3 The famous new guy

Remember when I mentioned the new guy, the one I wanted to know more about because he was always too silent. I guess my wish came true. Turned out his name was Jace. And he actually was the new guy. New in school and in my class, nice. He was a year older than all of us. Teachers mentioned he missed a year of school, and I mean MISSED, not failed or repeated. Of course, he seemed too much of a good student to fail. And of course we had to bear the traditional 'be nice' speech, which I definitely did not listen to. I did intend to be nice though.

As head of the Student Welfare Department of our school committee, I was asked by the teacher to welcome him to the school and explain to him a bit how things worked, which I did without hesitation. My friends, or at least the boys, found that weird that I would just go talk to him, while the girls teased me for months because I talked to the good-looking new guy. And since I practically spent all my life with Kayra and nearly crossed his way all the time, she wouldn't let me be. That's what best friends do after all. And that's why I love her so much. She knows how to annoy the hell out of me and make me laugh all at once.

Anyways , let's go back to our guy. Whenever I tried to talk to him, all we could say was "hey, what's up?" or "hi!" We could never have a proper conversation. He didn't talk much. He would answer questions, but nothing more. Strangely that just intrigued me more. Why would he not socialise? It's not like we were not nice to him, after that speech. Each day he would walk into class and sit quietly in a corner, and the same into our common clubs and societies' meetings and each day his behaviour would draw me closer to him.

What did he have to hide so much? Why was he so mysterious? What was the mystery about? He was never seen outside school, like he never went out. He came in the morning, and went back home after class. Whenever we would ask him to come with us eating, after a school event or anything, he was always busy. He always had to be somewhere, or to meet someone. My first thought was that he had a girlfriend, which would have been the simplest and more normal explanation for someone who's always on his phone, always texting or talking to someone, or watching some silly video. But of course my overactive mind could not stick to that conclusion. I started thinking about fake IDs and fairytales, because those were made life slightly more interesting. Everything out of the ordinary was either a fairytale or a mystery.

People told me that I could write books about those mysteries in my head. Maybe that's what I'm doing now. Maybe that story I had inside my head is actually real. At least he was real. He was cute, no one could deny that. His smile was the kind that could make any girl melt, and those dimples, ah those stupid dimples that make me shiver. Maybe I was the one obsessed, maybe I did like him. No matter what the case was, there was definitely something about him that didn't quite fit. He was not like any other guy. He was different. And even though different in most people's mind mean dangerous, in mine, different meant interesting. This different was definitely interesting.

My life went on, everyday seeing him, everyday having class with him. The classes were as boring as they always were, but at least now I had something more interesting to focus on than those useless lectures. I had something more intriguing in life. So each day, before or after class, or whenever our paths coincidentally crossed – and that happened a lot – I tried to initiate a conversation about anything I could find. I asked him about school, how he was doing, how he was getting used to a new school and new people. I asked him whether he made new friends, whether he'd rather be back to his hometown, whether he missed his friends. He never told me much. Lack of trust maybe, something I can really understand. Why would he trust me? Who was I to him anyways? I was only a weird lonely girl in school.

Nothing ever made sense when it came to me and him. But I kept on trying. I kept on hoping that the strange hi hello would somehow turn into some kind of friendship. Things did start to shape a little over the days. He smiled when he saw me from afar. We went from the weird girl and the new guy status to knowing each other. Although the friendship status was not there yet, things got less strange and cold. We felt more at ease, or at least I did.

However, I still couldn't unfold that mystery of his. All I noticed was that he never spoke of his family. His parents or any brother or sister. He never let anyone know anything about his roots, his origins. All that people knew was that he was from India. I know his name doesn't sound Indian but I didn't dare to ask him about that. Maybe I should, maybe that's where the mystery lies. I guess I'm going to have to find out by myself, and I will. How hard can it be? After all, teenagers are professional stalkers, aren't we?