Social Norms
“Malcolm?”
My head snaps up in the direction of my addresser. It’s Jenna. I inwardly groan before I reply.
“Yes?”
“You’ve barely touched your lunch.”
“A fact of which I am well aware,” I snip.
Jenna rolls her heavily lined eyes, shaking her violet and red dyed head at me.
“You know, if you keep pulling all the grass up we won’t have any left to sit on.”
My hand freezes around the clump of grass in my hands. I survey the pile of strewn blades in front of me. Weird. I didn’t even realize I was doing that.
“Sorry,” I mumble as I release my hold.
Jenna sighs before she turns to talk to the other friends in our group. Clearly, my depressing antics are too much for even her to deal with. She’s been trying to figure out the cause of my dismay for weeks now, and I would love to talk about it with someone… but I know I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell any of them the truth.
Still having no appetite, I examine my hands and begin scraping the green grindings of the grass out from under my black painted nails. Once satisfied that no stray blades remain, I wipe my hands on my black jeans, eliminating any leftover trace of my nervous, earth-damaging, habit.
I pull out my mirror to examine my eyeliner when she walks by. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel the compact slip form my hold as it tumbles onto the grass. But I don’t care. She is all I can see.
She flips her long blond hair and laughs at one of her friend’s jokes. The wind rustles her hair about her face, carrying a faint scent of lilacs over to where I sit, transfixed. I watch her grimace at the pesky wind. I would smile at the cuteness of her annoyance, but I can feel Jenna’s eyes following my gaze. I rush to say something purely to distract Jenna.
“Man does it suck that we can’t smoke on campus.”
My comment seems to do the trick.
“Hm? Oh, yeah. Major suckage there.”
I open my mouth to continue when the wind kicks it up another notch. My attention is instantly jerked back as I hear a cry from the pair of lips I so long to kiss.
“My binder!”
My body reacts faster than my conscious can process. I suddenly find myself chasing after several stray papers that the wind has stolen.
“Here you go,” I nervously mutter as I hand the pile of papers back to her, trying to ignore the fact that her lilac fragrance has all but paralyzed my ability to think clearly.
“Oh my God, my homework! I would have been screwed if that had gotten away. Thank you so much.”
Her gracious blue eyes say more thanks than her words can express.
“No problem.”
I can feel the magnetic pull she has keeping my feet glued to the ground, but the burning sensation of the eyes of my friends has a stronger pull on me. I lamely wave my goodbye as I trudge back to my spot on the grass. As expected, I am interrogated before I can even sit.
“Did I just hallucinate or were you helping Kelly Mason?”
“Oh, grow a heart, Jenna,” I snap as I plop down.
I reach my hand out and retrieve the mirror that lies on my bed of discarded grass. The tension in my shoulders relaxes slightly as my friends retrieve their suspicious glares. As I reach around to replace my grass-smudged mirror into my backpack, I sneak one last glance at the girl I will never have.
Her crystal gaze meets mine. For a moment we both know things could be different. If she wasn’t part of her crowd and I wasn’t part of mine; if social norms did not dictate perception.
But in that moment, we both share an understanding. We know things will never change, that society will never change, that people will never change – that we will never change. And for an instant we share a brief smile before turning back to the safe routine of our daily lives.
[This short story was composed for one of my classes last week]
