Anyone But You

This time I’m going to do a prompt I found on Pinterest. I have a board that’s growing full of awesome prompts. But today, this one sort of resonated with me. And, this story may or may not be based on recent real life events.

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Recess was Jack’s favorite time of day. He got to run around and play games with his friends instead of being stuck behind a desk doing math problems that gave him a headache. Today, he and Zane were going to play the zombie game they talked about over the weekend while they played on the XBox. Jack knew he could recruit a few other friends to play it with them, they always managed to gather classmates who would rather play pretend zombie hunting than, say, soccer or chasing girls. Jack liked girls but he didn’t want to waste those precious minutes of recess chasing them. Besides, those girls ran faster than he did, they were impossible to catch.

After lunch, they were set free to roam the playground. Jack and Zane met up at the play structure, along with a few of the other kids who always played with them. As they were choosing who were the zombies and who were the zombie hunters, Jack saw Liam, his best friend, heading over to the basketball nets. Liam never played with Jack when they were at school. In fact, Liam barely acknowledged Jack, especially if there were other ‘cool’ kids around.

Jack wasn’t one of the ‘cool’ kids. Well, at least, that’s what Liam just told him the last time they had hung out. “Popular kids just can’t hang around losers, Jack.” Those were Liam’s exact words. Words that reaffirmed what Jack already thought. He was a loser and Liam was a cool kid. “I’d hang out with anyone but you.” And he did. More and more. When Jack would text Liam to see if he wanted to come over, he started receiving a one-word answer, “No.” No reason, just no. Until Jack just stopped asking, it was easier to avoid than be rejected by someone he never thought he’d be rejected by.

For a minute, Jack thought he was going to start crying right there on the playground, for everyone to see. He didn’t want to cry on the playground, it would be too embarrassing. But, the memories of the last conversation with Liam were still so fresh and the wounds were still wide open. He tried his best to shrug it off so that he could successfully hunt those zombies and save civilization from extinction. While he went through the motions of play, something he normally loved to do, his mind just wasn’t as into it as he had anticipated. He was sad. Maybe depressed, even. He’d have to talk to his mom when he got home.

He was a loser. He knew he was fat, gawky and ugly. He didn’t care that his parents told him he wasn’t any of those things. Parents think they are supposed lie to their kids so that their feelings wouldn’t get hurt. His best friend since 1st grade, who had been like a brother to him…he wouldn’t lie. But, the truth hurt pretty badly. Not only was he totally aware of the fact that he wasn’t one of the popular kids, he was fully aware that his best friend was THE popular kid. They had been inseparable, playing almost every day after school and all weekend. Until lately.

As Jack ran around pretending to be happy as he chased zombies instead of a basketball or instead of one of the girls, his heart just kept sinking. When Zane, the zombie leader, pretended to try to eat his brain, he giggled and fought without much feeling. His excitement had completely died, along with the best friendship he had ever had in his short life.

When recess was over, not all the zombies had been destroyed so they made quick plans to continue the game the following day. Liam brushed by Jack on his way into the school and didn’t even look at him. Then again, over the past year, Liam had begun to completely ignore or avoid him during school hours. But now, since Jack knew Liam thought he wasn’t even worthy of friendship outside of school, and it made it worse.

One thing Jack knew for certain was, if he were a popular kid, he’d never treat less popular kids the way his supposed ex ‘best friend’ had been treating him lately. Just because someone was popular didn’t give them the right to make other kids feel bad about themselves. Less popular kids were perfectly aware of where they fit into the hierarchy of playground life. They definitely didn’t need it thrown in their faces by anyone, they did that to themselves enough.

Jack gulped down another sob that threatened to explode and he squared his shoulders. He was going to try his hardest to get through another day of school. Math sucked but being a loser sucked even more.

He walked past Liam’s classroom on the way to his own. Jack caught Liam’s eyes  and he gave a small smile. Liam just looked flatly back at Jack and then twirled around to head into his classroom. Slowly and sadly, Jack made his way to his own class and took his seat. A timed math worksheet had been placed on all the students desks. His teacher, Mrs. Smythe, stood in the front of the classroom, waiting for her kids to return. She was holding her stopwatch, ready to get busy with her worker bees.

She instructed everyone to remember to put their names on the worksheet, she had received ones without names the other day and those students wouldn’t receive credit for all their hard work. Jack was pretty sure he was one of those kids she was talking about.

Jack stared at the line where he was supposed to write his name until it became a blur. Without even thinking, once his pencil hit that paper, he wrote in his neatest, clearest handwriting.  As best he could, made all the words fit on that small line.

Name: Anyone but me.

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