Chapter Two

In Between Confused and Perplexed

In my short sixteen years of existence, I’ve only ever been to Texas and Louisiana. I’ve never been out of the country and the only reason why I got out of Texas is because one of my great aunts lives with her Cajun husband in Louisiana and we go to visit them from time to time.

Freshman year, there was a school trip organized to visit Washington DC. Everyone went except me because my parents couldn’t bear the thought of me spending a night away from them. They said it was because I would miss them, but I know it’s just a way to try to justify their overprotective tendencies. If it was up to my parents I’d probably be held up in a tower with a dragon guarding me. 

Never really leaving Texas isn’t that bad though. There’s a lot of ground to cover. I think Texas can fit 20 of the smallest European countries and still have space to spare, and contrarily to popular belief Texas isn’t a giant desert. Where I live, in Beaumont, it’s actually closer to a swamp than a desert.

The point of this little geographical rant is to show that I’m a creature of habit. I rarely go out of my comfort zone, whether it be geographically or socially, and I’m relatively content in my routine. Sure, the second I finish high school and I can go to college, I’m going to be running away with my bags strapped around my head, but for now I’m content with my predicament.

I’m slightly contradictory like this. I do want to see the world, I do want to go away for college but I also kind of like never changing anything and keeping up with my routine.

My routine is the anchor in my life. It never fails to reassure me that everything will be alright because in five minutes it’s my pee break.

But in the last couple of days, my routine has failed me because of my stupid foot. For instance, right now, instead of sitting in my Algebra II class, revising my homework, I’m pathetically limping all the way back to my locker because I’ve forgotten the said homework in it this morning because I was too busy scowling at Kurtis. 

If it wasn’t for my foot, my hands wouldn’t be shaking as I make my locker combination and I wouldn’t be sweating through my sweater because of how anxious I am about being late. I don’t want to be late. And I want my stupid foot to work properly already.

It’s kind of like when, as Hank says, you have a tiny chicken that laid tiny eggs in your head, and those tiny eggs are growing and hatching, and the baby tiny chickens are feeding on your brain. Or, you know, you have a common cold. You hope to go back to how things were before, when tiny chickens weren’t feeding on your brain and pooping through your nose. And you wonder why you ever took for granted when there weren’t tiny chickens in your head.

That’s how I feel right now. I wonder how I ever took for granted not having a bruised and useless foot. My whole schedule lies on how effectively my feet carry me from one place to another.

I think this is the time where I should start seeing a professional about my many pilling issues. Or maybe put cyanide in Ned’s breakfast. The last one would feel a little bit more relieving.

“What’s with the limp?”

I almost bump my head against my locker at the sound of the voice. People don’t talk to me. Why is someone talking to me? What’s going on? I’M NOT PREPARED FOR THIS. I peek around the locker and almost have a heart attack when I realized it’s Austin von Thalberg. And I’m thoroughly confused. “I, huh, I… Excuse me?”

“How’d you get the limp?” He nods toward my right foot with his chin, a lazy smile on his lips. “Not while running certainly.”

I narrow my eyes slightly. “What do you mean? How’d you know I didn’t get…” I shake my head, realizing something. “Scratch that, how do you even know I run?”

“I need an incentive to get up in the morning and you running in yoga pants pretty much does it,” he says, and just like that, my face turns tomato red, like there’s lava filling up my cheeks and I swear I can feel my heartbeat in them and I wonder if I’ve put deodorant this morning because I’M SWEATING BUCKETS HERE. People are going to jump out of the lockers with cameras because this seriously can’t be real. “So? How’d you get the limp, Squishy?”

I ball my fists. He might be Austin and he might be cute, but this is not fun. And this is amusing him. I can see it! He’s smiling at me! “My name’s not Squishy.”

“I know, your name’s Dallas Franklin, you’re the girl that runs in front of my house and six twenty nine every day wearing yoga pants.”

I ignored the last comment because I seriously can’t get redder than I am right now. “Squishy?”

“Yes! I shall call her Squishy and she shall be mine and she shall be my Squishy. Come on, Squishy. Come on, little Squishy,” he croons. Finding Nemo? Unbelievable.

“Please don’t call me Squishy.” I already feel like a midget, I don’t need him to rub it in. He probably doesn’t understand the hardship of being small since he’s easily six feet tall. I have to crane my neck to look at him.

My demand seems to confuse him. “What? I’ve called you Squishy before and you’ve never complained.”

I’m the one confused now. “Excuse me? You haven’t.” I’d remember one of the cool kids calling me the same name Doris called a tiny jellyfish.

“Of course, a couple of times in debate club. We’re in debate club together you know.”

