Friday Afternoon

Friday afternoon, we have the same old club, in fact Japanese. I was new to that school for quite a while; I wasn't the only one either. I was the new smart kid that answered everything like an open encyclopedia in front of a non-knowing class, even the teachers were amazed. It's been more than 6 months and we were finishing that school year.

Back to that afternoon, I was to meet with Scott, his story was quite sad, a junior in a sophomore class, he was held back a year due to a kidney problem, he was submitted to chemotherapy for quite a while, he couldn't help go to sleep in class. Anyway, we went to the temporal location of the meeting.

When we arrived, we found Jeremy and Seth there with all the others. Seth was never at the meetings, which surprised me. Knowing Seth and Scott was like knowing a pair of noise making parrots that wouldn't stop, but it wasn't annoying at all. Jeremy was quite different, I met him one day at lunch; the air force recruited was at school. Later that day, he found me in the hallway, I first didn't recognize him but then I soon recalled it was him. He is this awesome fan of the Legend of Zelda series.

Seth…man, the guy was the boss of that group. He was in the ROTC (so was Jeremy) and had joined the army for summer basic training. He would usually call me a Smurf (because of my size) and after that event I started calling him Godzilla (being the highest of the group). He had a particular way of joking about people, especially Scott.

To their surprise, I wasn't a regular girl at all; I was tomboyish in a way. I love videogames, the army, activities that involves anything exciting. I love gaming as much as girls like to do makeup (which I hate with all my heart, to be honest with you guys). The halo series is one of the greatest games on the face of the Earth, so is Star Wars! I also like Minecraft.

To put everything together, they all were at the meeting, they were all at the ROTC (Scott's an ex member), and somehow… I found out that Jeremy of them might have a slight crush on me.

It was 4:55; we decided to head back to the main parking lot of the school. We decided to go together, Seth, Jeremy and me; but Jeremy didn't come with us, as he was distracted with the others. Seth and I wanted to prank him in a way, by hiding in the next corridor. He suggested we ran, I suggested we sneaked our way passed him.

We grabbed our things and left without a sound from us. We escaped the range of view and walked the rest of the way. Anyhow, Seth started to ask me about myself.
"So Caroline, are you single?" He asked.
My answered was straight and serious.
"Yes." I said.
"It sounds like you proud of it."
"I am, it means a lot more liberty than if you are in a relationship with someone."
He nodded. We kept talking about ROTC, what were the things and tasks you do while in it.
"You know what, you should join the ROTC."
"I will." I replied.
"Yes! That means I recruited you!" (They get a medal for recruiting people, a very rare medal)
"Sorry, someone already did." It was true.
"Aw man!" He stated his feel of defeat.
We kept walking until he broke the silence.
"It's bad being single."
"Why?" I asked
"You go to a party and you're practically alone."
"When, you treat yourself better… you don't really tie yourself up into knots."
"Oh, so you think about yourself, then?"
"It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand."
As we came out, his car was waiting for him.
"Well, see you Monday." He said as he placed his arm on my shoulders.
"See you, Seth." He ran off.
That day, I thought about that conversation; processing it was hard, understanding it was harder.