Today Will Be the Day

It’s weird to wake up in a usual room but feel anxious to the point where it seems as unfamiliar as a random stranger on the street. The off-white walls covered from head to toe with posters from every single musical I’ve attended, the old carpet that looked more like aged wine than the “miraculous magenta” shade shown in the advertisements, the dark brown furniture made from some unspecified wood, and the usual comfort of my bed were masked by an intense feeling of dread I could only describe as my body being as paralyzed as someone who was bitten by a poisonous spider. However, despite this awful feeling, I had to force myself out of bed the minute “By the Sea” blared from my phone and remind myself that at least that day was the last day of the week.

I quickly dragged myself through my morning routine: Run to the kitchen for a balanced breakfast of strong coffee and a granola bar, run back to my bedroom to make my bed and put on some indigo skinny jeans, a solid white blouse, and an ebony cardigan, run to the bathroom to wash my coffee-colored skin and tie my light-brown curly hair into a messy bun, et cetera. By the end of the routine, I looked quite different than the sleep-deprived girl I was when I woke up, but that heart-wrenching feeling was still making my body shake more than someone who was out in the snow for hours. At least I knew what was causing the anxiety this time, and I glared at my dark eyes in the mirror:

“You’ve been waiting for this day for a while, haven’t you?” I asked myself, “Archer is a great guy, y’know? You heart could’ve picked someone who’s only good with making themselves look good, but Archer is your best friend—in fact, he’s your only friend! And you’ve been having butterflies around him for a long time. Might as well tell him how you feel—he’ll take it well… hopefully.”

I sighed. The pounding of my heart and shaking of my limbs seemed to have calmed down, and I was able to finish my little pep talk by pointing at myself and declaring, “January Davidson, today will be the day where you will say ‘I like you, Archer DeWitt!’ no matter what you think he would say!”

Afterwards, I quickly plopped some earbuds on my ears, blared my Broadway playlist, and prepared myself a sandwich and strawberries for lunch while humming “If I were a Rich Man,” feeling my nerves fading like ghosts even more as the seconds of the song passed by and hoping that said nerves would stay that way for the entire day. I then shimmied out of the house without waking up my parents and raced to the drab little bus stop at the end of the block.

As usual, Archer wasn’t waiting there, as he usually got a ride from his older sister. I sighed and listened to my tunes for a couple of minutes until the even more unexceptional school bus arrived and took me to the most unexceptional school that could ever exist: Lawrence High School.

And boy, was Lawrence unexceptional. As I trotted through the grey-and-gold hallways, I passed the typical athletes with the varsity jackets, cliques of girls with perfect hair and makeup giving anyone not in their circle facial expressions that looked like they were out for blood, the loner kids who tried to look invisible, and other colorful characters of the everyday high school story. I guess I could’ve considered myself an outsider, but I really didn’t care. As long as I had Archer to talk to, I was perfectly okay.

When I got to my first period, I quickly recognized Archer’s dark wavy hair the sea of blondes, brunettes, and some quite unusual hair colors my parents would probably frown upon me having and took the seat next to him, quickly flashing a wave before I felt my heart beginning to race like a horse again.

“We have a sub here today.” He turned his head towards mine and flashed me a small smile.

“We… do?” I stuttered a little. “Cool.”

“So it looks like we have an extra day to do that textbook work, woot woot!”

I chuckled a little and squeaked, “Seems like it.”

Archer paused for a second before responding to me, “… Are you alright, Jan?”

“What?” I blushed, “Oh, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I trust you.” Before I could respond, I heard the usual pealing of the bells and noticed a short man with a face as white as talcum powder standing in the front of the room.

The man introduced himself as Darren Krakowsi, an experienced English teacher who had successful AP scores when he taught that kind of course back in the 90s and how those courses are important for our college and how he retired from teaching and traveled around the world with his wife and how we could do the same if we have good careers and basically everything else the counselors tell us at the annual meeting where we discuss college applications.

During the lecture, I tried to calm my nerves by commentating on it to Archer with comments such as, “Well, now I know that the AP test is exactly the same as it was back when my mom took it!” and “It’s not like we’re already crying over the advanced classes we’re taking this year!”

Archer even added some of his own commentary: “How does he know that I will retire when I’m in my 60s?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “He may have telepathy or something.”

The rest of class consisted of this Mr. Krakowsi blabbing on and on and on about his life and things the other kids couldn’t care less about, and the bell rang before he could get to the supposed “fun part” he was hinting at.

“What do you think the fun part was?” I asked Archer as I got up to go to my next class.

“Oh gee, I don’t know.” Archer shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t constipated for one whole day!”

I laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder before we went our separate ways.