Ah, debate club. My parents, in fear of having a completely anti-social kid, decided to have me join the debate club. At first, the thought of speaking in public, and arguing with someone face to face, using my voice almost made me pee my pants. But I’ve gotten used to it. I kind of like it actually, which is crazy considering how awful I’m at small talk. But I’m good at debating with people on the internet, so I try to imagine that I’m in fact sitting in front of my computer and not in a room full of people when I start talking.

I’ve yet to faint in public so that’s something I should put in my résumé.

“It’s not the first time we’ve talked,” Austin adds, “It’s the first time you’ve looked at me in the eyes though.” The second he says that, I look down at the ground again. “Hey, why are you stopping?”

I’m stopping because I hadn’t realized I had been looking in his eyes and that sort of caught me off guard. With our height difference you’d think I wouldn’t go out of my way to look in his eyes.

I’m blaming my deficient foot.

“I’m sorry, I’m going to be late to class,” I tell him before closing my locker, and heading to my Algebra class.

“Hey wait!” Austin says and easily catches up with me. “I actually came here to tell you something, not just nag you.”

“What do you want?” I mumble, my hands getting slippery from how sweaty I am becoming. I am not used to talking with someone random for so long. My body isn’t build for it.

“I wanted to thank you for replacing me at the last debate meeting.” I shrug like it’s not big deal because it really isn’t. I didn’t even remember I had replaced him to be honest.

“And I just wanted to know I didn’t skip it for something trivial. I take my debate team spot very seriously,” he says, almost solemnly. “It was actually my grandfather’s funeral that weekend.”

I stop walking, my eyes opening wide. “Oh, my condolences,” I tell him softly, a little lost for words.

Seeeeee! This was why I hate small talk. What am I supposed to say now? I don’t know what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. I doubt my experience of grieving over book characters really counts as experiencing the death of a loved one. Even if I almost went into depression at the end of The Book Thief, and of The Fault in Our Stars and of One Day and of The Deathly Hollows and of My Sister’s Keeper, and well, you get the drill.

“Don’t worry, we sort of expected it,” he explains to me with a sad smile. “The man smoked two packs of cigarette a day.”

Telling him how much of a waste of money cigarettes are, is probably a bad idea…

Austin sighs, rubbing the back of his head with his two hands, and his smile turns happy again. “So, you’re a nerdfighter?”

The change of subject cuts me off guard. I had been planning on starting to say things like “he’s in a better place” or “you’ll see him again” or “God wanted another angel with him” or “he’ll get 72 virgins” but I really hadn’t expected the word nerdfighter to come out of Austin von Thalberg’s mouth. “What?”

“Your shirt.” He points to my sweater, which I had custom made on the internet, and I look down at it, reading up-side down Hank Green’s word “I live in the present, due to the constraints of the space-time continuum.”

“How… how do you know about nerdfighters?” I ask, slowing down my pace. I had been speeding up to try to get out of the conversation but I’m suddenly very curious.

And after all, according to Hank Green, curiosity is the best human quality.

Austin unzips his hoodie and reveals a t-shirt with “We are all differently broken, semi-functional, rusted out love machines” written on it.

A Hank Green quote too. Who would have guessed?

“You cover it up because you’re ashamed of being a nerdfighter?” I ask though inside I’m kind of freaking out. I’m slowly losing my ability to even.

Austin von Thalberg is a nerdfighter? I should have guessed it. The Fantastic Four were too cool to not have at least one of their own be part of the best internet community.

“No, I’m just self conscious about my forearms. I like them covered. They’re kind of flabby, don’t you think?” As he says this, he lifts his sleeves to show me the flabby forearms.

They’re not, of course. His forearms, and well Austin as a whole is anything but flabby. He’s got nice shoulders. I haven’t been looking in his eyes since he mentioned it, so I’ve been looking at his shoulders and they’re a little bit perfect. Just wide enough, and obviously muscular under his t-shirt.

My cheeks heat up yet again at my thoughts.

STOP STARING AT HIS SHOULDERS.

Luckily for me, I realize we’ve finally reached my class. And that I’m not late yet.

“Well, this is my class,” I tell Austin, staring at my shoes.

“Alright. Well, thanks again.”

I smile, looking at his shirt. “You’re welcome.” And I turn and go to walk inside the class.

“Hey, you never told me how you got the limp!” Austin calls out behind me. I turn around, about to answer him, but just then, the bell rings. Unlike me, who would be freaking out for the tardy, Austin chuckles. “Save by the bell!” he says, and I can’t help smiling a little. 

And looking in his vivid blue eyes.