I take a few uncertain steps forward, the swaths of people swarming past me on a busy day in Portland. There is a brisk breeze but the clouds have cleared for the day and the sun keeps the cold at bay. I can't remember why I was walking down this block, but I can feel that it was super important. The light of the sun shimmer and bounce between the glass skyscrapers. I amlooking for my friends. They should be in the downtown area for a meetup. What were we going to be talking about though? No matter how much I rack my brain as I walk forward, I can’t think of what this was about. 

As people rush past me, I can’t help but feel as if they are just walking through me like I don’t exist. They treat me like I'm invisible or incorporeal.

A bit further down the street, I finally see a familiar face, sitting at a covered table outside a cafe, legs up on the wireframe table. He's sipping from bright pink coffee in a clear cup. We notice each other and smile, waving excitedly, but I get caught at the crosswalk and have to wait.

5, 4, 3, 2, walk. There's a rumble like two rocks rolling slowly in a washing machine. I'm only a few steps into my way through the crosswalk when it starts. Head down and focusing on getting to the other end of the road, I don't look for the source, but the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Faster steps, come on now.

The ground rumbles this time with the sound of groaning rock. It shakes and shudders. The sky darkens unnaturally quickly. Something is wrong. Looking back to my coffee drinking buddy, I find an empty chair, a slopping remains of pink "coffee" dripping through the wire-mesh table, and him running full sprint down the road. I cry out his name and he turns to me, face stern and motions for me to follow. Not knowing any better, I run forward.

With my face turned downward to the road, the first thing I notice is that the rumble is louder than before. The closer I run, the more the ground is shaking. I'm scared, but my crazy and probably stupid friend keeps running forward without stopping, so I run with him. I can’t let him just go hurt himself. Down one block, and I am surprisingly not out of breath. I am not sure how, but I can't think about that right now, not with what I am now looking at. As we pass the block and the tower on our left, there is a magenta beam of light, churning with stormy weather vortexing from the sky and amber lightning arcing between buildings, glass shattering. It is shooting straight into the sky and passing through the clouds. It is as thick as a small car and bright as hell.

A loud bang echoes through the streets. The closest building near the maelstrom a few blocks from where I stopped dead quaked for a moment, then started to fall into itself. Loud cracks and pops go off from above me. Falling glass peppers my skin, making the top of my head sting. Looking above me, every window had blown in on the buildings around us.  The wind is picking up speed and starting to deafen me. I turned to my friend and he motions towards the light show tornado and begins running toward it.

Yeah, right at it. I am dumbfounded and stand there. But as fate would have it, I feel a pressure on my armpits. Almost effortlessly, I lift off the ground. What apparently is an angel is carrying me into the sky, and right towards this death twister. I thrash at them before noticing something odd about my arm. Thinner? I note that my struggle is making no progress and go limp, looking despondently towards the enclosing amber-lightning-bedazzled-purple-light-tornado that is going to be my tomb.

Closer and closer we fly. I can't hear anything but the wind and the crackle of electricity. Then a really loud beep pierces through the din. It overpowers everything else and makes my ears ring. It comes again, even louder. I reflexively cover my ears as I start to fall. Everything around me starts to feel empty, ethereal. Beep. Beep. 

I'm standing at the block back where I started this whole crazy situation. Sun out, no rumbling. Beep. Beep. Laying in bed. A dream. My alarm. I stretch and reach over to my phone on the dresser next to my bed. I pull it up from its charging dock and twirl it around and turn off the alarm. Once off, I lay back down for a while, staring at the ceiling. What the hell was that dream? I've always had crazy movie-like dreams, but that was something different. Too vivid? I couldn't put my finger on it. But that's something to worry about another time. I have plans for today.

I sit up, spinning my legs over the edge of my bed. As I reach back over my dresser to put my glasses on, I hear a knock at my bedroom door.

"Ethan, you told me to wake you up if you weren't already up."

"I'm up, mom," I suppress a yawn.

"Okay, love you." I hear her footsteps fade into the hallway as our house creaks like it usually does in the mornings.

