SeeCeeSea the CrazySafeway

SeeCeeSea the CrazySafeway By: Virginia Allen It is going to happen anytime now. Any second. Is my clock right? Why hasn’t it occurred yet? Sure, waiting for it isn’t the same as the anticipation of waiting for a football game’s buzzer to go off, crinkling your nose in the chilly, but heated air, and the other team has the ball, the score is close, and the timer is taking forever. Last year, the team had a great defense, but this year, you aren’t so sure. One more second…no, two more seconds. Brrrring!!!! (What do you know? I guess is kind of, sort of similar!) The plain red and brown environment of the Northern Windsor Regional High School becomes an eruption of color and noise in a split second. Teenager. Am I right? Now take a deep inhale through your nose, I invite you, if you dare. I’m getting sweat, attempted disguises, a lot of attempted disguises, along with a lot of sweat (some with good reason, others just nerves finding an interesting wat to show themselves). See those two tall peers, one wearing the newest trends from Cherise Monet’s, and the other wearing a faded green jersey that he will probably never give up, even once the season is through, since it is good luck to wear on game day, and no one minds the smell (boys would steal it, if they dared, and girls would bathe in it, if they even dreamed it could be possible)…Well, he might give it up to the girl he is noticeably with, Eve West, but that is only by reason of expectation, since she is the prettiest cheerleader in his school, or any school. Don’t get me started on that cliché story, I beg of you. I want to talk about the short, dark-blonde mixed with brown, like dirt in the cellar corner, mucus that everyone forgot about—green-eyed girl in-between them. In-between everything. The part that everyone forgot about. She sauntered to her red-horribly-should-be noticeable locker that should be noticeable, but it looked the same as it did on the day that she claimed it. No changes. No pictures with her friends or non-existent boyfriend decorated the dull, gray inside. She added nothing to the metal cabinet used to store her books, folders, and binders. No added color (she added a black shelf to make storage easier, and even that was rusting away). She didn’t even have a mirror Velcro-ed, or whatever, to the inside of the clangy, boring door to take a look at her plain looks where she could possibly make herself look better with make-up, or a hair-clip, or anything! Tell me when I get off her description, the next page, or whenever it is. I need this. She was grabbing the books for her next class with a sigh (What is this? Expression, is something going to occur in her strangely dull expression in her active, luminous, colorful (if anything) environment?), stuffing the not-studied near enough textbooks she spent most of the class doodling in on the inside of the cover, when she heard an excited, female voice behind her, causing her hand to rush to her ear, pushing some of her hair behind it, ready for a conversation. “See!” greeted the friend (something tells me that maybe I should say acquaintance), long brown hair swept up in a ponytail, containing an even more athletic look than Eva West or that dreamy Phys-Ed teacher, Anthony Parker (or Mr. Parker, girls only called him Anthony in their dreams, after the ones that they had about Brad. Teenagers. Am I right?). The girl with possible looks that deceive us, I thought she was a nobody, rolled her eyes with the reply, “Don’t call me that. It is the weird nickname that my dad gave me when I was a little girl, since I hate my name and…I don’t want anyone in our class to know.” Her friend lit up the hallway suddenly with a guffaw as she threw her head back, closing her dark brown eyes that never should’ve told you anything, yet they always told you everything. In between the breaths of her laugh that was way too loud, but hardly noticed (she was only the star soccer player, and honestly, who ever hung their pride on the simple sport spent kicking the green turf, kind of, sort of aiming for a black and white ball?), she said, meaning for it to sound like a compliment, but making it sound like the direct opposite, “Sage, you have a beautiful name. What do you have to hide anyway?” Sage glanced up in a grin. She knew what her friend was aiming her for, this had happened before. She decided to playfully mock back, like a robot, “Easy for you to say, Soccer Shelby.” But as she sunk down in her seat next to her assigned computer, she wondered. What do I have to hide? Though she