Chapter Two: Why I'm Like That

I was driving Star and me home from school and was thinking about the day. I had to admit that for a first day of school, it had been pretty good. I had two classes with Star and one with Peter. We even had lunch together.  We were turning onto our street when Star asked me a question out of the blue.

“So what’s the deal with Rosamund?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh come on! Surely you’re not that blind.” I pulled the car into the gate for our house and we got out.

“Blind about what?”

“She’s all over you Jeff! She couldn’t be any more obvious.”

“What?!”

“Jeff, I know you aren’t the most observant person when it comes to girls, but I honestly don’t see how you can’t see how she’s all over you.”

“I had noticed she was wanting to hang out more…”

“You’re sad. You know that? You can’t even tell when a girl is interested in you.”

“You really think she is?” I thought back to earlier and tried to see what Star saw.

****Star****

I watched him stand there thinking. “Surely you wouldn’t date her?” I was really hoping that’s not what he was thinking about.

“Why do you say it like that? I mean I’m not saying I’m interested in her but you act like she’s the most awful person in the world.”

“I wouldn’t say that, but she tends to be. . .well. . .fake.”

“Fake?”

“You know insincere, pretending, putting on an act, non-genuine, AKA fake. Haven’t you noticed the way she laughs at your jokes or acts all sweet when she’s around you?”

“So what are you saying? That my jokes aren’t funny? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were jealous.”

Jealous?! Me?! That was silly. Jeff knew exactly how I felt about him so why would he even say that?

****Jeff****

I regretted it saying it the second it left my mouth. Why did I just say that? Now she’s going to get upset and I’m going to have to reassure her that I didn’t really mean it. But still, she is kind of acting that way. I can’t understand what her deal with Rosemund is. Sure she acted a little clingy sometimes and she sometimes didn’t seem as sincere as others, but she was nice and I had to admit, not bad looking.

“Jealous?! Why would I be jealous?!”

Here’s where I needed to start back peddling. “I don’t know, you’re acting like no one could possibly be interested in me. Why is that? Why do you act like it would be the most horrible thing in the world to date me when people imply we are?” Great backtracking Jeff! Unfortunately, I decided to probe further into what was eating at Star.

“I don’t act like it would be the most horrible thing in the world. Jeff, we’ve talked about this before, several years ago. We’re just friends. We wouldn’t be good as a couple anyway.”

“Okay, first of all, I get that you just want to be friends. Second, I get that you might have a problem with Rosemund,, although I don’t know if I really see it myself. Third, what’s the deal? Even your explanation just now sounds almost. . .I don’t know. . .like you think I’m not that great  of a person. Why would you even be friends with me if that was the case?”

“It’s not that I think you’re a bad person. It’s just that there are aspects of your personality that I can deal with as a friend but I couldn’t tolerate from someone I was dating.”

I stood there absolutely stunned.  Here was my best friend telling me that she couldn’t really stand certain parts of my personality.

“What the hell Star? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighed. “It’s like you’re always trying to please people. Depending on who you’re with, your personality will change. Not so much with me, but I see you do it with other people. You’re so concerned how other people perceive you. It’s like you have a public you and a private you. I get to see the private version of you, but at school, the other Jeff comes out.  I just don’t think I could date someone like that.”

I thought about what she said and I had to agree with her; that’s the way I acted. I had a certain kind of reputation to live up to. I was Jefferson Hobble, student body president and hopefully, future mayor of Appaloosa Plains. At least that was my dream; actually it was to be the youngest person ever elected to mayor in our town.  I knew that I was going to have to keep up a certain image for that to happen and it had to start early. 

 “You know why I’m like that.”

“Yes, I know it has to do with your dream, but is it really worth it if you have to pretend to be someone than who you really aren’t?”

I looked at her and without hesitation said “Yes.”

She shook her head at me and smirked. “Then I guess you and Miss Rosemund deserve each other.” With that she turned around and walked to her house.

I walked back into the house and tried to get to my room before I ran into anyone.

“How was school?” I heard Mom ask from the kitchen.

“It was okay. Got homework. Gonna work on it.” I ran up the stairs and barricaded myself in my room.

What had just happened out there? Star and I always tell each other the truth and it’s never before affected our relationship. She knows how I am. She even said she did when we were outside talking. I paced around my room and tried to understand what had just happened. 

I paused at one of the windows and looked over at Star’s house. In all the years we’d been friends, we had never disagreed like we just had. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Apologize? For what? For being me? I didn’t get what was wrong. I was the same guy I had always been. But now, all of a sudden it was causing a problem between Star and me.