Once I know that my mom is gone, I get out of bed and twist my way around the dirty and clean piles of laundry strewn about my bedroom floor. It's not that I'm particularly lazy about cleaning my clothes, as much as I wear the same four or five shirts on school days. It ends up being several levels easier to leave the clothes out of my dresser than fold them up. At some point, it ended up being a pile. I promise it's not indicative of my personal hygiene habits otherwise.

Looking down at my clean clothes pile, I can't help but think that it's not going to be adequate for today's itinerary. The grand high schooler's social event, the mall meetup, requires something a little more classy. A black t-shirt with an abstract video game reference isn't going to meet the cut here. I cut across my room to my closet instead. I grab a nice button up and place it on my bed. I cross my arms as I stare at it unfolded. Too formal. Stiff. It doesn't have that cool edge that a popular guy would have. It's not "fashionable" enough to make the cut. A chuckle escapes my lips even though I'm alone. Like I know what fashionable is. Not compared to...

A flash of Lauren plays through my head. Her auburn hair dancing in the slight wind of a cool autumn day. Her dark green cardigan over a light beige camisole top that flows perfectly into her distressed acid-washed skinny jeans. Punk-inspired boots and a skull-embroidered scarf finishing it as the cherry on top. And that's not even mentioning her glowing skin. Her heart-shaped face with the tiniest amount of makeup, only to emphasize her features and not to cover up blemishes.

...She has such an amazing style. I catch myself spacing out, daydreaming while staring into the wall dumbly. I hope that I'm not just an obsessive creep. I bite my lip and shake my head. I need to dress up to impress her if I'm going to try to confess to her. A creep wouldn't be able to muster up to confess. That's right. I clear my thoughts of Lauren for now because I only have so much time before Desmond gets here with The Hatch (He requires everyone to call his car that. It's not even a hatchback).

Shower. Wash body. Wash hair. Dry off. Comb hair back. Give it the tried and true slicked-back look. My slight obsession with styling my dusky blonde is the only thing that kept me from looking like a neglected mop constantly. After cleaning up in the bathroom and back in my room, I end up picking a red flannel, with a grey t-shirt underneath, and my dark blue jeans together with work boots. It's like hipster 101 style, or so my friends like to call it, but I think it makes me look sophisticated. Or is that something a hipster would say? Best way to contemplate this is to run my hand through my hair thoughtfully while I stare at myself in the mirror.

I end my morning ritual on the couch, flipping through the channels on the TV while I wait for my friends to come to pick me up. Mom had already finished getting ready and left by the time I had gotten downstairs. Figures, she's way too busy to stay and talk with me.

Click, a commercial about skincare. Click, a car chase. Click, the forecast is light showers throughout the day. Click. Knock. Click. Knock. The knocks echoed through the house over the sound of the tv powering down. He could have texted me but I guess knocking at the door works too.

With my front door open, Desmond is standing there with his feet wide and his arms crossed. One might confuse him for being angry but I know that's just his default look. It didn't make the misconception any easier with him wearing his signature "metal" look, holes in tight jeans leading to high-top converse and a faux leather jacket over a black band tee. His short dark hair is whisked back loosely, framing a crooked jaw and twice-broken nose. He's smirking at me but didn't say anything immediately. We tend to converse through looks. Eventually, after trading raised eyebrows, he sighs.

"You ready, loverboy?" He smirks.

 "So long as my chauffeur is ready to drive me that way," I retort. "Come long, patsie!"

With that, I close the door and brush past him, making my beeline towards The Hatch's backseat, because Andrea had shotgun. Not that I'm really complaining, she is Desmond's girlfriend after all. I pop the door and fall in. I shimmy into a comfortable position and say hello to Andrea.

"I told you to stop calling me Andy," Andrea turns around and smiles at me. "That was a one-time thing with the theatre group. How are you by the way?"

"Oh, you know, going to the mall to try to ask my crush out. I just feel completely calm and-"

"I am not your patsy. Who planned this whole escapade? Me, jackass," Desmond situates himself in the driver seat with a fake scowl.

