I quickly turned away and began to walk, but before I could take my second step I felt a pull on my arm and I turned back to face him. Because of the force of the pull and my lack of balance for being mid-step, I leaned in close and he held me tight, right there in the middle of  a group of onlooking students. I looked up once more and he looked down at me, I could see him blushing too. We separated and acted as if all was fine and the people around us continued to their classes. He asked me if I was ok, and I said yes, even though my wrist was hurting, and I began to walk backwards telling him thank you for the help and that I had to go.

So innocent that first encounter was, so full of wondrous excitement. My life now holds days like that as days that are too quiet because of the malice in this world. As I sighed and took a nice deep breath I walked across some stones that cross the grass from one side of the courtyard to the other. As I got to the middle of the pathway, a young girl hopped her way into the block I was going to step on. Our pathways leading us in contradictory ways I stopped and so did she. Quickly she asked in Spanish if I was lost. Having been taught at a very young age the importance of knowing many languages, I was able to respond in Spanish that no I wasn’t. She asked to see my schedule and before I could answer to her request she took it from my hand and looked at it.

Before I could make an attempt to take the schedule back, she grinned and gave it back to me. A bit annoyed I asked why she was smiling, and very cheerfully she replied that we had most if not all our classes right next to each other. Unintentionally rolling my eyes with a disgruntled facade, that I am sure she noticed. She looked to her side as if contemplating whether to do something or not, and then looked back at me and said if you’re going to physical education then you are going the wrong way. Not wanting to seem unappreciative, I acted surprised and said that a girl had told me that the way to PE was this way.

With an understanding look in her face, she smiled so sweetly and said lets go. I followed her and for the short few minutes that we walked together we talked. And the way in which we talked to each other felt like if we were best friends from a lifetime ago. Not wanting for things to go any further, I decided that I would not try and befriend her. I didn’t want to hurt her. For the entire class I tried to get away from her, though it did not help that she was in the same class as me, I really tried. She followed me like a lost puppy. She seemed to understand what the class was doing, so the possibility that I would need to stay near her to translate seemed fairly low. After going into the locker room to change out, she dashed towards me and asked if I would like to be friends. Right away I told her no, and as she she asked me why, I simply said that friendships were pointless. Seeing the look in her face hurt me more than any of my last attempts to avoid friendships. It moved m, it compelled me to try to explain why I thought friendships were pointless, but before I could finish she exclaimed that friendships with someone like me would be pointless. Realizing what she had said, she gave a shocked face. It was obvious that she was surprised something like that had come out of her; and slowly with a heavy heart I said, maybe it was true and walked away.

Not realizing that the bell had not rang yet, I continued walking and thought about what that girl said. But, more importantly, why it had really affected me? Was it that it was high school? A semi-prestigious school? Just this girl in general? I didn’t know, I still don’t know; but as I looked forward I saw a map of the school on the side of the building wall. This school knew that its students wouldn’t be able to maneuver through with a map at hand so they set many of them up on the walls for easy access. Mapping out my classes I now knew where to go and and continued on. Hearing that a supervisor was around the corner, I decided to stay in the bathroom until the bell rang.

Once the bell finally rang I left the girls restroom and began heading towards class. I kept getting this feeling that someone was watching me. That someone was following me, and stupidly I shrugged it off thinking it was the campus security cameras doing their thing. I never would have thought that maybe it was something much more unpredictable. And unpredictable it was.