We were wallflowers in high school. It was that fact that gave us reason to keep our mouths shut, or else when they saw a sense of purpose you'll be imprisoned to that single role, brought out like a tool then disregarded when the job is done. That taught me to keep silent in a corner. I looked decent. I could blend in like an uptight carcass in a hoard of self-maintaining zombies. I could talk pop culture and I could afford latest PlayStation game releases, I act confidently, and I blend in the norms. She, however, had to abide through the day in half my daily allowance, made a fool of herself for being too childish and oblivious to anything.
One thing she could distinctively do however, is to execute ideas whenever she had an empty billboard to herself, produce visuals on minimal supervision and little help while the rest of the group could take walks and snack breaks to the cafeteria a five-minute walk across the school grounds. You could walk leisurely and talk along the way, extend the stroll to a lengthy 15 minutes, immerse yourself in a 30-minute television show while sitting with a juice box and a bag of chips, and she'll keep working, cutting letters on felt paper and posting decent visuals like a droid. Three years, and that's the only way anyone could remember her. A droid to switch on at programs and projects, whenever visuals are necessary. After that, we leave her alone, discard her until further use, and that would be sufficient to someone bullied to the devastation of her self-esteem.
I remembered calling her ugly. It was that relentless twinge of not standing the sight of her. Before I knew it, she lost it and had gathered the courage to hurl a blackboard eraser as soon as my back was turned. I stepped forward and shoved her hard she stumbled. I thought it could serve as a warning, make her turn away and sit in a corner like she always did. Instead she had to retaliate and try to land a punch at my face. I was able to block it and hit her, then kept on going while she flung her arms and rampaged like a blind chimp despite being struck down several times. Then the whole classroom took over, coiling their arms over us to pull us apart while others had to find a teacher, someone with authority to hold verdict while we stood both catching our breath and sweltering, a good distance apart while restrained by several classmates.
Sitting across her was sheer torture. She had bruises on her left cheek and the corner of her mouth. I had to land it on her to remind her. She was beneath me. She didn't even look that much. She couldn't even fix her own hair, frizzy and unkempt and dangling on her shoulders. Even looking at her could make me flinch. She thought she could intimidate with that much of a glare. I could take her on, she should know.
Our homeroom teacher and guidance counselor settled to a verdict to suspend us in a certain punishment. The main billboard was bare and dull. We still take our classes, then stay and work on our creativity while we watch the other students be dismissed, walk past the halls and towards freedom.
If they could hear me scream internally, it would be that graceless shriek that shattered every glass panel inside the office.
She didn't oppose, however, she complied quietly by composing herself on a bench with art materials on hand, working on her own.
I sat down on a good full hour before swinging my backpack to walk away.
"Can't you help?" she said.
"What, the hell, Marcy," I exclaimed, "You got all that shit figured out."
She thought for a while, placed her scissors down and stretched her back. "Can't you just stay for an hour longer? You know it'll be dark soon. I don't want to take the bus alone."
I laughed. You could say I'm a shitty oppressor, almost beating her down then suddenly stopping to my feet to walk back towards her. Scraggly and unattractive, she is a girl, someone my age, a deviant of my equivalent despite my restraint to keep my social role at bay. Three days, I thought, once this thing's done until Friday I could just walk off this like it never occurred.
---
I regretted Friday.
It was that time when the rest in our class would stay a while longer around the school premises, scattered around internet cafes when internet cafes were a budding fad. An hour longer and I could still catch up, hang out with them, then highly savor that moment to wash out those rancorous hours beside the billboard.
Marcy knew I was about to leave. I had to formulate an excuse to slip off.
"God, Cal, you're ditching me. I could tell." She sighed.
"Fuck it," I said, walking away, "you're almost done. You're just arranging printouts, you could finish in half an hour."
Then it was that. A good long moment where her eyes followed me with that baffled expression on her face, then she had to swallow it and go back to work.
Then I never saw her again.
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