Mallen Streak

Liz has this long curly hair that looks so delicate and soft, like not even trampling fingers through it could disturb the appearance. She dyes it a different color once or twice a year. When I met her it was red and now it’s a deep shaded purple. Somehow, all the colors manage to suit her.

Her face is shaped like an almond, speckled with light colored freckles on her cheeks and a soft pointed chin. Maybe without the colored hair she would blend in a little more, but I have doubts.

She’s someone I can talk to for hours without pause. To a lot of other people, my best friend is flirtatious and attracts their  attention in her own subtle ways. But she’s like gravity, reeling us all in.

Freshman year, I was still pretty new so I didn’t have many connections, while Liz was friends with some people in all the grades above us. She knew them from growing up in the same small town together. And one of the cool (at least in my freshman eyes) senior girls told Liz she was in love with her that year, shocking me completely.

“We were texting last night,” Liz had told me back then, in the library one morning before classes had started, “and she just totally flipped things around on me. I didn’t see it coming. But she’s really pretty, isn’t she?”

I hadn’t really thought of any of the girls in our school as pretty. There just weren’t many of us in a school of about 300. But I still agreed with my friend just to see what she’d say next. I hadn’t realized Liz was interested in girls or where this would lead.

The truth is that not much happened between them. Liz talked about it nearly every day for weeks, giving me updates, but I still can’t really say it was anything. I felt bad, but to me, it was almost like my best friend was leading the other girl on. She kept telling me she wasn’t “sure” about her feelings, while the senior was constantly spamming her phone with messages and throwing her admiring glances in the hallways. Liz was loving every second of it, and that was mistaken for reciprocation.

We’re seniors now. The girl who loved my best friend left high school when we became sophomores and probably (hopefully) moved on. She still texts Liz sometimes, but when their romantic air died down, Liz started acting cold towards her and saying “If she never liked me, things would have been fine but now it’s weird.”

I didn’t know how to respond so I just stayed quiet.

We’ve grown closer over the years, so I’ve seen more colors on her hair and more guys in and out of her life. There’s been one boyfriend each year so far.

As a freshman, towards the end of the year, Liz became interested in a guy who played in the same flute section as her in the band. They started talking in class a lot more, and were dating by the last month of school. They texted back and forth all summer, but she wasn’t available to hang out with him as much as he would’ve liked (because she was growing increasingly uninterested and didn’t have the motivation to go out of her way to see him) so he told her they should just be friends. Then she was suddenly . . . sad. She told me he broke her heart.

At the start of sophomore year, we had a new student. Liz claimed him and managed to keep him for six months. After that, he didn’t feel so new, and he again suggested they should be friends when she was becoming more distant. He also broke her heart.

She spent the rest of the year flirting with anyone who was up for it, and all summer she was texting one of the guys in our friend group, Zach. Junior year started, they kept flirting, and at the middle of it he asked her to be his girlfriend. They actually seemed really happy for three months, until Liz saw the guy she dated freshman year with his new freshman girlfriend. She became jealous, and Zach noticed, so they went back to just being friends. Like nothing happened.

For Senior year I knew what to expect. Liz would find romantic entanglements, she would tell me all about them, I would focus on my classes and not date anyone. That’s the way things would be.

It’s been two months, and I’ve already gathered that my friend is surprisingly having a hard time liking anyone now that they’re all below our grade.

“Don’t the freshmen just look so . . . young?” she asks me one day as we walk to my car in the school parking lot. Everyone is outside—waiting for the bus, a ride from their parents, or going to their cars. “I don’t remember us being that little. It feels like a long time ago.”

“They kind of do,” I say.

“I might have to wait until college to get a new crush. That seems like it’s so far away from now! What if the college guys aren’t even cute?”

I open the door to my car and slide in as Liz puts her hefty backpack in the seat and gets in after it, her legs straddling each side. “I’m sure the college guys will be fine. They’ll like you. There’s no doubt.”

I’m always reassuring her. Liz puts on a coy act, as if she’s never had affection from anyone before, but I’ve witnessed many people fall for her over the years. She’ll have no problems.

My best friend blushes as she latches the seatbelt. “I hope so. Because this school has like, no options at this point. No wonder you’re avoiding the people here. I wish I had done the same.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

I’m not actually avoiding anyone. Honestly, I’m just used to Liz being the only one who dates. It might be weird to shift our dynamic this late in the game.

“So,” she says. “One of the sophomore guys has a crush on me.”

“How do you know?”

“He stares at me!” She thinks everyone stares at her. “And if that wasn’t enough, one of his friends told me he liked me too. Isn’t it cute how they still do that?”

I don’t really know what to say at the moment, so I chuckle and focus on making a  turn, nearing Liz’s subdivision. Most people from the school live here. The houses are all big and homey at the same time. My house is comfortable but significantly smaller. I have never invited Liz over. We always go to her place. She never even asks about mine.

“So, what guy was it?” I finally ask her. I know that’s what she wants me to do.

“Brennan,” Liz says. “He’s the one with jet black hair and a streak of white in the front. I don’t know how he even knows me, but yeah, apparently he likes me. I just don’t see him that way.”

Sometimes she seems impertinent, but I try to remind myself these things are part of her comfort zone. Talking about guys. Getting attention. She likes it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing really. I don’t really feel like listening to it on certain days, but I love her so I always listen.