knew exactly what. In her blue jeans, partnered with a light green shirt, and sneakers that were so unnoticeable, I’m surprised that everyone didn’t trip over them in their own ignorance, not that Sage Oswald would do anything to change immediate reason of ignorance. She found, she enjoyed it, as she slumped into her seat, as if she ever dared bother anybody. He ran down the empty, post-passing period hallway, trying to make it to Computer Science class. I was anyone’s classic triple-p sighting. Binder clutched, papers flying, feet scampering in a pair of shoes that had to be a pair of unlucky hand-me-downs that were a rusted red color that he didn’t even like. Who am I kidding? The kid hurrying down the hallway, with bouncing, shaggy brown hair and a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, that added a almost haunting, tempting look to his dark brown eyes had always been dealt the unlucky hand in life, or so it seemed to him, and everyone else who had known, or even so humbly seen him, knew this, but I digress. He was dealing with a bad, darkening streak in his life called a run of unintentional tardies. He didn’t know what it was, he had never been mocked for being slow, or being distracted too easily (his glasses were a little too noticeable for that), but he always seemed to be a little late for everything. Mr. Anthes was the only teacher who really had a problem with it. (Lucky him.) The evaporating teenage hallway to Mr. Anthes’s class seemed to be mocking him with its eroded look, that said no one deserved to do anything in its hallways, especially one ruddy kid who couldn’t know how to work a clock exactly by his strict as steel standards. The always late-never on-time student just barely caught the chipped brown wooden door, not caring what he had stepped into in a flash. Mr. Anthes was used to losing this strikingly odd race to the smirking, startlingly happy, oddly perceived boy. He had loads of things to say to retort the stupid, teenage boy’s soul (are any of them not stupid?). “Come on Sloth, Charles Barbage could have invented the Computer mechanism as a Computer before you ever make it to my class on time.” The “Sloth” started dragging his feet across the floor, almost daring Mt. Anthes to try and think of something else horribly lame (as the kids would say) to make him regret everything he had ever done in his boring, monotonous, dully one-colored life. Even that smart-alecky move didn’t inspire a giggle from the rest of the class, that all agreed that Mr. Anthes was the lame one. Sage wasn’t the only one that rolled her eyes in response to what dumb Carter Simmons had just done, in clear view of the whole, entire, naturally immature class. Not a single giggle was ever heard in the process of the entire exchange. Carter was such an idiot (who always aced every assignment in every class, his glasses clearly stated) and even if true emotion came out in the most innocent of chuckles (innocent? Ha!), there was fear that Mr. Anthes would decode the discreetly trembling class, in fear of everything, (especially the beautiful cheerleader that was still waiting for Brad to ask her out—she would gleefully and dumbly accept the question, even if it was through text) especially that their teacher might discover that he wasn’t even close to how intimidating he preferred to fancy himself (a classic tortoise racing an ordinary hare) and that he, yes he, might discover all their secrets and what they really thought of his pointless Computer Science class. A student having mercy on a teacher. The idea in ridiculous, but it remains ever present (for selfish reasons, of course) in this story. “Now that the Snail of the class is here, it’s about time that I gave you all the first assignment of the second semester.” Not a single laugh dwelled in the crickets chirping right outdoors. (They didn’t have that much mercy.) On the blue chair that Carter was sitting on, still getting his many books, and few notes out, not even a little embarrassed, his friend, Eric Nord leaned over and whispered a mock, trying to act like what he had seen and heard was the classic teenager, always in search of more dullest needle attention, “Like you would ever need to worry about that…You’re never even that late to Anthes’s class. If anyone truly cared, you would get the impatience and punishments from Miss Hutchinson, but you are the smartest kid in her class.” Carter smiled to himself, he did like to imagine. Even Nord didn’t know as much as his blank page mind liked to think. “Please, Ricky, you should know that Anthes