  Junior year (11th grade)
Mr. B asked me if I was interested in playing guitar for school masses. With my John Lennon attitude, I agreed, because I thought it might be something I would enjoy and I didn't want to let my fears keep me from doing something I enjoyed. I probably surprised most of the 200+ students and faculty when they saw me standing in front of them all with my guitar (I wasn't the only one, there was another student and 2 teachers with guitars too). I definitely had fun, and was glad I agreed to do it. It was strange that it didn't bother me, because it involved not only playing the songs for mass but also sitting in front of the entire school for the whole hour. There were times when I didn't know where to put my legs or arms, or I didn't know how to hold my guitar, but for the most part I just sat there, not moving too much but not incredibly nervous either. The best part is I wasn't even Catholic by this time, I had stopped believing in God altogether. I kind of felt bad getting Communion every time, but it was the only way to not attract attention. Somehow (how do these things happen?) I got partnered with Shania for Chemistry lab. I just know she complained to the teacher. Luckily, this teacher seemed very understanding and seemed concerned with making things easier for me. I think if more of my teachers had been like this one, school would have been a lot better for me. She asked me to let her know who I wanted to be my partner, but I was pretty indifferent to everyone and I never told her anyone to pair with me. She decided to try 'Lucy' with me. Lucy sat next to me in Consumer Economics, and her friends sat scattered around me. I often laughed at Lucy's jokes or when she would throw something or whatever, and she started talking to me. I met the friendship criteria: I liked music and Wayne's World. One day in CE, she wrote a note and showed it around to her friends. I was thinking of all the horrible things it could have been, the insults that she had written or the funny drawing she had done of me. It wouldn't have surprised me, other people had done things like that. After a minute she said, "Is this ok?" and everyone said, "Yeah, I guess so." She gave me the paper-it was an invitation to join their table at lunch. She had asked me earlier that week if I was sitting alone at lunch, which I was. I was so surprised at the invitation, I couldn't even tell if she was serious or not, but I agreed. When lunch came, I nearly sat at my own table again. I was afraid that it was all a joke, that I would get to the table and she would block the seat so I couldn't sit down or something. I decided to at least let her know that I would take her up on offers so she knew for next time not to offer something she didn't mean. One of the hardest things I ever did was keep walking past my table that day. Once I passed it, though, there was no turning around. Imagine jumping into a big pool, which you know contains some kind of animal but you can't tell if it's sharks or guppies. When I got to the table, the only open seat was across from 'Tommi' and at the opposite end from Lucy. Tommi loved to make fun of me, for any possible thing she could think of. My shoes, bookbag, pen, anything at all, she would find something wrong with it. I had a blue plastic watch, and she was asking me stupid questions about it at lunch that day, like "Oh, that's a cool watch. Where did you get it? What kind is it? Timex?" She would just keep going on, and after every question she would laugh and look at everyone like "Can you believe this? What an idiot!" Finally, 'Nikita' sitting next to her to just knock it off already and leave me alone. I was so surprised, no one had ever stood up for me before, much less someone who didn't even know me! Neither one of them even knew about me coming to sit with them. I knew then that this wasn't just a joke, I really was supposed to sit there and I wasn't just going to be pushed away. When my Chem teacher and lunchroom moderator came over to tell us to clean up the table, she kind of looked at me and Lucy said, "I asked her to sit with us. I hope it's ok." (because every table had a designated person to wipe it off with a wet rag every day, so I wouldn't be able to wipe off my old table) My teacher just said, "That's fine, Lucy." but I could tell by her face and the way she looked at me that she was happy for me and it definitely made her like Lucy a little more (Lucy was somewhat of a troublemaker, not completely concerned with grades, but not close to just not caring or getting in trouble constantly. She could just get annoying to some people.). Lucy and I were the perfect match. We got along so well, and she helped bring out the side of me that I couldn't show in school because no one ever let me. We would always be messing around with something or pulling some kind of prank or whatever. Since no one ever thought of me as that kind of person, I think I got away with more stuff than I should have. Lucy learned a lot about me that other people never got to know, and she started telling people how 'cool' I was. Her friends mostly tolerated me being around. I guess my always being there made them like me a little more, and soon I was actually being involved in conversations, not verbally of course. She and 'Hannah' were thinking of taking guitar lessons from Mr. B, and once they started he apparently played a song for them on the guitar that he had been teaching me. I had been nowhere near as good at playing it as he was, but he told