"-and relaxed. Hey now, I owe you guys for the ride."

Andrea tilts her head my way and Desmond moves his rearview mirror slightly to look at me. "No probl-"

"It'll all go well. I can tell," she says over Desmond.

"Yeah," both Desmond and I say at the same time. Him more certain than me.

The car lurches once as it shifts into drive and pulls out of my driveway. Once out from the safety of the huge tree in my front yard, it becomes noticeable that it's actually raining very lightly right now, even though the sun is shining through the clouds. It's like the clouds are making fun of the sun. How does the weather bode for my next few hours? I look up at the clouds as they swirl and cusp around the light spilling from the sky above them. A grey mist falls down from them, just enough to keep the ground wet. The rain doesn't bother me, but the way the clouds hang in the sky today makes me uncomfortable for some reason.

Maybe I'm just psyching myself out because I'm nervous. The mall would be free of the whims of the weather anyhow. And Lauren would be there. Sitting there, with her auburn hair sparkling with the beads of light rain, a leather jacket, perfectly accentuating her body and bringing attention to her face. Her heart-shaped face always accented with the tiniest amount of makeup. Those powerful green eyes that hid an aloofness that kept most people out of arm’s reach.

"... that's why I didn't pick that subject for the paper assignment in Ms. Erikson's class." The conversation fades back into my focus as my daydream comes to an end.

"That makes sense. Kind of like my project. We're analyzing Shakespeare right now. Did you know that there is a theme of poisons in Hamlet?" Andrea says.

"Like how he uses poison to represent cowardice, betrayal, and manipulation?" I take my chance to become part of the conversation again, and hey, I actually read Hamlet when our English class had to read it.

Andrea turns to look at me and Desmond looks at me through the rearview mirror. Since they started dating they sometimes do this thing where it's like they are on the same brain wave.

"Look who decided to join us again-" Andrea says at me.

"-How was the daydream?" Desmond continues her thought.

I avoid their gazes. I can't stand when a lot of people look at me. It makes me feel like there's some kind of hidden expectation I'm not matching, be it my own or theirs.

"I was just thinking of how this is going to go. I almost feel like I'm floating, you know?" I say as I start looking out the window again. More tiny daydreams. I can't keep focused on the conversation right now, I'm too deep in my own head. What if she laughs at me. Imagine how many people ask her out all the time, she's so pretty and smart and confident. And yet she's still single? How could I compare to others? She's so pseudo-popular. I'm envious of how well she handles people.

"...Dude, you there?" Desmond probably asks for the second time, knocking me out of my worries again.

"Yea, sorry. What did you say?"

"We're saying that everything will be fine. You're great at making friends, even if trying to ask her out doesn't work. You can still be in the friendzone. And forget the people that say that's bad," Andrea says and would have tapped my shoulder or my knee if she wasn't sitting in front of me.

"Yea, maybe."

 

===~~~===

 

We arrive at the mall in a car ride that felt like time is falling in molasses. I thought I was nervous before, but opening the car door and taking my first step onto the wet parking lot out of the car proved me wrong. My heart doubles its pace. A pit starts growing in my stomach. It's like the butterflies are fighting to the death inside there. I can feel my hands get clammy.

"Are you sure she'll be here and that she agreed to hang out with me and you guys?" I ask, trying to steel my nerves.

"Yeah!" Andrea and Desmond say in stereo as they meet each others' hands.

A deep breath and the little prattle of rainwater splashing underneath footsteps. The clouds are still making their taunting dance in the sky, with the lightest of rain tainting everything in the parking lot with a shade of grey. I look up at the sky as we walk towards the entrance to the cafeteria of the mall. The clouds are swirling above the mall ominously. This is going to fail. The sky is telling me I'm falling into Charybdis. I stretch my arms and run my hands through my hair. The glistening mist that collects on my hair from the rain flattens it. I can feel it part strangely. Now I look like a dweeb. As I pass by a tinting window of the entrance to the mall I see it looks fine.