would do anything to impress Hutchinson. You shouldn’t say her name in this boring class.” Eric bit his tongue to stop a Shelby-like laugh escape his lips, surrounded by his currently bloody red cheeks, frightened by the same things the rest of the class was. All minds were as dimly lit as the bleak computer lab when the lights were turned off, for the rest of the hour that Mr. Anthes had attempted to make feel like a threat on every student’s life. It sounded like a difficult assignment, but Mr. Anthes permitted them to do it in partners (silly) and on the internet, if they felt they needed to (stupid). When the bell rang and normal Carter was standing up, picking up his worn backpack, right when he turned around, an asteroid had struck some planet’s surface, right when he saw who was standing behind him, twirling her hair, with an obvious, phony flirt that anyone would think was under the label of Not Allowed. Before he could have a second thought about it, his cheeks instantaneously turned a shade of red before she started talking, “Hey, Carter…Do you think we could be partners on this assignment? I suck at all types of science.” Gazing at her make-up covered face, outlined by sparkling, shimmering blonde hair, and detailed beautifully with precise blue eyes, it was impossible to answer with anything more than a timid nod, asking yourself if this was a dream. As Eva West walked quickly, smoothly, the most beautiful thing that Carter had yet seen, accepting his answer (she couldn’t be seen talking to him, it would really be used later as a possible threat on Brad—maybe a Linebacker couldn’t take him down, but she knew she could. Why hadn’t he asked her to the dance yet?) Eric had to laugh at his friend once they were in the hallway, his expression hadn’t changed. “I was going to ask if you wanted to be partners on this assignment, but I have a feeling that you are thinking of something else!” Sage had the appearance of a girl that was either just spooked by a ghost in the dark, treacherous night or dead…Her face is so white; I can’t decide. As soon as she cast her grayish-green (a little grayer at the moment) eyes down her body, as if she had to make sure she was wearing a plain outfit as she was every day of her life. Jeans, a simple shirt, run-down sneakers that were fading fast. What was it that inspired Bradley Larson to ask her if he could be her partner with this assignment—he admitted to sucking at all types of science after all. It couldn’t be that he thought she was pretty…Was she smart? Did she even look smart, with her dark blonde hair and all? Or was it just that she was the ghost in the hallway that never bothered anyone? (Sorry, I can’t get that comparison out of my head with the current whiteness of her face.) Without thinking about it, she rose her hand to her hair, that hung a little past her shoulders, past her blushing cheeks. She didn’t care what his stupid reason might be, Bradley Larson, the cutest boy— “Sage!” Shelby yelled to her friend from across the lab, grabbing her own bag, and accepting, while at the same time ignoring Mr. Anthes’s glare that was laughable, he just didn’t quite know how others perceived him, and the class wanted to keep it that way. She quickly jogged to Sage’s side, looked at her friends reddening, oh, excuse me, dreaming body and sassed her, “Oh no, Sagey. Let me guess.” Sliding in the not-that-often used nickname as a clearer than cleaned with the #1 Champion Glass Cleaner window as a mock, jerking her head toward Larson’s direction, not wishing to know how tender her best friend really was. “Shut up, Shelb.” Sage whispered, knowing her sensitivity and lifting her bag and book up off the floor as if they were the delicate petals of a flower, or rather, her own emotions. As soon as soon as she entered the explosion of a passing period hallway, with so much more colors in it than the plain red and brown, ignoring Mr. Anthes’s quiet, but well-intentioned wish in a glance directed at herself. She didn’t want anyone to know about the reason why yet. She hated attention. She would miss that person forever, but she didn’t want to give away the information that they were gone to her peers quite yet. Why did she have to be partners with Brad on this assignment? (Other than a simple (plus dumb) Why not?) She was much more predictable than the world thought, particularly the Groundhogs of Northern Windsor Regional High School in the humble state of New Jersey, that always saw their shadow. Though they already each claimed a correct guess of which clothes could be seen on