No Names

Our story starts with a boy. A brown eyed-blue eyed-extroverted-introverted-insecure-confident-quiet-loud boy. I will not say this boy’s name, it’ll ruin the picture in your mind. So, picture a boy, nobody special. The type of boy who wouldn’t raise his hand in the classroom. The type of boy who is jittery and fidgets with things on his desk and clothes. A boy with eyes, like everyone else. Brown ones. Nothing special. But I guess he decided that was boring, so he stole some of the sky and stuck it in his eyes. A boy with brown hair smoothed into an up shape, not too long, not too short. Hair like you maybe, hair like me maybe, but for sure hair like him.

This boy just walked into the room you are sitting in, say, a library. He is staying near the doorway, looking for a place to sit, spinning his pencil with his fingers. You look up from your book and look back at your book. He does not catch your eye in any special way. But you double take, because you spot something on his face. A birthmark maybe? A large one, an interesting one. What an interesting place for a birthmark, to the right of his chin and clear as day. He doesn’t seem to be ashamed of it, but a little proud. For a reason that I know, but you do not. You must ask him if you want to know. He finds a seat, it is not near you, and you don’t think much more about him. But I am going to make you think more about him.

Look over at the boy, you see him standing up now, by a bookshelf. Looking for something. A book, obviously. You wonder what kind of book he is looking for. Maybe something nonfiction, because he is intelligent. Maybe something fiction, because he wants inspiration. Maybe a book about the Carolinas, because he wants to live there. Maybe he’s just browsing, kind of like you were earlier today before you found the book you hold in your hands right now. You see him put his hand to his mouth, looking like he’s about to bite his nails, but he doesn’t. You cannot see his eyes from this angle due to his thick-rimmed glasses, so no eye contact is in play. That is the way he likes it. You see him pull out a wallet, it is an old mess of a thing, but he clutches it like it means the world to him. He pulls out a piece of paper to look at it, maybe there is a name of a book on it? You do not know. But I do. He puts his wallet back in his pocket and goes down the aisle a ways, and pulls out the book he has been looking for. You wonder what it is, but figure it does not matter, so you go back to reading. I will tell you what the boy does while you are not looking at him. He goes to sit down, back to the seat that is not near you. He opens the book, but doesn’t start at the beginning, he starts near the middle, as if he has read it before and is looking for a certain part. He has read it before, and he is looking for a certain part. But you do not know what it is. You see him shift in his seat, probably around 15 minutes later. You are looking at him again. Quietly observing. He grabs his old wallet out of his back pocket and gets a small square out of it. You catch a glimpse of it and find that it is something that looks like a family photo. He puts it in the book to save his spot. He gets up to check the book out. Even though he has a copy at home.

You can’t take it anymore, secretly this whole time you have been dying to talk to him, have you not? You want to see these eyes I speak of up close. You put your book on the table in front of you, not caring about losing your spot. You get up swiftly and walk slowly over to this boy you have been observing for minutes upon minutes. You try not to seem creepy and you just act like you are behind him in line. But we both know you are not. He seems to look finished with the checkout process and starts to leave. You see the book he is picking up off the counter, it is a book you have only seen but once. And that one time was now. It is Perks of Being a Wallflower. A book that does not seem interesting, but you bet it is because this boy is interesting. Before he gets the chance to step away from the counter, you tap him on the shoulder. He turns around, and you see his special birthmark by his chin, but only after you met his brown and blue eyes. He says hello to you, and you do not know what you were going to plan to say, so you simply say this: “Hi, what’s your name?”