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Authors: Laurie Boyle Crompton
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bangs, I know I’ll never have it in me to be mean to him. I’ll just have to ride things out until graduation. “Hey there, Ryan,” I say without enthusiasm.
“Hey, Blaze,” he says.
After an awkward silence I turn to go, and Ryan walks alongside me, his feet slapping the hallway floor the whole way to my locker. As I exchange my books for my next class, he lets out a loud and phony-sounding “Oh, yeah!” As if he suddenly just remembered something he’s been meaning to tell me. It’s obviously rehearsed. Since I rarely encourage a two-way conversation, he usually shows up with material ready. Ryan knows lots of odd trivia that can be mildly interesting if you happen to care about whatever topic he’s spouting. He just hasn’t mastered the art of casually working tidbits and facts into normal conversations.
“Did you know your body is creating and killing fifteen million red blood cells per second?”
“Wow.” I try to be polite without encouraging him. Hiding my interest isn’t too difficult.
“Heh heh, yeah. Oops, there go thirty million more.” He chuckles. I shut my locker with a sigh.
“Good luck with that.” I start moving away.
“Oh, wait!” Ryan flips his backpack off his wide back and starts rummaging through it.
Oh, goody, and today he’s brought props . Finally, he pulls out a small stack of comics. “I’m finished reading these if you’re interested.”
He holds up current-looking issues of Daredevil and Silver Surfer . He knows these are two of my favorite characters but doesn’t get the fact that I prefer vintage issues. I’m a total Stan Lee devotee, love everything he ever worked on. ’Nuff said.
Ryan fans out the assortment of comics like a plump magician doing some cheesy giant card trick. I really don’t want to encourage him, but it won’t exactly kill me to check out what’s new and happening in comics these days. Maybe just to inform my own sketches . Looking at the offerings displayed in Ryan’s thick hand, I carefully select two of them. I don’t want to act too enthusiastic, but having the comics in my hand inspires a warmer-than-intended smile that makes Ryan blush. I quickly hand him back one of the comics, and it’s as if I’ve thrown cold water in his face. Better to not lead him on . I tell him, “Thank you,” for the lone Daredevil comic I’m clutching. “I’ll get this back to you soon.”
He starts to protest, but then shrugs, probably realizing that returning the comic will at least mean I’ll have to talk to him again. “Yeah, it’ll be cool to hear what you think of it.”
A few weeks into our awkward friendship, Ryan stumbled upon the fact that if he can get me talking about comics I’ll go into geek mode and prattle on without meaning to. For some reason, just having me talk at him makes him pathetically happy. He’s gotten more and more knowledgeable over time and actually has pretty good taste in artwork. Or maybe I just think that because he likes my artwork. He happened to see my sketchbook one day, and he fawned over my drawings in a way that wasn’t just sucking up. Or at least I don’t think it was. Well, who am I kidding, he was probably sucking up, but it was nice to have somebody appreciate my talent.
Not that I think my drawings are anything special. It’s just something that keeps me from poking my eyes out with boredom during soccer mom duty. I must admit, though, I’ve gotten a bit attached to drawing The Blazing Goddess .
Her newest shtick is a spray that acts as a physical truth serum, revealing people’s authentic selves. I got the idea one night when Josh and I saw this cheesy commercial for some perfume that claimed spraying it on your skin would reveal your “inner goddess.” Josh teased me that I should go to the store and steal a squirt to see if it made my boobs grow bigger. Of course, I gave him a dead arm with my middle knuckle. But then I got to thinking about how cool it would be if the
“Hey, Blaze,” he says.
After an awkward silence I turn to go, and Ryan walks alongside me, his feet slapping the hallway floor the whole way to my locker. As I exchange my books for my next class, he lets out a loud and phony-sounding “Oh, yeah!” As if he suddenly just remembered something he’s been meaning to tell me. It’s obviously rehearsed. Since I rarely encourage a two-way conversation, he usually shows up with material ready. Ryan knows lots of odd trivia that can be mildly interesting if you happen to care about whatever topic he’s spouting. He just hasn’t mastered the art of casually working tidbits and facts into normal conversations.
“Did you know your body is creating and killing fifteen million red blood cells per second?”
“Wow.” I try to be polite without encouraging him. Hiding my interest isn’t too difficult.
“Heh heh, yeah. Oops, there go thirty million more.” He chuckles. I shut my locker with a sigh.
“Good luck with that.” I start moving away.
“Oh, wait!” Ryan flips his backpack off his wide back and starts rummaging through it.
Oh, goody, and today he’s brought props . Finally, he pulls out a small stack of comics. “I’m finished reading these if you’re interested.”
He holds up current-looking issues of Daredevil and Silver Surfer . He knows these are two of my favorite characters but doesn’t get the fact that I prefer vintage issues. I’m a total Stan Lee devotee, love everything he ever worked on. ’Nuff said.
Ryan fans out the assortment of comics like a plump magician doing some cheesy giant card trick. I really don’t want to encourage him, but it won’t exactly kill me to check out what’s new and happening in comics these days. Maybe just to inform my own sketches . Looking at the offerings displayed in Ryan’s thick hand, I carefully select two of them. I don’t want to act too enthusiastic, but having the comics in my hand inspires a warmer-than-intended smile that makes Ryan blush. I quickly hand him back one of the comics, and it’s as if I’ve thrown cold water in his face. Better to not lead him on . I tell him, “Thank you,” for the lone Daredevil comic I’m clutching. “I’ll get this back to you soon.”
He starts to protest, but then shrugs, probably realizing that returning the comic will at least mean I’ll have to talk to him again. “Yeah, it’ll be cool to hear what you think of it.”
A few weeks into our awkward friendship, Ryan stumbled upon the fact that if he can get me talking about comics I’ll go into geek mode and prattle on without meaning to. For some reason, just having me talk at him makes him pathetically happy. He’s gotten more and more knowledgeable over time and actually has pretty good taste in artwork. Or maybe I just think that because he likes my artwork. He happened to see my sketchbook one day, and he fawned over my drawings in a way that wasn’t just sucking up. Or at least I don’t think it was. Well, who am I kidding, he was probably sucking up, but it was nice to have somebody appreciate my talent.
Not that I think my drawings are anything special. It’s just something that keeps me from poking my eyes out with boredom during soccer mom duty. I must admit, though, I’ve gotten a bit attached to drawing The Blazing Goddess .
Her newest shtick is a spray that acts as a physical truth serum, revealing people’s authentic selves. I got the idea one night when Josh and I saw this cheesy commercial for some perfume that claimed spraying it on your skin would reveal your “inner goddess.” Josh teased me that I should go to the store and steal a squirt to see if it made my boobs grow bigger. Of course, I gave him a dead arm with my middle knuckle. But then I got to thinking about how cool it would be if the
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