Tommy

Side note: The names of my stalkers have been changed. I enjoy anonymity and, I assume, so will everyone involved.


Tommy was the first


Ah, seventh grade.  My memory regarding this certain time in my life is hazy, probably because I've been desperately trying ever since to shove it all into the dark recesses of my brain.  Yet one part of the entire ordeal sticks out in my noggin like a shining neon sign of shame and despair: Tommy.

Tommy epitomized all of the gawky awkwardness of a middle-school boy. He was tall, with a mop of curly blonde hair upon his head and a delightsome, flesh-toned pedo-stache below his nose.  I honestly don't remember how I even met the kid; I think he was in my homeroom because, as fate would have it, the first letter of his last name was devastatingly close to mine.

Thank you, alphabetically assigned seatage.

He always stared at me.  I'd never been stared at by a boy, so I didn't know how to react.  Come to think of it, I don't think anyone knows how to react when being stared at, regardless of how often the situation arises.  I thought about talking to the people around me, but they were frightening and wore black and looked like they wanted to crack in my skull with a blunt object.  I believe I resorted to staring at my desk.

Thinking back on it, I think the best thing to do would have been to stare back--cross-eyed--perhaps with a bit of drool hanging over my lip.

On second thought, he probably would have taken that as a sign that I was totally into him and he would have tried to make out with me, right then and there.

At first, I was nice. When he talked to me, I talked back.  This was probably because, at the time, he was the only one who would talk to me, so I put his creepy tendencies aside, lest I lose my only social contact in this lion's den of prepubescent numbskulls.

One day, while he was talking to me at snack break, this popular girl named Shawna pulled me aside.

"Why are you talking to Tommy?" She asked, repulsion coloring her every word. Her eyes flared with derision.  I could feel my face turning pale.  I did not want Shawna talking to me in such an accusatory fashion.  I wanted Shawna to like me.

"I don't know," I mumbled, quite incoherently.

"Well, you shouldn't.  He's weird.  Stop it."

It felt as though something very large and very uncomfortable had fallen upon my head in an unpleasant fashion.  Realization slowly dawned as I excused myself to go to the restroom, my vision cloudy with shame and disappointment and other unfortunate adjectives.

I didn't have any friends because I talked to Tommy and Tommy was weird.


This was simple middle-school logic that my poor little brain failed to wrap itself around until just then.

Now, I realize at this point my story sounds like the beginning of a bad romantic comedy.  You are probably beginning to feel bad for poor Tommy.  Tommy could be one of those strange young men who turns out to be a wonderful friend, despite being misunderstood by the popular kids and getting lost in the shuffle of teenage superficiality.  Tommy could be a diamond in the rough, a real charmer, a potential love interest.

I ask you to quell such thoughts right now.

At one point he asked me for my number and I gave it to him.  Despite simple common sense and an inherent desire for self-preservation, I still am unable to deny someone my name or number.  I think it's some sort of niceness disease.  I always end up regretting it, but I can never let down their poor, desperately hopeful little zit-covered faces.

So he called me. Every night.  Looking back on it, he probably thought I was the crazy one, because in order to avoid actually talking to him when he called, I resorted to carrying on conversations with my cat.  Our phone calls tended to go like this.

Tommy: Hey, Olivia...what's up?

Me: Oh, nothing much just sitting here doing homework.

Tommy: That's cool. So hey--

Me:  Kitty!  Oh hey, little guy!  Fancy seeing you here!  You're a cute little fluffy kitty aren't you? Aren't you?! AREN'T YOU?!

Tommy: Um...

Me: Are you hungry?

Tommy: ...well, not really.

Me: Oh, not you. I was talking to my cat.

I started to avoid talking to him or even coming into contact with him in the hallway.  These efforts were in vain.  I remember being on the complete opposite side of the hallway, and he would walk by, parallel to me, and yell out "Excuse me, Olivia!"  As if I had actually had to move to let him pass.  I wasn't even in his bubble.

Things continued in this fashion for a while.  I got super good at avoiding.

Then, fate intervened once more, when he was assigned to sit right in front of me in second semester reading class.  Every day he'd just turn back in his seat and stare at me, unabashedly.  And when I wasn't trying to avoid his soul penetrating gaze, I was forced to stare at the back of his neck.  It was at this moment in time I garnered a certain physical aversion to the back of a boy's neck that still haunts me to this very day; it was a repulsive sight to me.

Weeks went by. Phone calls, stares, horrendously uncomfortable small talk...I was getting sick of it.  I couldn't take it anymore.  I couldn't stand his scruffy hair, his fuzzy peach face, his small glasses that rested slightly askew in front of the beady little eyes that bored into my very skull.

I snapped.

I looked up from my reading class reading to find him staring at me, again.  I balled my hands into fists, fixed my gaze upon his, clenched my teeth and growled with all the venom I could muster, "The board is at the front of the room.  Stop staring at me."

His eyes grew wide.  "I was...looking at a poster behind you," he muttered, and turned back around.

And that was what I thought was the end of being creeped on by Tommy.

However, it was only the beginning.