2. The Zoe effect

Classes were hard. Not because I hated school or I struggled with understanding concepts. I spent half the time in each class trying to convince someone that my aunt was actually my aunt. No one I told believed me. I began to wonder what the point of them asking was. It would have been better if they just came and said she was my girlfriend upfront and ran off. Can you imagine trying to listen to a lesson on Italian civil history when your classmate is texting questions to you? I almost got my phone confiscated. I couldn't take that kind of attention.

Lunch time was my break from it, I thought. I walked with Hunter and another friend of mine called Mike to get food at the cafeteria. We went on and on about the direction in which the Star Wars franchise had headed and how the first trilogy was best.

"Darth Vader made the entire Star Wars series what it is," Hunter said as we waited in the lunch line. "Without him, the story would have gone nowhere."

"I think you forgot about Han Solo," Mike said from behind me. "He kinda made the third Star Wars trilogy. Kylo Ren was no mistake."

"If you think about it, he actually was a mistake in a way. That was Luke's fault. And he was born because of.... Darth Vader."

"No. Catch my logic here man...."

The talk went on and on until we got to our table. When we got there, we found a discussion based on the series Teen Wolf. Okay, so I had a knack for keeping company with all sorts of fanatics. What do you expect. We sat down at the table and began to listen to the conversation that was taking place. The people on my table were getting deep into analysis about season 5. I wasn't much of a fan so I was just interested to see how far the debate would go. Besides, my mind was elsewhere. I couldn't help noticing some of the eyes I was getting from around our table. Did I mention I wasn't used to such attention. I tried to convince myself I was being paranoid.

Then it happened.

This may sound crazy, but I got a visit from a guy from the cool kids table. All the people on the table fell almost completely silent when the guy came to our table and stared at me. His name was Douglas. His curly relaxed hair shaped into a fade made him look like an upcoming underground musician. As far as I knew, he was much more of a sportsman, with a few of high school basketball tournament victories to his name.

"Hey Tony right?" Douglas said. "Could I speak to you for a moment?"

He didn't really say it like it was a request so I was obliged to stand and follow him. We walked a distance away from the table before he stopped and turned to me.

"You know why I called you?" Douglas asked me.

"I have some ideas," I responded.

"Well, regardless, a few friends of mine are really curious about a certain something about you so they'd really like it if you came over to our table and relieved that curiosity."

I thought something like that would excite me. But it just made me feel extremely weird and even more anti-social than before. So I guess my facial expression was negative because Douglas' expression dropped into a frown suddenly.

"What's the problem, man?" he inquired. "You don't wanna sit with us?"

"Don't get me wrong man," I said. "Its a nice offer but I'm concerned about the reason you're requesting me to be there."

"What do ya mean? It ain't a bad reason."

"Does it have anything to do with social media?"

"Look man, you'll find out when you get there."

So I followed him anyway. It felt weird being so far away from my usual clique. I looked back at my table. They didn't really seem to miss me. So you know the way the stereotype cool kids table consists virtually of jocks and cheerleaders who are all mean and rude? That was not quite the case here. Of course there still were sportsmen and cheerleaders but not all of them were there. It was weird seeing a guy I knew as a tech wizard seated a classic cheerleader. Maybe I had created a crude stereotype in your heads by calling it a cool kids table or something. It was just a table with renowned people on....okay you know what, you get the point. The were not bad people, just popular, unlike typical 80s-90s cool kids in the movies.

I felt some relief when I got to the table, being received by friendly face. Then my eyes met with Alex's eyes. Alex Cole was a beautiful girl with the smoothest skin I had ever seen in my life. I had a crush on her since we started high school. Seated next to her was Trevor. He was a big guy who was apparently part of the chess team. Not sure I believed that but who am I to judge.

"Hey bro!" Trevor seemed to announced. "Welcome to our table. Take a seat man. Don't be shy."

I looked at the table. The only free seat was beside a girl known as Abigail Lakefield. She was a cheerleader who had participated in to successful cheerleading competitions for the school... I think. I didn't pay much attention to that extracurricular activity. She looked up at me and quickly looked back down when our eyes met. I really hoped it was a good sign. She did have nice grey eyes. What was weird about the seat was it was just opposite Alex. Just perfect. What made things worse was that I realised that I had left my food on the other table. Looked like I'd be hungry for the rest of the school day.

"So, do you know why we called you here?"

Of course I did. It would have been completely ignorant of me to not know why. It was the only thing I'd been asked all day if I was dating my aunt.

"Because of my profile picture?" I pretended to guess.

Everyone on the table began to mutter and laugh in a large uproar. The began to talk to each other about the incident before quieting down again.

"So is that your new girl?" Douglas asked with a mischievous smirk.

"No," I answered, trying my best to be composed. "That's my aunt."

Another uproar hit the table, louder than the first. The tables around ours were obviously curious as to what was causing the noise. I looked back at my table and caught Hunter's eyes. He tried to ask me a thousand questions with that one gaze. I didn't know what I was getting myself into so I just shrugged at him and turned back to my new table mates.

"There is no way that's your aunt," Alex declared. "How old is she?"

"Like 24," I said.

No one on the table believed me at all. They obviously all thought she was our age mate or something. I wasn't in the mood to start explaining that stuff to them. I was tired from doing that the whole day.

"Wow," Trevor said finally. "Your family is amazing. You all look so young."

"No lie, fat first I thought he was a 9th grader," Douglas commented, making everyone laugh.

"Come on guys," Abigail chuckled a little. "He doesn't look that young. Plus I'm pretty sure he won an award for art in our intake."

"Someone's got a crush," Alex said with a look of mischief on her face.

I think my eyes widened. I turned toward Abigail, who avoided my gaze. I noticed her cheeks blazing. That day was getting more and more interesting. I felt like asking her if she did like me, but I was scared of getting embarrassed if she refused.

"You know what," Douglas got everyone's attention. "I'm sensing a great opportunity for a new addition to our friend group. I have no option but to invite Tony to my party this weekend."

The people on the table began to mutter to each other once again. Clearly they were all aware of the event where I was clueless. For a moment I felt like I was once again in a position in the shadows of society, where I was most comfortable. I looked back once more at my old table, hoping I could catch Hunter looking one more time. Unfortunately, he was too engaged by Mike to look back. I was left in my own thoughts for a bit, wondering why on Earth someone would host a party just after the school holiday came to an end.