Me Awkward Me Awkward You

“Hello,” a voice softly beside me to the right chimed. I was just settling into my chair in my Anthropology class. My focus was somewhere within my backpack lying on the floor next to me as I searched for my missing black pen. I ignored the voice, believing it was directed for someone else sitting beside, behind, in front of me. There was a clearing of the throat and the voice again called, but this time a little bit stronger. “Hello?”
Curious, I whipped around in mid search for my blasted pen and saw the stranger staring at me as if waiting for a reply. The voice belonged to a girl somewhere close to my age. Her skin was the color of light chocolate and her onyx colored hair cropped comfortably upon her shoulders. So sharply was she dressed; as if she had just come from a business lunch and instead of eating what was on the menu, she had eaten some co-worker instead. My heart began to panic, she was beautiful and those kinds of girls always intimidate me.

I didn’t quite know her, but I recognized her from previous classes. She was a regular and normally sat on the other side of the room quietly with her head down until the professor began to lecture. What was she doing on this side of the room? Why so close to me? Usually, students, people are creatures of habit. In the classroom, it is no different. Even if a teacher does not assign seats (after grade/high school, they don’t) students tend to always occupy the same seat every time they attend the class. It’s weird, but it’s true. Take the classroom we were in. I have had, over the span of my college days, class held in this very classroom six times before. I have always, since the first freshman year, occupied this seat, on the right, third row from the back, the seat against the wall. I don’t know why I do it, I just do, and so does everybody else.
I looked over to where she normally sat and the whole row was empty. I couldn’t fathom why she would sit over here. My mind was racing at the speed of light, and my heart was doing the jitter-bug, though my façade was trying to play it cool.
I tried to whitewash complete unrecognition and ignorance over my face. “Um, sorry, did you say ‘hello’ to me?”
She smiled warmly and looked very curiously at me. I felt as if she could have been studying me like I was some sort of a freak.
"Come on folks step right up and see the amazing tightrope walking, talking, juggling, from outer space, clown dog. Or perhaps you all want to take a look at the disgusting, the vile, never been seen Insect of Prehistoria! Only a nickel for the dog folks a two cent piece for the critter! Come one and all!"
I awkwardly shifted in my seat. “Yes, hello,” she finally said to me.
“Oh!—um, hi,”
I felt quite dumb after saying this and immediately began to wish I was somewhere else. I smiled what must have been such a sheepishly looking grin. Again, aware of how retarded I felt, my cheeks began to burn. I jerked my head back to the desk, searching for anything, anything at all to occupy my focus. Usually, people just left you alone when you did that. It’s not that I wanted her to leave me alone, but I couldn’t help it. I got scared and like an ostrich, shoved my head in the sand. Nothing to focus on, I began to stare at my desk as if it was the most unique thing in the world. Thinking that was that and praying for the professor to walk in at any second, I began to look for my pen again.
“Whad’ja think about that test?” She said after a brief pause.
Oh great, small talk. My specialty… I thought and began to chuckle to myself. For some reason, this inner chuckle calmed me down greatly and I turned and faced her more confidently. After all, it was probably just idle banter that people do to pass the time. It’s like being stuck in a very slow elevator with only one other person. Other people there, then people are fine, but on a one on one situation, there is always that awkward silence which people always feel required to fill with idle arbitrary small talk. That’s all this was.
“It was easy.” I replied and a wash of relief fell over her face when my eyes looked into hers. God they were a intoxicating. Not exactly hollow eyes, but they looked like they could have gone on for an eternity. “You think you did well?”
“Yeah, but I wasted so much time studying for that. It kind of irritates me,” she replied as she began to bite down upon her bottom lip. “I don’t know why I even bother sometimes,” she said and shrugged.
“Sucks.” I said and chuckled. “I haven’t even opened my text yet.”
She smiled and picked her copy of the thick textbook off the desk. She began to examine the cover of it and then idly flipped through the pages uncaringly. “Yeah, I shouldn’t have even bothered buying this useless thing,” she said and let the book fall limply to the desk.
I agreed and we moved onto more useless chitchat, from the weather to loud obnoxious band playing on the quad. Comfortable, more than I had been up to that point, I pushed my chair out a little bit and leaned my back up against the wall facing her. I folded my legs upon my chair Indian-style. Then it struck me awfully rude and ill mannered that I had not yet introduced myself. So, in one of those silences that often come in developing small talk, I did just that.
“I’m Michael,” I said and smiled in my best oh-by-the-way fashion, and held out my hand.
“Angelica” she quickly shot back and beaming and grasping my hand with such force. It was odd and yet comforting to receive such a firm handshake. It is in my experience, the girls who have a dainty grip when you greet them are always trouble, or at least not my type, because they tend to be high maintenance kind of girls. But adversely, those girls who have firm grips, usually means that they were probably tom-boys at some point in their lives, and thus my type of girl. The grip shook me into some kind of stupor, because what I did next, I cannot really explain why I did so.
Foolishly I quickly responded, “It complements you very well…”
Bemused, she pulled her hand back slowly as if she had just been slimed with something gooey from mine, and said, “What does?”
“Your name” I tried to retort gallantly, but quickly added, “But—I bet you hear that a lot,”
She briefly hinted at a smile, but it looked as it was directed more for her and not me. She looked down to her desk and began to shuffle her notebook and text, rearranging them to some ordained design. When it seemed like the order of notebook on text, pen parallel to the both seem the right order, she looked back up to me and replied with a big ivory grin. Her cheeks fell away, hiding behind those teeth.
“Well, not as awkward and white as that before, but thanks I guess.” Then she turned her focus back to her desk, deciding perhaps the order wasn’t as right as she thought it was in the first place.
There followed a too brief pause, which was interrupted surprisingly by me who exclaimed, “Y-y-ouch!”
“What?”
“Oh nothing—Well, I guess I’m not sure if that was accepting a complement or an insult toward me…”
“A little of both I think, but more of one than the other thinks I…” she responded.
I scrounged my face, and pondered this for a moment. “Um?” was all I could think of to say. Hoping she would respond, I said nothing more. But she didn’t respond. Angelica simply opened up her notebook and began to read over notes from another class.
“Um-Kaaaaay, which one is it?” I finally said, overcome with an anxious need to know. As if my very life depended upon the answer she was going to give.
“Hi! Welcome to You Bet Your Life! You know how this game goes, or at least I should think you know I know you do. Say folks, that reminds me of a story that’s so dirty, I’m afraid to think of it myself. Anyway, the Category you’ve chosen today is “Perplexing Female Innuendoes.” Mr. Man Generic, what are you willing to bet today?”
“I’m betting it all Groucho! The whole dollar!”
“The latter,” was all she said as she turned around, briefly giving me a somewhat sad smile, then returning her focus back to her notes. My heart double pumped and stalled as I quickly revised the conversation in my head, trying to decipher what she meant. When the train of thought finally whooshed into the terminal, a dull, cold sweat swept upon me. Depressed, I sullenly remembered my much needed search for my pen. I began to sift through my backpack again. Disgruntled with more than the missing pen, I relinquished a pitiful sigh.

