Then again, maybe I was imagining something that wasn’t there; I really liked Radiohead. In fact, my AIM profile currently contained a list of songs I was listening to on repeat last week—
Differences, by Ginuwine
7 Days, by Craig David
Hate Me Now, by Nas
No Surprises, by Radiohead
Whenever, Wherever, by Shakira
Pardon Me, by Incubus
Doo Wop, by Lauryn Hill
—and only then did I realize that Ocean might check my profile, too.
I froze.
For some reason, I quickly deleted the contents. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t explain why I didn’t want him to know what kind of music I listened to. It was just that the whole thing felt suddenly too invasive. Too personal.
riversandoceans04: Where were you today?
jujehpolo: Sorry
jujehpolo: I had a really busy afternoon
jujehpolo: I just saw your messages
riversandoceans04: Were you really breakdancing after school?
jujehpolo: Yeah
riversandoceans04: Wow. That’s cool.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t really know how to respond. I’d just looked away to grab my backpack when I heard, once again, the soft double ding that indicated I’d received a new message, and I turned down the volume on my computer. I checked to make sure my door was closed. I felt suddenly self-conscious. I was talking to a boy in my bedroom. I was talking to a boy in my bedroom. AIM made things feel unexpectedly intimate.
riversandoceans04: Hey I’m sorry for thinking you weren’t allowed to do things after school.
double ding
riversandoceans04: I shouldn’t have said that
And I sighed.
Ocean was trying to be friendly. He was trying to be a friend, even. Maybe. But Ocean was all the traditionally pleasant things a girl might like about a guy, which made his friendliness dangerous to me. I might’ve been an angry teenager, but I wasn’t also blind. I wasn’t magically immune to cute guys, and it had not escaped my notice that Ocean was a superlative kind of good-looking. He dressed nicely. He smelled pleasant. He was very polite. But he and I seemed to come from worlds so diametrically opposed that I knew better than to allow his friendship in my life. I didn’t want to get to know him. I didn’t want to be attracted to him. I didn’t want to think about him, period. Not just him, in fact, but anyone like him. I was so good at denying myself this, the simple pleasure of even a secret crush, that the thoughts were never allowed to marinate in my mind.
I’d been here so many times before.
Though for most guys I was little more than an object of ridicule, occasionally I became an object of fascination. For whatever reason, some guys developed an intense, focused interest in me and my life that I used to misunderstand as romantic interest. Instead, I discovered—after a great deal of embarrassment—that it was more like they thought of me as a curiosity; an exotic specimen behind glass. They wanted only to observe me from a comfortable distance, not for me to exist in their lives in any permanent way. I’d experienced this enough times to have learned by now that I was never a real candidate for friendship—and certainly nothing more than that. I knew that Ocean, for example, would never befriend me beyond this school assignment. I knew he wouldn’t invite me into his inner circle where I’d fit in as well as a carrot might, when pushed through a juicer.
Ocean was trying to be nice, sure, but I knew that his sudden sympathetic heart was born only of awkward guilt, and that this was a road that would lead to nowhere. I found it exhausting.
jujehpolo: It’s okay
riversandoceans04: It’s not okay. I’ve felt terrible about it all afternoon.
riversandoceans04: I’m really sorry
jujehpolo: Okay
riversandoceans04: I’ve just never actually talked to a girl who wears the headpiece thing before.
jujehpolo: Headpiece thing, wow
riversandoceans04: See? I don’t know anything
jujehpolo: You can just call it a scarf
riversandoceans04: Oh
riversandoceans04: That’s easy
jujehpolo: Yeah
riversandoceans04: I thought it was called something else.
jujehpolo: Listen, it’s really not a big deal. Can we just do the homework?
riversandoceans04: Oh
riversandoceans04: Yeah
riversandoceans04: Okay
And I’d turned away for five seconds to grab the worksheets out of my backpack when there it was again—the soft double ding. Twice.
I looked up.
riversandoceans04: Sorry
riversandoceans04: I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.
Jesus Christ.
jujehpolo: I’m not uncomfortable.
jujehpolo: I think maybe you’re uncomfortable, though.
riversandoceans04: What? No
riversandoceans04: I’m not uncomfortable
riversandoceans04: What do you mean?
jujehpolo: I mean, is this going to be a problem? My headpiece thing?
jujehpolo: Is my whole situation just too weird for you?
Ocean didn’t respond for at least twenty seconds, which, in the moment, felt like