her body each day, not a second was ever given to her though. Why give her much attention when there are girls like Paige Griffith, Lacey Ringer, and of course that precious blessing to the eye, Eva (or Evie, as nicknames insisted she be called) West. Sage liked being the unnoticeable, tiny detail in the background that one and all forgot. Now, more than ever. (Though she never had and never would impress a handsome musketeer, therefore, she did the best job that any teenage girl could do and didn’t dream of it.) Brad couldn’t actually like her, they both would never dream of it. He hadn’t…noticed her? She knew it would happen sometime, she hoped not while she was still in high school, more likely than others, she sensed, to be mocked. Her dad always told her how beautiful and happy she was on the day that she was born. He hoped she would remain that way her whole life, even while he was gone. Pointless wishes. Pointless dreams. She didn’t want to be noticed. Blending in, that was what she was good at. The mixture of her and reality was the recipe that everyone forgot about, fortunately…but now, with this one assignment with Brad, would some secret doppelganger of herself on the internet come out? She hoped not. Bradley just made you do things without honestly thinking of any consequence…It was a talent of his with everyone, with the exception of his Evie. Sage sat down in her next class’s chair, preparing for the world to end (teenage girls. Am I right?), elbows on the desk, holding her face in cupped hands. Please, Miss Hutchinson, give your average class a break today! Being the last big period before lunch, you have to have at least a little heart dwelling in your chest with more space in it than the ones for the love of each of your students minds, reading adequacy, and anything that isn’t that Charles Anthes and his strange creeper nature that you sense in every one of his flirty actions aimed toward you. Maybe Sage could get a head start on her Computer Science after she was finished with the daily reading, and make her old, classic flip-phone with tiny buttons (small enough for her miniscule fingers). Could he ever feel that not-normal way about her? Maybe not-normal, strange happenings couldn’t be so bad…What was his school username anyway? SeeCeeSea: Hey…You there? CrazySafeway: Of course I am here…Ummm… SeeCeeSea: Ummm…That is so cute! Are you ready to get started on the Computer Science assignment…Mr. Anthes always makes things sound scarier than they actually are. I know I’m scared. You really shouldn’t worry about it. CrazySafeway: Oh, don’t worry, Eves. We know all about Anthes. You’re telling me what I would’ve told you, honestly When do you want to do this work? During class (Do you know what it is for me?) (Late again) is a bad time for me. SeeCeeSea: Yes…Bye! Crazy Safeway: Bye. Carter leaned back from his Statistics computer with a ginormous sigh that nobody noticed as he interlocked the fingers of his left hand with those of his right, feeling uneasy. “Late again” Was that too blunt…though she already knew what him and his stereotypes were? He didn’t want to be the one to start a strange range of mocks directed toward himself. He didn’t want to do or say anything that made beautiful SeeCeeSea exactly what everyone thought she was, or give her permission to make a farce of him. He desired to stand out in a fascinating way, something that everyone noticed positively. Not part of a sport or club, but there had to be something…SeeCeeSea. What a weird name to make one’s alias! Probably every girl wished they were Evie, so they made their imaginary name a little, or a lot like hers. Oh, she was good. SeeCeeSea. What would inspire to make it that anyway? Did she like the sea? Was a C (or cee) her favorite letter? Was vision the sense that she was the most grateful for? (With looks like hers, I bet so, as a simple narrator.) He exited that classroom looking the way he looked while he was leaving every single football game, or any sporting event, that you spotted the missing link at, bored—that was easy to say, but in a seemingly, almost hidden verse of anticipation, like something great was about to happen to him, though he was nobody and everyone knew it. There were only two, or three that were less noticeable than the little twig was (one of them was Sage, you-know-but-he-doesn’t-yet, will he ever?). Why had Evie chosen him for a partner? Could it be, maybe, that he wasn’t as much of a nobody as he thought? Did his bulging, shimmering, slightly tinted behind glasses blue eyes attract her? (“Nerd!!” and