The other three classes I had before lunch were without Archer, and that allowed me to forget about my plan to ask him out for a bit. I managed to practice my lines for Sound of Music in drama, write my notes as quickly as I could in chemistry when the teacher is talking as fast as someone on drugs, and continued to take notes over powerpoint after powerpoint in history while the teacher there used references to random crap to seem hip. By the time I was allowed to go back to lunch, I simply brushed off my jeans and sighed as loudly as I think I could before feeling that ever-so-familiar pounding of my heart and sweating of my palms.

Crap… I thought, this feeling's going to remain until I confess my love to Archer, won’t it?

I clasped my hands together and walked as fast as I could down the halls to Archer’s last class before lunch, which fortunately/unfortunately was only a couple doors from mine. To make it even better and worse, Archer just happened to be leaving the room when I ran into him.

“Oh… Hey, Archer!” I exclaimed, smiling to try and hide my nervousness.

“Hey, Jan!” He waved, “Can’t eat lunch with you today, sorry.”

“Oh…” My smile faded a little, “why?”

“I need to talk to Mrs. Greer about a missing grade.”

“Oh… that sounds important! Good luck with that!”

“Thanks.”

I walked away after that conversation, my heart pounding heavier than it ever had. You were so close, Jan… I thought, but he had to talk to a teacher! Oh my God!

Well, it is something important. I’m okay, I’m okay, I’ll be okay. I’ll just tell him after school! Yeah, that’ll work! That’ll work splendidly!

So, I tried to continue my day as best as I could: I frantically took notes about how triangles could be declared similar by looking at their sides and angles in geometry, I kept trying again and again and again to ask my way around the city in French while the teacher was being as judgmental as any bitchy popular girl in those movies about high school, and I actually watched a movie in health about the wonders of abstinence and how fulfilling it could be for all of us and blah, blah, blah.

After the last class of the day, I hurried myself out of the class and down the usual grey-and-gold hallways to find Archer as fast as I could before going on the bus to go home, my heart racing like a horse. Thoughts kept racing in my head like What if he thinks I’m creepy? And what if he takes the confession badly?

It didn’t take long to recognize Archer at his locker from the infinite sea of students in the hallway, and I managed to dodge some students hastily walking in the other direction to reach him.

“Hey Jan!” Archer smiled until he noticed my face looking whiter than the coffee-brown shade it was supposed to be. “You okay?”

“Well… Archer…” I began, stuttering worse than a kid with a speech impediment.

“What is it?”

“Well, we’ve been friends for years, and ever since the start of high school, I began to see…” my heart began pounding more and more with every word I was saying, “you… as more… than… a friend!”

Archer was very silent for a couple of seconds before finally responding to my confession. “So you have a crush on me?”

“Yeah…” I squeaked.

“Okay.” He was silent for what seemed like forever before sighing. “I’m sorry, Jan, you’re a great person, I mean, you’re my best friend… I just don’t like you in that way.”

I could literally feel my heart shatter as I whispered an “Okay” and raced to my bus.

All of that heart-pounding and palm-sweating and shivering returned as I took a seat in the bus and began listening to my usual Broadway playlist. No matter what happy-go-lucky song played, though, I couldn’t help but keep what just happened in my head, reminding myself again and again and again of what Archer told me.

What did you do, January?! I thought, you were such great friends with him, but you had to tell him that you liked him! What will he think of you now? What will he think of you now?

Once I got off the bus, I raced back home as fast as I could, raced to my room, and slammed the door. Nobody else was home to respond to the sudden slamming, so all I could hear was the sinking feeling in my chest.

I felt paralyzed; I couldn’t move my position at all and couldn’t feel anything but the comfort of my bed and the trembling of my hands. I stayed in this position for seemingly hours and hours and hours before I could at least sit up and put my hands over my aching chest.

I exhaled loudly and told myself, “Well, at least today’s Friday, so I don’t have to see Archer for a couple of days.” That reassurance managed to make my anxious feeling fade enough for me to get up and look at my still-pale face in the mirror.

“Well…” I continued trying to reassure myself, “at least you told Archer how you felt, right? I mean, when else… was I going to have that opportunity? I’ve been holding that fact back for at least a year…”

I felt my hands stop shaking and my heart calming down, and I continued, “After all, life doesn’t work like it does in the musicals. People don’t always start getting together just because they have feelings for each other…right?”

After more continuous reassurance, I felt as normal as I did when I didn’t think about confessing my love for Archer. My chest wasn’t hurting at all, and I was not trembling like a mouse. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I noticed that my the color returned to my face. I smiled at myself in the mirror and said one last thing before leaving the room and beginning my homework:

“At least you tried, Jan.”