Spencer Robel's Story

I knew he was a main character from the second he walked in the door. His name was Spencer for God’s sake, it doesn’t get more obvious than that. My name’s basic Max, it’s not even cool like Drew or Chris, just your run of the mill Max. It doesn’t get any more non-main charactery than that.

I have a perfectly boring family: a father who works all day and watches TV all night, a mother who cooks and makes us do our homework, and finally an annoying little sister. I mean, we even have a dog, named Spot. We go to church on Sundays and Grandma’s on holidays. I played soccer when I was small and now, I just try to make it through school, hating it as much as any other teenage boy. I play video games, save money for a car, and hang out with the guys eating pizza whenever I can. But not Spencer.

If my normal was vanilla ice cream, Spencer was the confetti flavored birthday cake. He had the swooshy clean cut dark brown hair, the green eyes that caught the light, and the confident bounce in his step even though he was the new kid in town. When we stepped into our classroom that Monday morning, every head turned, and every heart decided they wanted to get to know this mysterious new figure. He was cool, just cool from the start.

Spencer had a mom and little brother. They had moved to town because his mom lost her job due to a kingpin scheme. His dad was never around, left after Harley was born. Working in such a dark neighborhood, riddled with crime, his mother was afraid of either herself or one of the boy’s getting shot. So, when she was fired she saw it as an opportunity to start over, in a nice quiet little town, specifically my quiet little town.

I was the lucky kid Spencer Robel sat in front of. I couldn’t believe my luck, but he would never talk to a nobody like me. I mean, someone had to be the guy he sat next to, that didn’t mean he’d become my friend. But after whispering the answers to a few of the teacher’s questions, I was able to win him over, along with some serious street cred. We spent lunch together, talking video games and sports cars: I knew I was in.

It didn’t take more than a week for him to notice Katelyn, though.

“Who’s that?” Spencer pointed clearly with his eyes, because he was cool enough to do that without his hands.

“Katelyn Cooke.”

Katelyn Cooke was the dream girl of our school. Her curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes coupled with her ability to spit out math facts like a machine meant she was going places. I’d know her since I was four years old, Sunday School, she’d never looked twice at me. But every guy looked twice at her.

“She’s the greatest man,” I explained to Spencer, “she’s pretty and smart, but we have no shot with her.” I paused. “Well, you may have a small chance because you have that new guy mystery thing going for ya. Me, she’s known since we were babies.” I frowned. “Unless you can turn us into jocks overnight, she’s never gonna write her first name with our last just to test it out.”

“Oh c’mon man, we’re total studs.” Spencer slapped me on the back, complete confidence guy.

“Yeah, sure.” I laughed doubtfully.

“Let’s switch seats in History, she sits in front of you right?” He schemed.

“Yeah. But she’ll never look at you bro.” I had to lower his expectations, so it didn’t hurt as bad when he fell.

“Well, I wanna try.”

“Okay good luck, I’ll have a rebound speech ready for the end of the period.” Spencer chuckled but I was low-key serious.

Class was going along just fine, normal from top to bottom. The teacher didn’t reprimand our seat switch most likely because it was Spencer who was involved, main characters don’t get in trouble. Then, Katelyn Cooke dropped her pencil. The one day, she’s never dropped it before, ever.

I saw their eyes meet as he bent down to hand it back. Of course, it was the day we switched seats. Of course, it was Spencer’s eyes she saw. Of course, it wasn’t me. I wish it was. But I’m not the main character.

Spencer and Katelyn started talking, and when I say started, I mean a lot. We’d built a strong friendship in that first week, but him and Katelyn built one ten times as strong in the first three days. But Spencer never forgot me, his trusty little side character friend, we still played games, watched movies, went to football games, and rode our bikes. Life was good.

Then college application time rolled around. My grades weren’t exceptional, but they weren’t bad. I didn’t do any extracurriculars outside of my job, so I was really only looking into applying to community college. My family probably couldn’t afford much more than that anyway. But Spencer, Spencer and his big dreams wanted to go to State.

We’d been spending a lot of time together, about 85% of what he didn’t spend with Katelyn, and he wanted me to go with him. We could be roommates, listening to music on the quad, becoming buds with the guys on the floor and throwing frisbees cross the green, it would be the greatest. And after two weeks of constant nagging and encouragement, it became not just Spencer’s dream to go to state, but mine too, ours.

So I applied. And with all the financial form help from Spencer and grade bumps he helped me talk my teachers into, it wasn’t looking so bad for me. I was getting excited, maybe I did stand a chance at going to State after all. Applications were sent out, now all we had to do was wait.