them I was. They wanted to hear me play something, so we made plans for me to go over to Hannah's house one Friday. Lucy drew out directions and gave me the phone numbers, and wrote something like "BREATHE HEAVILY" if I couldn't make it and had to call. Thinking back now, I think this probably made it easier for me, because it was like she was saying what everyone else should have said all my life - "If you don't want to talk, that's fine." There was no pressure on me, I was just being accepted as I was. I want to find the paper she gave me, I still have it at home. So I did go over to Hannah's that Friday, and they told me to play something. I had taken most of my music from my guitar teacher with me in case I forgot it all, and I played a completely different song than the one I went over there to play. It was the shortest, easiest song I could find, and they loved it. I had to play it several times, and even now they tell me to play that song whenever we get together. I had been so incredibly nervous about playing anything, but it turned out that the song I played was the only one they had me play that day. Otherwise, we just sat around watching Van Halen and Guns 'N Roses concert videos. There was nearly no attention on me at all, and not one mention of me saying anything. I think I even remember Hannah telling her mom when I went in that I didn't talk (pretty much saying that if I didn't say anything, I wasn't just being rude). The whole thing wasn't fake, like "We have to be especially nice and make sure everything goes well." It was as though I was just another person and I didn't need any special treatment. I was treated like a normal person, and I knew that these people weren't just trying to make me look stupid again (I had been nervous about even going over to the house, thinking that maybe they only invited me so they could ignore me at the door and laugh at me for thinking they were serious about wanting to hear me play). So I had apparantly made a few friends, but Shania could not change her view of me. I had art class this year, and there was one table in the room made up completely of people who hated everyone not like them. If there was a person they could gossip about or make fun of, they would. They were the sort of people who never did anything wrong and thought they could get away with everything. Shania was in this group. There was a lot of whispering and looking in my direction, or just outright talking about me or asking me stupid questions to make me look dumb. One day, Shania asked me something in the period before art, and I wrote out some response, which she accepted and didn't even act like it was unusual. But obviously my not talking had really bothered her, and she said very loudly that she just wanted to stab me with the pliers we were using for our art project because I wouldn't answer her. She didn't seem totally serious, more like just saying the first thing that came to her mind. I gave her a big, funny smile, and judging by her face I freaked her out a little, as though she thought I was thinking the same thing (you always have to watch out for the quiet ones). But when she went out in the hallway to get her wire for our project, she told the teacher the same thing, about wanting to stab me. I don't know if the teacher ever reported it, probably not, and I didn't because I knew she wasn't serious. I kind of wish I had, just to get her in trouble because I was sick of dealing with her. But my life was never threatened, I knew that. I was just annoyed. So when she was doing another staring contest with me where I wasn't allowed to look at her, I waved. She did pretty much stop staring after that. One day when one of my regular teachers wasn't there, we had to go to Mr. J's room for class. I had never met him before as this was his first year at my school, but he seemed nice. I would end up having him the next year for Environmental Science. He had cockroaches in an aquarium in his room, and sometimes he would take one out and let it walk around on the desk. He was a little strange but that's probably why I liked him so much. We didn't have much of an assignment this day, so he got one of the roaches out. All the girls were screaming and trying to get away from it, except me, who just sat there. Shania, trying to be mean, told him to let me hold it. She thought it would bother me but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He asked me if I wanted to hold it, and I agreed. To Shania's disappointment, it didn't bother me at all. It was just walking all over my hand and arm, and I didn't care. What she didn't know was that I'm the one who does stuff like bringing in a wasp at home because it couldn't fly, so I could see if it got better or not and if so I would let it go (which it did, it must have been in shock or something). Everything this year is so out of order. This should probably be before I went to Hannah's house, but I don't want to mess up what I have already. So I had health class for one quarter of the year, with a teacher I already didn't like. Mr. S. was the kind of ex-Marine who'd tear your head off if you did something to upset him (in the 80s he gave one kid a bloody nose by beating his head into the bleachers). Last summer he was arrested when they found videotapes in his house of girls changing in the school locker room, which didn't surprise me at all. So I wasn't looking forward to this class. Sometimes he would ask me questions about whatever we were learning in class, and he would just