I could feel eyes boring into the back of my head. What the hell is that? I thought to myself. I looked up to my right and there was the pretty girl, who normally sat on the other side of the room, staring right back at me smiling and waiting. All I could emit was, “erm… did you say something?”
She beamed back and chuckled. “Yes,” she said softly. “I just said hello…”
“Oh! Sorry, hello…” I replied.
“Why do you look so perplexed? Is something wrong?” She asked and then began to look around as if to search for the cause of my torment. Finding nothing, she shrugged and turned back to me.
“Oh… No, no, sorry. I’m fine.” I said and felt the blood in my face begin to boil with intensity. Goddamn it! I thought, spiting myself. The hell? Even in my daydreams am I so awkward!
“Whad’ja think about—” she started to say to me, and then the professor walked in and interrupted her.
“Alright class, let’s begin…”
Goddamn it, no! I thought and wanted to scream.
She gave me one last look with her dark brown eyes, smiled, and turned to face the instructor. I sighed and opened up my notebook, then remembered I couldn’t find my pen. Well, looks like I’m not taking notes today. I thought. Briefly, I toyed with the notion of asking Mrs. Girl-Who-Usually-Sits-On-The-Other-Side-Of-The-Room for a pen to borrow, but being an unusual breed of mammal, namely one that is invertebrate, the idea was quickly quashed as soon as it came up. Defeated, I resigned and closed my notebook.
Very soon, the room grew warm and quiet; the lonely sounds of scratching pens upon notebooks and Mr. Monotone began to work upon me. Before I knew it, my eyes were glazed over and once again I was off in the daytime’s version of Nod. And there, another girl somewhere else made my dream an altogether new disappointment.