Boring Girls(11)

On one of those Saturday afternoon shopping trips, I’d picked up a Gurgol CD, Tear Off the Scab. It became one of my fixtures that fall, as well as DED’s ever-present Punish and Kill. The thing I liked about Gurgol was that there was a girl in the band. She played bass. Her name was Marie-Lise, which sounded very exotic, and her hair was done in bleached white dreadlocks. In the band photo with three tall dark-haired guys, she stood out but didn’t look out of place at all. The guys glowered and frowned, and she glowed, while still looking pissed and tough. In all my research of metal bands so far, I hadn’t seen a woman in one. When Josephine and I shopped, I have to admit I kept an eye out for stuff that Marie-Lise would wear. She always looked so awesome in their pictures, wearing ruffled black dresses and coloured tights and leather skirts. And I loved how she fit in with those guys. I wanted to be tough like her, surrounded by furious guys; everyone would look at us and be terrified.

Of course, Marie-Lise wore a hell of a lot more makeup than I could get away with. She wore dark lipstick, powdered her face completely white, ringed her eyes with tons of liner. She looked absolutely sinister and, to me, beautiful. Even Melissa, who was scared of everything to do with the music I liked, admired the pictures of Marie-Lise. We both agreed she looked like a beautiful vampire doll or something. Well, Melissa said that. I said that was childish, but secretly agreed.

xXx

Instead of just writing poetry and short stories, I started to write stuff that would be more in sync with the music I was into. I don’t want to say they were lyrics, but I guess they sort of were. They were terrible, these early attempts. But I felt a strong creative pull in that direction.

I was very happy that fall, but I didn’t have to be furious and full of rage to enjoy the music or its messages. That whole time, after all, despite Josephine, despite shopping and enjoying school, all of that was still inside me. Just because Brandi hadn’t bothered with me in a while didn’t mean that I was over wanting to splinter her nose with my fist. It didn’t mean that I hated the *s in my classes any less. It just meant that I wasn’t alone anymore.

Now that I had Josephine, I ate lunch in the cafeteria rather than sitting on the floor by my locker, so when we would take our lunches to a table, I would always nonchalantly keep an eye out for the guy I’d seen in the hallway with the band shirt. He always ate in the cafeteria too, with a couple of his friends, and as me and Josephine chatted and ate, I would steal very discreet glances at him.

At least I thought they were discreet. One day Josephine totally busted me on it.

“Okay, so who is that guy?” she asked me.

“What guy?”

“The one you’re always looking at. The long-haired guy with the Vomiting Blood shirt.”

“It’s actually Bloodvomit.”

“Whatever. You realize he wears that shirt, like, three times a week, right? I bet he doesn’t wash it.” She glanced over her shoulder to where he sat a few tables over. “You like him?”

I blushed and looked down at my tapioca. “Yeah, he’s cute.”

“He’s got nice hair. You guys would make a good couple. What’s his name?”

“I have no idea.”

So Josephine made it her personal project to get very involved in my nonexistent relationship with the Guy. She’d set up little experiments, like telling me to walk past his table while he ate lunch and she’d watch to see if he looked at me. Which, apparently, he totally did.

“You have to talk to him,” she said. “He likes you. He checked you out.”

“But what would I say to him? He’s in eleventh grade. He doesn’t want to bother with me.”

“So what? You’re only a year younger. That’s fine. And you like the same bands, obviously. You should talk to him. Ask him about his vomit shirt. That’s a good icebreaker.”

xXx

I nervously considered all of this for a few weeks, feeling sweaty excitement every time I saw him. One morning when I was getting ready for school, I looked out the window and saw that overnight there had been a light snowfall, dusting all the trees and shrubs in my backyard with white. It looked beautiful. I felt refreshed. And I decided that this would be the day I would approach the Guy.

I got my chance sooner than I expected. I had to go to the bathroom during my first class, history, and when I walked out into the quiet hallway, there he was, at the other end of it, at his locker. The bathroom was right near his locker row, and I walked towards it and him, relishing the tension of the two of us, alone, in the hallway. As I neared him, I started feeling sick, my palms began to sweat, and I gave up on the idea. I went into the bathroom. Then for a few minutes I proceeded to kick myself for not having said anything and blowing my only chance. I’d never be alone anywhere with him again. I had no f*cking gumption. I cursed myself as I washed my hands, glaring at my stupid reflection in the mirror. When I left the bathroom, he was still there. It was now or never. If I so much as stopped walking, he’d know I wanted to talk to him, and then I would be forced to. It was as easy as just stopping. And I did.