day. Everyone just shut up to look at the pretty girl with the weird purple hair. One of her big, tall uncles stood at the doorway to our class, looking in at all the little students and smiling big through that beard of his. He had green eyes, just like she did. I guess the weird hair came from her mother. We all sat at these three big circular tables, and each had nine seats to them. Angel was sent to a table with an empty seat, and we were allowed to chat. She would try and say something to the other kids at her table, but they were too dumbstruck to say a word. I was too, I had a seat all to myself, no one on my right, and no one on my left, and she was sitting at the table to my left. I just kept sorta peering at her through the corner of my eye, just to see her. She would catch me sometimes, but I would put my attention to something else in the room to try and convince her that I hadn’t been staring at her. When we were released for recess, everyone found that the snow was perfect for rolling and throwing. We used to have some monster snowball fights in winter, each side with a bunch of groups, some groups just breaking off just to fight everyone else, others just defected for the sake of ‘winning’... Well, Angel didn’t like fighting. It wasn’t really something she could do, but everyone else enjoyed doing it, so she really didn’t have the chance to get along with anyone. That meant she just wandered aimlessly around the blacktop, without anything else better to do. I think everyone had just forgotten about her real quickly. It was her first day, and already the other kids in class were trying to take their minds off the strange girl and relish in a snowball fight. But then she accidentally walked right in the middle of it, without looking where she was going... I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a quick cease-fire in my life. Both sides just stopped throwing snowballs at each other to let her wander by. And even when she passed, we still didn’t fight. It was so weird. There was this one guy who actually stood up with a snowball in his hand, and reared back to toss it at her. She never noticed that he was going to throw it, because he was taken down by about five or six other snowballs before he got the chance. They hit him so hard that he fell down, and just began to bawl his eyes out like the little kid he was. That caught Angel’s attention. Did I mention that Angel is the kindest, most loving person I’ve ever seen in my life? She’s one of those ‘turn the other cheek’ people that you don’t see very often. She ran over to the big crying bully, asked if he was okay, and began to cry with him. Some of us tried to tell her what he tried to do, but she just gave us this, this look. It wasn’t anger or scorn or frustration or apathy. She just looked at us real sad. Some of us began to tear up right there ‘cause we felt so ashamed about what we had done, and she made us feel that way. It really confused the teachers, they didn’t know what to make of it. She was someone special. The other girls would tease a lot of us about it constantly, with their ‘Harvey and Angel’ or ‘Tom and Angel’ or ‘Fred and Angel’ chants. Now that I think about it, there were never any ‘Greg and Angel’ songs. Maybe someone was trying to say something... Well, every single day she kept us in rapt attention. Some of us, me included, would watch her every move, learn what she brought for lunch, learn about the stuff she wore, and do other things that involved getting to know her without intruding on her privacy or actually talking to her. Wait, I think I was the only one who did stuff like that... Yeah, I’m shy. It’s not really something I can help. If I wanted to, I could walk up to anybody in the school and start up a conversation. Well, almost anyone. Like Pard advised me to, I do fear the jocks. I wouldn’t even try talking to them any day. They can be such jerks sometimes. Well, Angel somehow manages to keep the whole lot of ‘em in line. Oh, yeah, she’s the only other person I can’t walk up to in the entire school. My shyness should not have anything to do with this. I should not be afraid of talking to her like I am. I could... But I just can’t. She knows who I am. A little. It had been about five years since she had first come to our little elementary school. We had all moved on to middle school a while ago, and we were in sixth grade. I sat on the far right, she sat somewhere in the middle, thanks to alphabetical seating. I was lucky to be in the same class as her, so I shouldn’t complain. Our teacher was a real jerk sometimes. Mrs. Granger was one of those people who enjoyed having kids read their notes in front of the class, or reading them out loud herself if they refused to do it. Remember that sappy poetry Pard brought up? I was writing it ever since third grade. I have notepads full of poems. Sometimes I’d take out one of my notebooks and begin to scribble. That day was no exception. I was jotting away, almost succeeding in my ‘make it look like I’m not doing anything important’ plan, until the teacher strolled by and snatched my pad away. I tried to get it back from her, I reached up and tried to grab it out of her hands, but she was a real tall lady. She looked at the poem I had written with a big smile on her face, then flipped through a few more pages. Why was she doing that? It was personal, she had no reason to go through it, other than to say ‘I can do this if I want to, and you can’t do anything about it, little boy.’ After she was done reading the poem, she smiled at me, handed back the pad, then told me to read it out loud in front of the class. That was her way of saying ‘if you think that your stupid poetry is more important than paying attention in class, then prove it.’ I was never so nervous in my life. I avoided choir and band because I hate getting in front of people. I never did good at oral repots because I always got so shaky. But, after a few seconds of debating whether or not I valued whatever shred of a life I had, I decided that doing what the teacher told me to do was better than getting a reprimand from her, and the lecture from my parents that would follow shortly after. So I got in front of the class, and read the following out loud. Note, it helps if you add some pauses, a few chuckles from classmates, and a lot of stuttering. The ground glistens with