he knew it.) He didn’t care if it was just temporary…He might of...sensed true emotion and attraction from her in their exchange. No! All during lunch, munching on his tuna fish sandwich next to Eric, he wondered what he could’ve done to make the most beautiful girl in the class, no the school, no the world, no the universe, no, the ideal that is bigger than the universe, because he bet… (Man, he has got it bad.) It didn’t take many minutes before you found Eric’s light brown up near-floating in the air. He knew just what his pal was doing in his “other-world” state, this had happened before. He snapped his strangely loud snap in front of his friend’s hazy eyes that were in the foggy mist, he swore, before saying, “Earth to Carter! Come on, Cart. This has happened before…Why are you so—blech?” Carter picked up his water bottle nice and slowly with a smirk. Eric was right. This had happened before. Every time that Anthes gave out an assignment that was difficult, or more regularly, while Evie and Brad were in one of their silent bouts of exceedingly temporary arguments (What reason is better than that one for uses of dumb revenge?). He tried not to shrug his shoulders too hopefully, as he answered his friend, “This time, I think she is doing it because she actually likes me. We were talking about the assignment online, she goes by an alias, and…I can tell she really likes me, by how long it takes her to reply to me, and what she says—really says.” “Anthes teaches the least helpful class, but he is scary. Haven’t you helped her out before? Maybe she changed her alias…Do you think that might’ve been what happened? It would be really cool if you were working with her…but—What did she do, or say that made you think that she likes you?” Carter smiled as he picked his sandwich back up again, not moving his eyes from his friend’s suddenly timid face, just like almost every high school question on every high school test, even if it was advanced placement, he already knew the answer. (He knew a large fraction of them due to hours of study for stigmatisms, and I never said he knew every answer.) Eric had a crush on Evie too, but he asked him a question, so the most he could offer was an incredibly accurate response that matched his thoughts to the point of a needle. “She playfully repeated something I said, twice.” Eric was biting his lip. “Wow. That just seals the deal, doesn’t it…It would be really cool if it was her. Really cool.” He need to say it for this to be so, but Carter ate the rest of his sandwich with the queerest prideful grin on his face. (“What did he ever do to that poor tuna?” people who were animal-crazy, like Sandra Clarke or Jim Thornton wondered.) He didn’t care how funny or ridiculous he looked, that is, if people cared to notice. (“Stupid boy” was Sage’s thought at her first, and only glance.) A popular liked him. Liked him-Liked him. Like-liked him. (Oh bother! How the kids say it nowadays!) Finally! (“Who cares that my best friend just mocked me with the devil of sarcasm. Sarcasm is always an escape for boys my age, and if anyone needs the emergency trap door right now, it’s poor, little him!” Oh bother, Carter! Teenage boys, am I right?) Sage picked up her red lunch tray off the lunch counter at the order exit, breathing louder and heavier than usual on her extra-ordinary PB&J sandwich partnered by applesauce, a few chicken nuggets, everything incredibly light, but she had to do something to get noticed, though she knew it wouldn’t work, now that she knew the handsome, brown-eyed football player that would make up her Friday, whether she meant that solitarily with the sport or not. He of course didn’t notice her. She didn’t blame him. He was at the cool people lunch table, center of the cafeteria (as if he needed to do something to get noticed), talking with his friends: Josh, Tyler, Austin, Ethan, Corey, Cole, and Max. They looked at fun conversation, a playful argument around the messy table, but his arm remained around expectation, Evie West, who was annoyed by something. Sage hoped the repetitive eye-rolls of the day had to do something with her. (What is with her? Sage Oswald having dumb teenage girl hopes. I thought I knew her better. So did she.) A few baby steps forward with her eyes glued to the attractive boy, who everyone swore was only a mere day away from being a man—a handsome (wait, cute!), successful (in more ways than football) man. Her friend that was always places before she was, holding a brown paper lunch sack, was skipping next to her, guessing what she was thinking (she didn’t even have to turn her head), she did her initial distraction more, a giant sigh that she felt the red, white, and gray world had waited for everyday (she was more important than everyone thought, nothing could knock down her confidence even one ring lower on the monitor of dull, monotonous life.) Sage’s bright, slightly gleaming for the day blue eyes didn’t move a degree away from who they were aimed at for a few more seconds. Her wishes had only become larger in the morning. The day before, she would have been alright with being in Jessica, Brittany, Taylor, Hannah, Amber, Kelsey, Julia, Monica, Whitney, Cheyenne, Veronica, Patricia, Kylie, Haley, Audrey, Mikayla, or Mia’s shoes. Today, the wish skipped its way straight to Evie’s place, she had a feeling that she was so much better for Brad today. “Sage!” Her friend near-yelled at her fearlessly, giving her a light, not-so-light push from the side. Sage woke up quickly, shaking her head, giving it a small seizure to wake up from that wonderful dream. Preparing themselves for mocking laughter, her ears almost dropped when what they heard was much different. It was, “You should know, it’s never going to happen.” Sage had never looked more hopeful than when she was pushing her supposedly beautiful (yeah, right) straighter than a wooden board blonde hair behind her slightly pink ear. It was as if what Shelby Miller, her solitary friend for years, had a voice that matched the light breeze outside; it didn’t obtain enough credit to honestly be heard. Shelby rolled her eyes, not seeing any purpose as to repeating herself. Sage was lost in a dream that would never come true! Brad barely knew that she existed outside the classroom, if he even bothered to notice, and she was an athlete, just like him! And how different are football and soccer really? When they were in the quieter environment, right next to the school library (that Ms. Miggin insisted be quiet, and she hadn’t quite given up yet, though her subjects be stupid, rebellious, disobedient teenagers), Shelby decided to startle her friend awake from the dumb imagination (what high school girl isn’t constantly having a dream about who is pictured as the most athletic, because he was born with huge biceps, a masculine laugh, and the brightest beams of light could easily be spotted within his eyes?). “I don’t know how it could be him, honestly. It would be nice if it were, but I mean, use your head! He never would, you know that. He has no reason to hide who he really is.” Sage sighed, to fill the time and the air up with something. (Rats! Is lunch period over yet?) She tore her PB&J open next, making sure that she wouldn’t forget what her best friend had said to her, she felt to the purpose of nothing. Come on, Sagey. “You don’t get it, Shelb. He talked to me before this internet conversation, he wants to work together anyway. He needs the help, and maybe because I’m kind of smart…” “Who sent first? You know that Anthes has us find our partners in the strangest way. It still could be anyone.” Sage blew her breath out in one big piece (the size of two PB&J sandwiches), her friend could have a point, but not necessarily that big. “I think it was me who started it…I told him what my username was, and he told me his. Ummmm…” Shelby was smirking at her, not verbally responding. She knew her friend would never come out that quickly, especially after what happened to her dad. She wanted to tell her the truth. That life wasn’t a fairy tale and she wasn’t some picture of Sleeping Beauty, and Bradley Larson wasn’t some picturesque Prince Charming. Shelby was dreamy, had the same fantasies as every other girl that attended that high school, but she was also realistic. She thought the tool of a broken heart was useless and crying for sympathy, don’t get her started on its pointlessness. When she heard that gorgeous cheerleader chorus, “Oh, Brady-Boo,” for the hundredth time, she wanted to gag, despite the wish that she was the one saying it to him. “Get real, Sage.” She whispered, so almost nobody could hear her. Dead ringer crazy. That is what most of the students at Northern Windsor Regional would call Sage and Carter’s insane dreams, or a set of anyone with working eyes and ears. Wishing on stars that only are present in the night sky in their foggy heads. Like they cared. The hallway didn’t take a second glance at their seemingly dumb glide that did its work on making them appear as though they were floating (and at making Carter even later to his classes than usual). They both had continued the conversation with