wait for several minutes for me to answer. People would inevitably say something about me not talking, and he would just respond, "I know." with this smug look on his face. A couple times he responded, "I'll get her to talk to me." and I would just smile because I knew he was wrong, and sometimes I would get so annoyed I would close my eyes for a second or raise my eyebrows as if to say, "Here we go again." I was the only one in the class not terrified of him. One time, when he did this, I heard Lucy say, "Dude, she doesn't talk, leave her alone." It was different than what people usually said. She wasn't just trying to help me out, she sounded as sick of it as I was. He might not have even heard her, but I did. As we were leaving class that day, a couple people were giving me suggestions about what to do to get him to leave me alone. Some said to just say "no" the next time he asked if I was going to talk. Some told me to tell him to go shine his bald head. It was like I had a team behind me. Later that day, in another class, there was another discussion about him, where Lucy and the others told all the people in this class about what Mr. S was doing. Everyone was telling me the same stuff, what to do to make him shut up. I never did any of their suggestions, but I finally felt like I had people on my side, people who would stick up for me. I felt like all the attention was on me, and I loved it. After being ignored for 2 1/2 years, people were noticing me. I set a goal for myself. My 16th year had been the best ever, which was funny because 7 is my lucky number, so it made sense I guess. I had learned to play guitar, I had spent Christmas in New York with all my cousins and aunts and uncles, I had made friends, so much had happened when I was 16. So about a month before my 17th birthday, I decided to do one last thing to make it the best ever. I was going to talk to Lucy and Hannah, and if I missed my goal I had no idea when I would get the chance again. Without a sort of deadline to meet, I would have no push to talk and I would keep putting it off. I had to do it before my birthday, or it might never happen. So when we were making plans to meet at Hannah's house again with our guitars, I gave them the SPCA phone number and wrote 'Call before 2PM'. Lucy said, "Are you gonna talk to me?" She was so excited, and I just shrugged. I was going to try, at least. It was so unexpected to them, because I had given no attempt at talking to them before that, and the way they treated me, it was like talking wasn't even an issue. It was as though they had already accepted me as not talking, and that was fine with them. It probably was part of the reason that I thought I could talk to them, because they weren't constantly bugging me about it. That weekend, I waited all day for a phone call at work. When 2:00 came and went, I figured the whole thing had been a joke and they weren't serious about being my friend. But about 2:30, someone told me I had a phone call. I just picked up the phone and said 'hello', and once the first word is out it only gets easier. She sounded calm enough, sort of "Oh my God, wow, you're talking to me" but not jumping up and down. We decided on when we were going to Hannah's, and I hung up. A few minutes later, I got another phone call, this time from Hannah. She had a similar, not too excited, reaction. I found out much later that Lucy had barely been able to control herself when she heard me talking, but she definitely hadn't shown it, which was a good thing for me! (She had been so excited that she called Hannah and was so hysterical she wasn't making any sense.) So when I went over to Hannah's house that night, she and Lucy were there, and 'Rose', who I had never really met before but I figured she was 'safe' anyway. She seemed a bit quiet herself, so I wasn't expecting any major reaction from her. The little bit I said that night was said very quietly, but they didn't seem to care. It was just like any other day, no big deal being made about me talking, in fact not one word about me talking. One of my biggest fears when I finally talk to someone is them asking me why I don't talk, or asking me to say something just so they can hear me. There was none of that here. Talking to them in school wasn't easy, and I didn't do it much at first. I was afraid if other people saw me, they would make a big deal of it or want me to talk to them too. So I hid it for several weeks. Lucy and Hannah almost seemed to know how I felt, and they didn't make a big deal of it either. They didn't go around telling everyone. As I got more comfortable, I was able to talk to them normally outside of school. Eventually I started whispering to them in school, and there was no hiding it after we were having a discussion one day in Chemistry class about me. This happened occasionally, and it didn't bother me. It was mostly everyone talking about me not talking, but I was included in the conversation and they were always kind of lighthearted, joking conversations. One day, Lucy announced, "Well she talks to me!" and the teacher looked a bit surprised but not unbelieving. I think she had sort of expected it. I just gave a sort of nervous smile. After a while I didn't even care if people saw me talking to any of them. I was nowhere near talking in school, but to these 3 people, I had no problem. I was starting to actually look forward to school now that I had real friends that I could talk to. Previous Page | Next Page
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