Oh God, I don’t ever remember feeling so nervous in my life. After I was done, there was complete silence, except for the few chuckles from the insensitive jerks of the class. There had been a few boos, but Mrs. Granger’s glare shut them up. I felt so worthless. No one liked it. Mrs. Granger made me stand up in front of the entire class and read my own personal stuff aloud just to prove how stupid and naïve I was, and how crappy my writing was. I remember looking around, trying to find someone who wasn’t smirking at me or faking a smile just to sympathize. Then I looked at Angel... She was smiling. It wasn’t her easy smile, the one she wore all day, it was a happy smile. A beautiful smile. I would’ve just thought that she was toying with me, but she’s not like that. She was too real to do anything like that. She was smiling. At my poetry? But why? It’s not good poetry. There are so many people out there who can do better than I can. Did she realize who the emerald eyes belonged to? Was she happy? Her smile just melted me. I couldn’t stop shaking when I sat down, but she helped me feel better from across the room. If I could paint, I would splash that moment across a canvas to hang in my room, at the foot of my bed. That way I could wake up to her and that beautiful smile of hers almost everyday. And if I ever had a bad day, all I would have to do would be tuck myself in, and let that painting brighten my night and destroy any bad feelings or nightmares that would dare intrude my sleep. “You’re so hopeless, man. You seriously need to go find someone else.” Why is he smiling like that? “...Or you could let her find out.” What do you mean by that? “Go and tell her.” What? Tell her?! That’s crazy, telling her I like her. She probably doesn’t like me that much, anyway. “You just told me five seconds ago that she might like you. You don’t have to ‘tell her,’ you could just place a note in her bag, or give it to one of her friends. Maybe she could just ‘accidentally’ find a love letter with no name on it. Something like that. But she might find out... “No, she won’t. She doesn’t know your handwriting, and she most definitely can’t trace your fingerprints. Just give it a rest and do it.” ...No. I won’t. It would cause too much trouble. “See? I was right. You’re just hopeless...” ...And he was right. I was completely hopeless. I still am. And time does change people, if just a little. So, I walked down the empty hallway to our school, with gray lockers on either side, and clutching a folded piece of paper to my chest. I had spent hours on it, decided what I would tell her. I decided on no cheesy metaphors, just subtle things. I was going to tell her almost everything on a single side of a sheet of paper. “I’m serious dude, you oughta do it. It’ll stop you from whining about it so much...” There was no one up there with me. The pounding of my own pulse drowned out any sound that I could hear. I held the paper with both hands, close to my heart, to feel how fast my heart was going. I tried to stay unnerved, because no one could possibly catch me. All I had to do was drop it in her locker, and walk away. No sweat, no sweat... “It’s not even that hard. Just go do it, and it’ll be over when you walk away...” I stood in front of Angel’s locker. After a few months of what I called ‘gathering information’ and Pard called ‘stalking,’ I had memorized her locker number. I took the note off my chest, loosened my grip on it, fit it into one of the locker vents... ...and watched as a hand went by and snatched it right out from my fingers. I turned around, ready to scream at whoever it was who had taken it from me. It was personal. They had no right going through it. They shouldn’t read it. I didn’t want to become the laughing stock of the school. I didn’t need that. Why were they doing this to me? It was Angel. My heart fell to my feet. All of the blood drained out of my face. My head went numb. I tried to get the knot out of my throat. I kept my mouth shut, and my eyes shot-open wide. She looked at me strangely, like she was asking me what I was doing there. She held the note it one had, then slowly began to unfold it. Her emerald eyes began to read over it, word by word. Her eyes would widen every once in a while. And, all the time, I remember thinking... she’s going to read it and she’s going to think I’m a loser a great big loser just like I’ve been all my life she’s gonna tell me what I pig I am and what a loser I am just like everyone else has she’s going to hate me I can’t live with myself she’s going to read it halfway get tired turn around and crush it under her shoe why do these things always have to happen to me I have no luck whatsoever my luck is crap my writing is crap my whole life is crap I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate me I hate this I hate this... I closed my eyes and braced myself. Fate was going to turn Angel against me, and the Hammer of God was going to come down and crush me and my heart into mush. She stopped reading. She looked up at me. She smiled. She stepped closer, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek. She slowly folded up the piece of paper, held it in one hand, and reached out with her other hand. She clasped my hand. Angel looked at me, like she was telling me to follow her. All the negativity dropped. She had read it. She had grabbed my hand. She even gave me a little kiss. I... I didn’t understand. Aren’t situations like these supposed to end with the popular girl slapping the ostracized boy in the face before smashing his confidence and walking away just like it was any other day? Why hadn’t she gone to the bathroom to puke yet? She didn’t like some stupid little kid like me, did she? The chances were microscopic, impossible. She couldn’t see anything in someone like me... Did she understand? I felt this warm happiness. It was one I had never felt before. Never mind the last time, I want to hang this moment everywhere in my house. I have no reason to be unhappy ever again. Pard, I... I don’t want her to tell me she hates me... “Don’t worry, she’s not going to do that. She’s too nice to do anything like that. At worst, she’ll tell you that she just wants to be friends, and that’ll be that. You’re too nice of a guy for her anyway...” That’s the other way around, she’s too good for- “Oh, shut up and go tell her already. Who knows? Something good might happen.” Something good did happen. It was something I was never going to forget, because in that moment I found euphoria, I found supreme happiness. Angel McCoy held me in one hand, my letter in the other, and we began to walk down the school hall, side-by-side, and into the light of the school lobby. I felt happy.
Written by Ren Start - 10/10/2001 End - 10/17/2001 This is a bit I wrote out of spontaneous inspiration. I’m not sure where it came from, really. Just read it and accept it. And, yes, it is actually a part of The Storyline. |
The C Force © 1996-2001 Matt Laskowski --- The R. Force and other assorted crap © 1995-2002 Ren