Ah, high school. How can I describe it? Truthfully, I have mixed feelings every time I look back to those days. I can't say it was great for me, but I can't say it was awful either. Perhaps the quote from The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens would perfectly describe my high school days:

"It was the best times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity."

And it was the period of naivety and reckless adolescence. That's what youth is all about, I believe—jumping in headfirst without thinking through, seeing your future indefinite but limitless, taking the chances to make mistakes as many as you can to get them out of the way, and believing yourself as unconquerable.

I didn't look forward to high school the way my other classmates did. Another four years of sob-inducing lessons, stupid dramas, and limited freedom. Thinking it would be as bland as the small town I lived in, I decided to stick to the routine that I'd done in middle school: come in late, copy answers for homework, skip classes that I felt a waste of time to sleep, "paper due tomorrow? Let's do it tomorrow".

I went through the rebellious stage, you could say. My parents hardly recognized my hard work because they wanted me to be as smart and academically successful as my older sisters, so I had kind of given up on trying to please them. However, they really couldn't be mad at my negligence because I still passed my classes with okay grades. Charm, a confident voice, and a clever tongue could get you through many things.

During the morning of the first day of school, nothing significant took place as expected. I sat through four classes in a daze. I planned to ditch my afternoon classes because I knew they would just as be uneventful.

At lunch, however, something unexpected happened.

A brawl commenced between two senior guys, and the entire setting became like a wildlife show. People gathered around and cheered instead of taking action to stop it. You can't deny—all of us have this little dark desire to see chaos for enjoyment. At that moment, nothing was more engaging than seeing two best friends exchanged blows because one's girlfriend slept with the other.

Most of the freshmen scattered away like startled bunnies as the food was thrown and tables were shoved. Somebody threw a paper plate of spaghetti across the cafeteria and it nailed this one girl right in her shoulder. I didn't really pay attention to her at first until I saw a flash of red curls zigzagging through the frenzied crowd toward the exit of the cafeteria.

I didn't know what pushed me to react in such a manner, but I found myself grabbing a clean tissue from a table and taking off after Autumn.

She was trying, without much luck, to get the spaghetti stain out of her sweater. I helped her wipe it out using the tissue, and she almost jumped away at the moment of our contact. When her baffled eyes met mine, I forgot how to talk. I felt like I was thrown back to the first time I saw her eyes. They reminded me of a lush forest.

"Whoever threw that was an asshole," I managed to say as I broke the eye contact.

"Finn...?"

"Yeah, it's me, Finn. Hi." She mustn't have recognized me immediately because I had become tan, having played soccer in the baking sun during the sports camp. And we never really saw each other much in middle school. She was notoriously living in her head all the time that she probably didn't even bother to glance at me.

When the stain had sufficiently faded, I stepped back and said, "Well, luckily you're wearing red. Nobody will notice the spot."

"You didn't have to..."

"S'okay! Just wanna help." I was trying to act casual but failed miserably.

"Thanks," she murmured; her lips barely moved.

We didn't have much more to say after that. There were few beats of silence between us before someone shouted from behind.

"Finn! Let's get the fuck outta here before—OH SHIT."

Autumn made a tight-lipped smile and scurried away at the same time Lance made loud, sensual music with his mouth. I almost punched him in the eye.

"Dude, you got it bad. So bad." He guffawed heartily. "You're still whipped by her? After all these years? Damn son."

I glared at him. "No. I was just helping her, okay?"

Clucking his tongue, Lance slapped my back with so much force that it stung a bit. "Just admit it to yourself, man. You're still whipped."

Several teachers dashed past us into the cafeteria, and I bit the inside of my mouth to hold back a curse. I wasn't whipped. I was never whipped. I was only being kind to her. She looked so helpless back there. But arguing with Lance about it would be a waste of energy so I dismissed it and went to my locker.

"You're in the same class as her," Lance mentioned casually.

"What?"

"You heard me. She's in Mr. Bowen's class. Algebra, isn't it?"

I shot him a deadpan look. "You're shitting me, Lance."

"Am not shitting you, man. She's in your class."

"How can you be so sure? Did you talk to her?" I was skeptical because I never saw them talk or interact too much.

"Nope. But she sits next to me in health. Saw her timetable. Trust me, man. I wouldn't shit on you."

"Yeah. Whatever."

He gave me a self-assured nod. "Just count your lucky stars, Finn. There's really not many of them anyway."

"Piss off."

Everyone who knew Lance knew that he was a major goofball. He seldom took anything serious that sometimes people would say he was an ass. In addition, his regular side-cocked, goofy grin that he showed every time he claimed something made him even more unreliable.

Nevertheless, I walked into algebra, ditching my original plan of ditching the class.

I sluggishly made my way to the back where Oscar was chatting with some of our classmates. In every class in any school, there's always that bunch of kids who dominate the back part of the room, and they're usually the ones who don't put effort into the class, the ones who are making unnecessary noises, and the ones who don't care about anything at all. Lance, Oscar, and I were those kids. Gladly one of us was missing or we would've made Mr. Bowen's life a living hell.

A couple of minutes before the class started, a group of girls sauntered in and some of them gave us playful glances. Their attractiveness grabbed my attention until a girl with a mass of red hair walked in next.

Huh. So Lance was not bluffing at all.

She carried herself inconspicuously as if she didn't want to be noticed. She didn't even look up from the floor to observe her surrounding as she plopped into the seat in front and grabbed a book.

"Don't get too excited, man," Oscar murmured as he slid into his seat beside me, grinning mischievously from ear to ear.

He was the second person of the day I told to piss off.

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One thing I couldn't help noticing was that while everyone I knew had undergone physical and mental metamorphosis—for better or for worse—during summer, Autumn remained as she had always been. Quiet. Distant. Pensive face. All bundled up in clothes, scarcely showing any skin like every day was winter. She gained a couple of inches height-wise, but that was just it.

I was observing too much, and it was evident that she hadn't had the slightest idea about it. I would try to look away when the feeling that I was being a creep struck me, but when the feeling would subside, my eyes turned to her.

That was how it started for me. That was how I began to feel motivated to go to school every day. "No phone calls from your teachers for three weeks? What a miracle," Mom said with an amused smile. The more I pondered it, the more I realized how unlike me that attitude was.

And I was like, "Crap."

I began to despise it.

There was something hypnotic about Autumn. Maybe it was her unsmiling façade, or her silent mannerisms, or her attentiveness in class, or her willingness to help others—her mysteriousness always left me wondering what she had.

I felt like I was eight again, suffering the same qualms and feelings. Back then, I was too young to identify what they were. Now that I was a teenager that was aware of what hormones were doing, I refused to acknowledge those feelings.

I didn't want to think that I had a crush on her. In fact, I didn't want to have any feelings for her. Sure, she was beautiful in a quiet sort of way. She once pulled her hair up in an ugly mess of a ponytail, which exposed her freckled neck for the first time, and, as much as I wanted to deny, she was attractive. But I'd seen more attractive girls, hung out with more attractive girls. Why did I have to act this way? Hell, I barely even knew her! I could jot down many reasons why I shouldn't like her! (First on the list, her 1960's bangs. They practically covered her eyes I felt like I was the one who couldn't see through them. Next, she had bad posture and had to straighten her back.)

I shun myself, as much as possible, from the perils of this inexplicable feeling. It felt weird. It made me feel weak. Shaky. Jittery. Unfocused. It was crazy that she had the ability to disturb my equilibrium by just being near.

She was infuriating and beguiling.

And I tried not to adore her.