Breathe once. Hold it. Pop knuckles. Shake water out of hair. Stretch arms again. Breathe out in a sigh. We walk into the cafeteria. Need to keep my calm. Desmond and Andrea have been talking this whole time, but I can't make out what they are saying from my own internal maelstrom. I don't think they are involving me in their conversation right now anyway. They understand how I can be when I get nervous sometimes.

We enter at a corner of the large domed-ceiling cafeteria. It is a large hollow circle room with the center being open to the second floor. Fancy faux-gilded railings frame the inside and lead to a pair of escalators that went to the bottom floor. The food store-fronts follow along the outside ring, each with their own section of tables. As luck would have it, Lauren is not on the other side of the cafe, but at a table just off from where we are. I almost didn't recognize her when I first saw her, sitting there with two others. One is a mountain of a man, probably several heads taller than me, with a black hoodie making him even larger looking. With his hair pulled into a ponytail, the sides shaved down and greying, it made him look like he's seen some shit in his life and dealt with it by beating it with his fists. He pairs very well with another slightly older-looking man, nowhere near as tall or as muscular, and with a beer gut. He has his hair in a crew cut but had a thick, ashy goatee. They meant business, whoever they are. Yet they are sitting casually with Lauren like they aren't intimidating.

That isn't what had my attention the most, though. Lauren always seemed like she'd be a popular girl with a shallow attitude. All talk with nothing in her head to back it up. Like a flood light with no bulbs, but looks can be deceiving, and that is what really enamored me with her. She is just as much as a social outcast. She rarely talks to people unless it was a teacher or it was absolutely necessary. I once sat across from her in an art elective where she never said a word, but drew landscape after landscape of desolate wastelands. There is something more to her, and ever since then I watched her. Now that I think about it, how did Desmond get her to even talk to him, let alone getting her here now?

She isn't exactly like that here. In fact, not even a little bit. She always dressed to match whatever demur style is popular with the girls at that time. Pretty, but aloof. That is her style, or so I thought. Here she is, sitting and talking rather animatedly with two older men while dressing like a teenage metalhead's wet dream. She is wearing an acid-washed grey and black denim jacket with a death metal band t-shirt cut and safety pinned to the back. Shoulder spikes and more band patches on the sleeve. A dark gray tank top, black skinnies torn-up from being worn through moshing, and well-worn black-red Doc Martens.

I stall there, mouth wide for a century. Long enough to notice us and turn. Lauren looks right at me and smiles. My heart explodes. She's motioning for us to come over. Desmond and Andrea are talking again but my mind can't process what they are saying. The three of us make it over to the table.

"So this is the Ethan you were talking about then. Definitely cute," the larger man booms with a hearty chuckle, wrapping his arms around his denim jacketed counterpart, but only once Desmond, Andrea and I are finally in earshot. Are they trying to make me more nervous?

Lauren scowls, if only momentarily, and shushes the two of them. A quick swivel out of her chair, and she is standing in front of the three of us.

"Thanks for the invite, Desmond. Glad to see you brought Andrea too." The two of them share a quick smile and what almost looks like a mental hug with each other. I guess they know each other somewhat.

"I have a class with her." Oh, gotcha. "And of course, my not-so-secret admirer. He seems like he might be in shock though."

...Oh shit. "Uh- hey. I guess I wasn't very subtle then. I'm sor- You-" I sigh, running a hand through my hair, and looking at her under my own arm.

Lauren laughs, split between Desmond and Andrea, and grabs my shoulders gently. "I wouldn't have agreed to a double date with your way-too-earnest friends if I didn't think it was sweet. Trust me, I've dealt with way worse people showing interest in me."

"And that is why we are here," interrupts one of her two chaperones, "can't let the little one off on a date without meeting the gentleman first."

 

So introductions are made. The giant man in a ponytail that I am totally not afraid of, Able Scott, and smaller but no less intimidating gentleman, Charles Scott, meet me and my friends. Desmond is the one with a face like a bar fighter even though he's in high school and Andrea is the one with the wit behind her eyes. We hope you don't kill us and I promise we won't hurt your adopted daughter. You guys say something about being the ones for each other but I'd rather not picture the two of you wrestling in a bed...