each other, transferring it from class usernames to cell phone numbers. They didn’t even talk solitary about school assignments anymore. Apparently, Bradley loved to read in any free time that he got, he loved a book that Sage had never before heard of called “Stardust Lightning” by some unknown author named Robert Jenkins. (And all this time, Sage would’ve guessed that he didn’t know how to read!) Evie even admitted that after a few years of high school, she wished she could change everyone’s perception of her. She used to like the attention that she received, but now, it was too much. (Carter would have never thought!) Although, mid the stench, plus sweat of the hallways, nobody honestly cared, but in Anthes’s computer lab, there were the few that observed, the two more (even if it was only a centimeter) that noticed the change in their nature, especially the real Bradley and Evie. They were both worried at what that meant (though not at all concerned about their date to the Harvest Dance). Evie decided to take matters into her own hands and stuck her foot out behind Carter’s chair, just as he was pulling it out, with the most posed, beautiful, phony smile she could manage that day. “Carter” she greeted. The person who she was speaking to jumped with shock, as they arose from la la land. Anthes wouldn’t mind them speaking a few minutes after passing period had ended. They were partners, weren’t they? Less time to work, more torture for his class. (He had a day so vile, on occasion.) When Carter was back in that room in full, he was only smiles for her, since she obviously liked him. He was suddenly in. He almost looked like a bunny, a monkey, or chipmunk. I’m not sure what comparison is best at the moment. He spoke next, way too quickly, and way too loud for the expectation of society. “Hey, Evie! I found another book by Jenkins. Do you want to know what it is?” Her eyes nearly tripled in size (Why did she have to put on so much make-up that morning?), as she double-checked who she was speaking to, to make certain it was supposedly shy Carter, the easiest kid to fool in all of Northern Windsor High School. What was with him that day? “Maybe later…How close are you to finishing our assignment?” With downcast eyes, he answered, as if he were the one with the stated question, primarily himself, “We finished it weeks ago…I thought you knew that. You told me how glad you were that we were all ahead of the game.” Evie cast her eyes in thought also, not having any memory of what Carter was referring to. He could tell that about her also. Worry suddenly filled up the load of their minds, much like heated air can lift a balloon into the sky. They both wondered, “If it wasn’t me working with them on the assignment, then who was it?” as Anthes got in front of the class in posed comradery and a few of the cute girls had their last blush because of handsome fellas had just asked them to the Harvest Dance at the end of the week. Evie even kissed Brad on her way back to her computer, as if that would taunt the teacher, or anybody else. He should have known. The world tends to be unexpected all the time, but not that startling. How strange? When Evie kissed Bradley, Sage’s eyes nearly popped like big, round bowling balls out of her head. She tried to comfort her fast paced mind, instantly, involuntarily. Maybe he hadn’t told Evie about them, yet—but why would he choose to be something besides honest? It could still possibly be that he hadn’t asked Evie, or someone out to the Harvest Dance yet, but expectation and society forced all that were as popular as him to ask someone…like a girlfriend out immediately, and everyone knew Evie’s needless strategy to get him. Act a subtle form of annoyed until he asked you to the dance. Could it be that small embrace that Eva West had shared with him was not well-intended? No. That was obvious. It was always too clear. More visible to see through than a shiny, sparkly, clean, brand-new window. High School. High School. High School. Stupid High School. Looks like she is starting to SeeCeeSea the CrazySafeway. Who would ever name themselves that online? Perhaps someone that wanted to hide from the world too, like her. Huh…like…Wait a moment, she is being tapped on the shoulder by someone who can’t wait (as if he has always been on time to this pointless, harmless, uncalled for class), before she turns in full, he starts his stutter, “S-Sage, would you-you like to…” Her answer with a smile came ahead of time, guessing what the rest of his question was. A quick, happy nod. Finally! (As if…)