Boring Girls(12)

The Guy looked at me. His eyes were so blue. My stomach went through the floor. He was cute. He was handsome. He looked like Balthazar Seizure. Sure, a high school version . . . but he did. His hair was shiny. He wore all black. And he was looking at me.

“Yes?” he asked. His voice was deep! I almost gasped.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, hoping I sounded confident and relaxed. “I like your shirt.”

He stared at me. “Bloodvomit? What do you know about them?”

“I like them,” I said. “I’m also really into Gurgol and DED. Do you know them?” I was impressed with myself, listing off other bands so casually, proving my knowledge, fitting in.

“Yeah, I know them,” he said irritably. “How the f*ck do you know them?”

I could not think of a single cool-sounding answer to that question, and I was starting to lose my confidence. I don’t know exactly what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. And in no way, shape, or form was it cool that I had found out about the bands from a bumper sticker. I’d keep that little tidbit to myself.

“Oh, you know, through the grapevine,” I said stupidly, and froze. I could not have sounded more idiotic.

“Through the grapevine?” he repeated with disgust. “What grapevine? What the f*ck are you talking about? Who the f*ck do you know in the scene?”

Absolutely no one.

“I didn’t know there was a scene,” I said falteringly, feeling a collapse within myself. Feeling my strength just drain, standing there like a moron.

He stared at me for another moment, and then turned back to his locker. “Get the f*ck out of here.”

So I was left with the horror of having to silently acknowledge my uselessness to his hemisphere, turn, and walk back up the hall away from him, back to class. I was reminded of my moment with Brandi, of fearing she was watching me run home across the schoolyard. Even though I knew he wouldn’t bother watching me walk away, I felt so dowdy in my stupid plaid skirt and tights, still wearing my pathetic winter boots, which I wore every stupid day, because they vaguely resembled the “cool” style I didn’t own. Blood pounded in my head. Even my own kind weren’t going to accept me.

The grapevine.

What a f*cking idiot.





SIX


When I got home, I could barely look at my DED poster. Balthazar looked too much like the Guy, with his long hair and his high cheekbones, that slim, strong body, the tight black pants. I was confused. Part of my fantasy, part of my empowerment, was that Balthazar and his band and the others who were a part of that music world would accept me, and I would belong, standing like Marie-Lise next to someone like the Guy, allied, ready to beat the shit out of the *s and prove our superiority, together. If the Guy thought I was an idiot, would Balthazar too?

But, in the end, metal was still mine. Just because the Guy liked it too and he was an * didn’t mean that I was going to allow him to ruin it for me. Fuck him. He could look at me like I was an idiot. It didn’t matter.

However, I couldn’t face DED right then, so Gurgol it was. I blasted my favourite song of theirs.

Your face is like a mask and I want to break it.

Your life is in my hands and I’m going to take it.

What did you say to me?

You turn your back on me?

I put my knife in you.

Your life is such a joke that it makes me laugh.

You just can’t seem to see that you’re made of crap.

Soon you’ll understand.

When your blood is on my hands.

I bet Marie-Lise encountered guys, even in the metal scene, who’d try to make her into a joke. She was better than letting some * ruin how she felt. If anything, I bet it made her stronger. It gave her more hate, which would make her more creative. Sure, it was a guy singing, but her bass was there. She felt this song. She felt every word that the singer was feeling.

If anything, the Guy was just an * in disguise. He’d missed the true meaning of metal music, which was so obvious to me: hating *s and empowering yourself against them. I started to feel elated. He didn’t get it. I had won. I understood it and, despite his obvious disinterest in how little I knew, I was more metal than him. Maybe he knew something about a scene, but what I knew was more important. I decided to try to write something. Inspired by the Guy.

Did you pay, what, a dime for that disguise?

You suck and fail, that’s no surprise.