School was going well, senior year so there wasn’t all that much that mattered, and Spencer and I were using that to our advantage. We were having fun, and with each passing week I got to know him better and vice versa. By Christmas we were officially best friends, I even got to hang out with Katelyn too. In March the subject of Prom popped up and of course Spencer wanted to ask Katelyn to go with him, but in a big way.

I helped plan the proposal since I’d know Katelyn forever, even if we were never really friends. I told Spencer about the time she played Little Red Riding Hood in the school play and that her favorite flowers were Gerber Daisys since she used to always have a Daisy lunch box, even today her pencil case donned the delicate flowers.

The sign read “I think it’d be Hood if we went to PROM together, what about you?” with a Red Riding Hood cape that said PROM. He also got her a bouquet of Daisys. It was a big deal, half of school saw, and all the other girls swooned over it. Spencer and I spent four hours hand painting that sign. She said yes, of course.

I offered to chauffeur them to the dance then. I didn’t have a date, but I really liked Spencer, so I thought it’d be cool for him and Katelyn if I offered, and Spencer really seemed to appreciate it. I wore a suit and practiced my manners like the butlers in movies and everything. After dropping them off at the front entrance I drove around to park.

I was sitting in my dad’s car that I borrowed, alone in an old suit from a thrift shop because I couldn’t afford a tux, watching couples go in and out. I could go in. I might meet someone, I thought to myself. Spencer would welcome me into a big group, he wouldn’t leave me alone. It could be fun.

But I didn’t want that pity. I didn’t want to be the sad friend that got included because he was tight with someone popular. I could go in and avoid Spencer, try to make it on my own. Meet someone, make a new friend by myself. But I didn’t, because I’m not the main character.

Nothing happened to me on Prom night. I picked up a pizza, went home and ate it while binge watching Star Wars. But something awful happened to Spencer. Harley was home with the babysitter, his mom was working a late shift, when the wires in the dryer short-circuited. He was upstairs and the sitter downstairs, when she panicked and forgot to get him.

By the time the fire department got there the house was ablaze. Luckily, Harley survived with severe smoke inhalation and some first degree burns on his hand from trying to open the door. The fireman had to go through the window to get him. But the house was gone, totally incinerated.

I got the call at 3:00. Katelyn had been taken home and Spencer showed up to fire trucks on his front lawn: he needed a friend. I wrote a note, left it on the kitchen table telling my parents where I was, and left to do my duty. We sat in the hospital waiting room for hours. As we sat there, I realized it was like drugs, main characterness. With the higher highs, come the lower lows. Maybe I’m glad I have my medium bumps, it’s not too bad.

After the fire Spencer spent a lot of afternoons at my house, sometimes he even brought Harley. They were staying with family, but it was cramped and noisy with a bunch of little cousins and their pets running about. Spencer was sad, I mean who wouldn’t be, his whole house burnt down. But he never cried.

We played outside a lot too, climbing trees and playing Stickball. Stickball was a game the Robel boys made up, you get a stick, obviously and for a ball whatever you could find. Sometimes it was a real ball, if you were lucky, but other times it was a plastic water bottle or socks, one time we even used a rock. Then it was some messy sort of baseball game where Ghost Runners held your place on base and stealing was just an attorney’s argument to a judge. It was good fun though. Spencer didn’t need much to be happy, the chipper boy, his main character qualities were really shining through.

Two weeks after the house burnt down, the acceptance letter came through. Spencer was going to live his dream—he was going to State. And since his house caught fire annihilating majority of his family’s assets, State was giving him a full ride. I got a letter the same day, except mine didn’t start with congratulations. It started with “regretfully”. Did you forget I’m not the main character?

It worked out fine though, I got into the community college I’d originally planned on attending. I really just wanted to be a normal business major, graduating in four years and getting a stable job at some big company. I didn’t need much more than that to be happy. But I needed to separate myself from Spencer and his alluring glow of coolness to see that that’s what my dreams where, who I was.

Spencer hoped to one day own his own company, his very own architect business. He could design the beautiful homes and have his own legion of yes-men to build it. His ambitions were another main character trait. But it suited him, a man like that has to do something with his life, he’ll never be content sitting in a five-by-five cubicle every day.

We all want to be the main character, but sometimes when we take a look at ourselves, we just aren’t. We’re the trusty side-kick friend ready to sacrifice for the outgoing, adventurous protagonist without any reward at all. So own it, it’s okay to be you, if you is the quirky quiet side character, or the seemingly lame best pal, go for it. Because I’m Max, and I’m the side character best friend in Spencer Robel’s story, and I loved every minute of it.