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Comfortable Silence: Part One |
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September 9th, the first day of school.
Joel Hayes stood in the doorway to Floodly High School. Joel had lived in Floodly, Washington for sometime; it was a quaint, suburban paradise with all the "perks" as the adults called it (though the local youth would call them "curses" wink of living in suburbia: One store for all needs from groceries to jewely, one doctor to treat all the children with bumps and bruises, one church that covered every field in Christian mythology, and one High School where every kid knew every kid.
Joel Hays was known as "that quiet guy", just the average antisocial teen who hadn't really reached out to cause any sort of impact on anybody. A normal day for Joel would go as such: get up at 7:30; ten minutes to get dressed (a t-shirt normally involving a cult film from the 70's and jeans with a belt) and get fed. The perfect amount of time to minimize any social exchanges with his parents. After stopping by "the store" for two cans of Red Bull (he had developed a resistence to caffiene after many sleepless nights playing "Everquest" wink , Joel heads to school where he sets his mind on auto-pilot allowing him to take in the maximum amount of information, but allowing him to have a minimum amount of interaction with the student body.
Joel never liked school. It wasn't the tedious work that had to be done everyday for nine months out of the year, though, it was the people he had to work with. Joel strongly disliked the majority of his classmates. The insult to injury was the fact that nothing in this town changed, not even his school's student body. From kindergarten to the present day of the beginning of his junior year, Joel had the same people in every one of his classes. Sure, the principal would try to mix things up every year by changing the people in the classes but he could only go through the combinations so many times before everyone was back in square one. Sure, people tried to talk to Joel, but he would never actually have a meaningful conversation with them. He appreciated the effort, but there was just nobody on the same "wave length" as Joel in the entire community.
That was, until she came into town
She was new here. Since Joel was never up to talking with his parents or people in the community, Joel was surprised to hear many of his classmates gossiping about "the new girl from back east". Joel was mildly curious; finally something to mix things up a bit.
The gossiping didn't stop. When the bell rang for lunch, Joel headed to his locker to pick up some money: he was going to go buy a new book. As he opened the door out of the main hallway into the school parking lot, Joel saw a girl sitting on a bench next to his car. She was a pale girl with rich burgandy hair that went down to her shoulders; today she had it in a pony tail. She was wearing a white long-sleeve t-shirt with nothing on it and black jeans that stuck to her every curve. Joel eyed her body curiously, frail but with a strength he couldn't see. He thought she had an extremely beautiful face: a pale complexion barely a shade darker than her t-shirt, dark brown eyes that made it hard to see her pupils with long black eyelashes to frame them, and a thin mouth, though the soft pink stood out from her pale face, that slowly formed into a smile when she saw Joel walk by staring at her.
"Hi" she said, answering Joel's curious stare
"Hi" Joel answered back slowly, a hint of restraint in his tone, "are you the new girl?"
"Yeah, Rina Clementine" She got up from the bench "Do you have any money?"
"What?" He answered back.
"I don't have any money for lunch" Rina let out a sheepish smile as she said this; clearly trying to sound as innocent as possible
"Sorry, none on me." Joel answered quickly before she could see through his lie
"Well then could you give me a ride to the bank?" She walked closer to him. Uncomfortably close.
"That's not really where I'm heading" He wanted to get out of this situation. It wasn't bad to him that no one knew who he was, but it was bad if the new girl caught him in the middle of a lie so she could starve to death
"Where are you heading, then?"
Joel sighed, defeated "Get in the car", he commanded her without any eye contact.
It was strange having a girl in the car for Joel, Rina's presence lightened his mood a little bit. Her scent drifted around the inside of the car, prompting Joel to take deep breaths of it in, when Rina asked him about his breathing problem, he respoonded honestly by admitting that she "smelled nice". An awkward silence followed.
"Don't you hate that?" Rina said, breaking the stiff air.
"Hate what?" Joel was shocked she was even talking to her after everything he had done in the ten minutes he had known her.
"Uncomfortable silences. I mean, why do we have to yak about bullshit in order to fill up the air? You see, that's when you've met someone special. When you can just shut the ******** up and enjoy a comfortable silence together."
Joel was shocked when he heard this; she didn't break the ice, she shattered it. "Well don't get too jumpy we're not there yet, we just met."
She chuckled at the thought. "I don't think I ever got your name" She tried to make the mood as casual as possible after the meditation on relationships.
"Joel Hayes" He answered, not looking from the road.
"I like you, Joel. You're different from the other kids, here"
"You already introduced yourself to everybody?"
"No, they introduced themselves to me." She answered with a grimace and added, "and I hated it. Everybody was so fake. It was all 'hi, I'm so-and-so, where are you from? That's interesting, here, I'll show you around. So what do you like? Blah blah blah blah blah.' Nothing but fake smiles on fake people thinking they are the greatest person in the world for making 'the new girl' feel welcome. One guy actually told me I was nice can you believe that?" Joel could hear the anger in her voice.
"What's wrong with 'nice'?" Joel asked with genuine interest. This girl can change the conversation on a dime.
"I hate nice. I don't need to be it, I don't need anybody calling me it and I especially don't need anyone being it to me" she said quickly, staring at the road
"Well, I think you're...how should I put this?" Joel had a glint of a smile as he thought of the right word to describe her "********!" he announced with a laugh. She laughed, too, the mood instantly lighening again.
Joel liked this girl. Her presence made him smile for the rest of the ride to "the store" where he could get his new book and she could get some money for lunch. This was something Joel wasn't used to. Joel never "liked" anyone or anything. Until now, his life had been a bland, boring, meaningless life in a closed off suburban paradise/hell. Rina had life to her, life for both her and Joel. Joel was even surprised at himself when he felt his mood fade into the normal school day mood when he returned to the parking lot to head to his next class.
As he parked the car and reached for the door handle, Rina blurted out "do you really want to go back to school?"
"What?" Joel had never skipped school before and never planned to do so, but if it meant spending more time with her he was willing to do anything. "Uh..yeah, sure, okay. What do you want to do instead?"
"Well, I hadn't been really shown around town yet, why not take me around town?" She flashed a smile that made Joel speechless. He was entranced by her and he'd only known her for thirty minutes
"S-sure," He managed to get out. Afterwards she laughed a heavenly laugh that made Joel unable to make eye contact for some time.
 Gilliganiganiganigoo · Thu Jul 12, 2007 @ 07:52am · 1 Comments |
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