Page 42 of Ask No Questions

He barely raised his eyes to look at me before returning to the book. Strike one…he wasn’t up for my lame attempt at a conversation.

“What’s wrong, Matt?”

This time, he barely made the effort to look at me. Strike two… the direct approach didn’t work either.

“Is this about a girl?”

He gaped at me and slammed the book. “How did you know?”

Third time's a charm! I smiled at him and pushed my chair back to stand up. “Let’s go for a walk.”

We headed down the beach a little way before either of us said anything. He finally sighed and shook his head.

“I just don’t get girls. They don’t make any sense.”

I laughed a little. “Well consider yourself lucky that you figured that out so young. Is there a certain girl giving you trouble?”

He didn’t say anything at first. He shrugged his shoulders and looked up at me. “There’s this girl. She’s in some of my classes and is really nice and really smart.”

“Sounds like a winner.”

He ignored me. “She talks to me in class and wants to be partners, even when her friends are there. But today, some guys were making fun of me at lunch for being in classes with the older kids. They were calling me a freak. I’ve heard people calling me a geek or a nerd but not a freak.”

My heart was breaking for him. Matt was a sensitive child when he was little, but since I’ve been here, he seemed confident and comfortable with his own identity. How could kids be so cruel to each other?

“Katie, that’s her name, just stood there and laughed at what they were saying. I thought she was my friend.” He looked down at the sand, dragging his feet.

I stopped and turned to him, putting my hands on his shoulders. “Matt, please listen to me. You are a brilliant and kind young man. I am so sorry those kids were mean, and Katie didn’t stand up for you. I can imagine that was what hurt the most.”

He nodded, still looking at the ground.

“Bullies target anyone who is different, and you are definitely different from them. That isn’t something to be ashamed of. You would never talk about other people or try to put them down, right?” He looked up at me and gave a small shrug.

“It might be hard now, but you should be proud of who you are. You’re the smartest person in your grade. Think about when you guys are in high school. You’ll be hanging out with all of the older girls since you’ll be in their classes.”

I winked at him, and he laughed as a blush rushed to his cheeks. Carter popped into my head. Maybe he could talk to Matt. He knew better than anyone what he was going through since Matt was on the same track to graduate early.

“You’re going to finish top of your class and go to whatever university you want while those mean kids will be left hoping you remember them when you’re running your own computer company like Steve Jobs.”

He laughed harder, evidently enjoying picturing that. It took me this long to figure out that I was giving him advice I needed. Who cared what people at school said about me? Sydney and her minions could say whatever they wanted, but in the end, it didn’t matter. High school was such a short amount of time, and I probably would only see the girls after graduation. I promised myself I wouldn’t care what people say anymore. If Matt could do it, then I could too.

“You have your best friends, right?”

“Yeah, Henry and Jordan are nice.”

“Good. Be grateful for them and ignore the other kids and their comments. If they say anything about you again, just picture yourself running a top five hundred company.”

He nodded, finally accepting what I was trying to tell him. “Thanks, Aubrey. You’re pretty funny.”

“Thanks, kid. Now that everything is probably done, let’s go back and have dinner and see if we can get out of helping clean up too.”

After dinner, Diane asked me to go out to the patio with her. It did get me out of cleaning up which earned me a glare from Matt as I walked out. Diane smiled at me as I sat down next to her facing the ocean.

“How are things going, Aubrey? I feel bad I haven’t checked in with you very often.”

My own mother had never in all my years sat me down to just talk. I glanced at my aunt and saw a look of pure love. Another thing I never got from my mom.

“I’m doing really well, actually. School is going okay. Luckily, I have a friend in math and another in AP History, so they help me out whenever I struggle.”