We say goodbye for the day and I go home, expecting tomorrow will be much of the same.

…

I’m in art class the next day, struggling to focus on what’s in front of me, and that’s when I recognize Brennan at a table. The guy Liz was telling me about yesterday after school. Art isn’t something I enjoy taking--I’m only here because it’s required to graduate and I’ve been putting it off until the last minute, so I tend to not pay as much attention. But as soon as I see him again I easily remember previous days in the classroom when we walked past each other, never interacting further.

We’re working independently today on pencil drawings, which at least are my favorite. I’m a little better with a pencil than paint or clay. He’s across the room, in the back corner, not paying any attention. In a productive way because he’s lost in his drawing--leaning over the paper, hair overlapping his face as he makes confident strokes.

Suddenly, I’m interested to see what he's working on. Talking to a guy doesn’t make me any more nervous than I would be by talking to any new person. It’s not worth getting psyched up over. Today I realize I want to go over to him and find out what he’s about. I probably never would have noticed him if it weren’t for my conversation with Liz yesterday.

After class, when we’re gathering things up, I walk to the back of the room instead of dashing out the door. Most people take more time to leave the art room, since we actually have supplies and things to put away, but I usually pack things up slowly and eye the clock so I can be out as soon as possible.

Brennan isn’t rushing at all. He’s neatly placing his pencils and sketchbook away, slipping them into their dedicated places in his large backpack. He doesn’t really even notice me coming over until he’s nearly done. When he looks up, he frowns.

I’m thinking I may have made a mistake.

“You’re friends with Liz, aren’t you?” he asks me right away, deadpan.

“Um, yeah.” I’m feeling incredibly awkward now, wondering why I decided to do this after all. “You’re . . . Brennan, right?”

There’s no one else in this school who looks like him. I know it’s Brennan, but the cold stare he’s giving me is making me question everything about this situation now.

“Look, I don’t care if Liz isn’t interested in me. I don’t actually like her. My friend said that as a joke.” He zips his backpack shut roughly, slinging it over one shoulder. “You can just go away now.”

I can’t believe how blatant he is. I almost can’t respond because I’m so thrown off, so he assumes I have nothing more to say and rolls his eyes, pushing past me.

For some reason, I’m not deterred. I follow him into the hallway. “Wait! Why would your friend do that?”

“He has a bad sense of humor,” Brennan says to me over his shoulder. We’re both walking towards the cafeteria, so I guess his lunch hour is the same as mine. That gives me more time to talk to him, despite his disinterest.

“So . . . who do you like then?”

“No one.”

“Same here,” I say, attempting this unappealing small talk, which is the direction I’m used to taking conversations with Liz. She always wants to talk about dating and crushes. Not everyone is that way, but right now I’m scrambling for a topic.

Brennan finally spins around to look at me, this time taking me in completely, like an assessment. We’ve made it to the lunch line, which is long and slow moving. It seems like we have some time to keep this going for now.

“Why are you trying to talk to me? You don’t even know me, and all I know about you is that you follow Liz around and never say anything. I don’t know why you’re starting today.”

His bluntness leaves me baffled yet again. The underclassmen might seem small to us, but I’m realizing they’re actually pretty intimidating in their own ways.

It’s true. I don’t say much to anyone but Liz. If she had the same lunch schedule as me, I’d be with her right now, listening to whatever updates she has to give mid-school day instead of waiting until the end. But she’s not here, so I’m walking behind Brennan, actually interested in having a conversation I haven’t had before.

“I wanted to meet you,” I admit. “I thought you liked Liz, but even if you don’t, why can’t we talk?”

He turns his head away from me in the next moment, leaving me with a full view of his side profile. He’s slender with sharp shoulders and a jawline that fits the look. There’s dark hair gathered at the nape of his long neck, which is just another physical attribute that goes with his lankiness. Why am I so interested in talking to him? I can’t say for sure, but my eyes are busy noticing every detail of him as he stands this close to me and that’s enough to keep me rooted to the spot.

“I’m not the best at . . . meeting new people,” Brennan says finally. “That’s why my friend was trying to hook me up with Liz. But when I saw her, I just knew she wasn’t someone I’d get along with. And you’re always with her, so I figured you were the same. I never see you talk to anyone but her.”

“She’s my best friend.”

“I know.”

The line moves, so we shift closer to the front, and even a little closer together. Brennan’s eyes are a gray-blue, sunken beneath his droopy eyelids and lengthy lashes. He’s making eye contact, and when I stare back at him, I feel something stir. Those eyes. And that hair, falling across his forehead. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like he’s just another ordinary person in this small school. I thought he was just the next guy falling for my best friend. But he’s not.

“Can I still get to know you?” I ask tentatively.

He doesn’t break eye contact, but he does look slightly more flustered. “Well, uh . . . yeah. Sure.”

I reach up suddenly, my fingers gently gliding across the hair that’s white like the moon against his midnight strands. It’s an intimate gesture, but I do it without thinking too hard. “What’s this?”

I’m glad that he doesn’t seem to mind my touch. And as Brennan starts telling me about his “mallen streak,” we slowly move forward. He grows more comfortable every moment as we speak and walk together, then find seats side by side. 

I can already feel the thread running between us, hinting. Preparing to pull and tangle.