23. Social Skills (Patreon)

"I hear if the teacher doesn't show up in fifteen minutes, we can just leave," Samantha eventually says.

I've been back to school for a few weeks now, having classes during the day and hanging out with Tara all evening. I hardly interact with anyone else anymore, at least outside of classes, but that's more than okay. I was never much of a 'hanger' anyway. I caught up on the schoolwork I missed fairly quickly, and I do all of my new homework at home (like it says on the tin) while Tara reads. Sometimes she'll study with me instead, she's apparently quite fond of my textbooks. The little alien is particularly interested in history, a fantastic coincidence considering that I can't manage to pay attention in history class for more than two minutes at a time.

So I can't really bring myself to be too disappointed when the teacher just… isn't around today.

"Yeah, that's definitely a thing," one of the other students insists. "They can't keep us here. It's like… the law."

"Um, nobody's keeping us here in the first place," I point out. "This is a private college. We're paying them so we can be here."

Multiple people roll their eyes at me, so I shrink down and try to become invisible.

"I just mean the teacher can't mark us as absent if they don't fucking show up," the student clarifies.

"Are you super super sure, though?" another student asks. "I can't miss another day or I'll fail the class."

Internally, I balk at that. I ditch sometimes when it's urgent, but it's not difficult to email the professor with an 'I'm sick' notice and then get excused, no questions asked. Sure, it made me nearly rip my own heart out to lie to Professor Copple like that  (and almost made me pull my lungs out with it when she responded with an animated get well card) but my lie was at least for the good cause of becoming friends with an alien. I wonder what kind of crazy stuff these people are doing that stop them from even sending a message? Maybe alien bug friends are less uncommon in the grand scheme of things than I realized.

…Or they're just delinquents here on their parents' money, but that seems ungenerous to assume.

"Nobody is going to be there to mark us absent if the professor is absent," Samantha insists. "If fifteen minutes late is when we’re absent, it's when she's absent too."

Nods go all around. Yes, that seems reasonable. And everyone certainly wants it to be true, so we all decide to believe it. A bit of doubt remains in my heart though, so fifteen minutes comes and goes. Awkwardly, I stand around outside the classroom door until only Samantha and I remain.

"So…" Samantha murmurs, "got any plans for our sudden free period? I haven't seen much of you outside of class."

"Oh, um, yeah," I stutter. "Sorry. I've just been busy with, um. Stuff."

"With stuff, huh? That sure explains it. Eve, I get that you're not exactly a social butterfly, but you just kind of dropped off the face of the Earth. You been doing okay?"

"Yes?" I say, honestly surprised at the question.

"You need to get out more, girl. Hang out with friends. It's not good for you to be cooped up alone all the time."

While I don't totally disagree with that, I haven't exactly been alone. I suppose I can't tell her that without coming off as crazy, though.

"I… guess?" I venture. "But I'm not cooped up! I go outside a lot!"

"Evelyn, I know you go outside, but you don't go out. Come on, let's go for an early lunch. I have some other friends who’re free right now. We can all hang out and get food off campus."

"I don't really have a lot of extra food money…" I hedge.

"Oh my god. Then I'll buy you lunch, okay? Come on! I'm your friend, and I'm telling you that you need to socialize with something other than bugs."

I grumble quietly, offended by the implication that bugs are anything less than perfect company, but I can tell a losing argument when I see it.

"Fine…"

Samantha practically drags me off campus, sometimes literally while I protest her gratuitous jaywalking. Fiendish woman, the crosswalk is right there! She's tearing down the very fabric of society! Clearly, she is a bad influence on me, and I should leave and not go out in public at all.

An array of fast food joints has been unsurprisingly cropping up around my school, and out of all the possible choices Samantha pulls me into an Arby's. I have to admit, that's pretty disappointing. Couldn't she have at least kidnapped me for a meal at Taco Bell?

Immediately, I am dragged towards a group of three other people. One is kind of a ritzy girl, wearing long fake nails and those hoop earrings that mortally terrify me with nightmares of having them caught on something. Her curly brown hair bounces with vim as she speaks enthusiastically to the other two. I'm of the opinion that she'd actually be a lot prettier if she wore less makeup and add-ons, but she probably just likes it, so who am I to judge? Her shirt is cut to barely, barely let me see a hint of her cleavage, which (unless she stuffed her bra) is significantly bigger than mine, because of course it is.

The next-most-animate conversationalist is a very androgynous person, and I'm guessing that the look they're going for on purpose. Between the tight clothes that show off a wiry frame, the short-cut hair, the defined chest that could just as easily be pectoral muscles as it could be a contained pair of A-cups, I am thoroughly bamboozled. Not that I really trust my ability to pick up social cues correctly in the first place. I'm pretty sure that the polite thing to do in this situation is to just ask, which sounds like it would be an excellent solution for someone much less anxious than I am. "Hi, I'm Evelyn, I like bugs. What is your gender?" Like, yeah, that's how it's supposed to go I think, but I don't know for sure and I don't want to offend anyone and it doesn't really matter, right, because gender isn’t important because the worth of a person lives within the personality and the nature of their mind, not the arbitrary social constructs of... aaaaaaagh! Meeting people is really hard! I'm too busy having a philosophical freak out to even listen to what she's saying! I mean what they're saying! Or maybe what he's saying? Dammit I'm doing it again!

"Evelyn, this is Sasha, Alex, and Thomas," Samantha tells me, breaking me out of my mental spiral and pointing to her three friends in order.

Oh yeah, there are three. The third apparently being that hot guy who sits in front of me in Intro to Economics that always wears form-fitting shirts and is single-handedly the only interesting thing about the class. Like seriously, who the hell puts an economics class on the required course list for biology majors? Liberal arts education su—oh god he's holding out his hand he wants to shake my hand.

I stare at his fingers for a solid three seconds before managing to recover in time to give a Normal Person Shake without it getting excessively weird. I really hope he washes his hands. Dang, he looks a lot nicer from the front though. No! Wait! Bad brain! He is a person, not my eye candy! Boy does he wear a tight shirt though. No! Look at the face! He has short black hair and that kind of stubble that says 'I shaved this morning, but my sexy beard is just too powerful to be quelled by mere mortal razors.'

"Hey Evelyn," he says. "Nice to meet you."

"I bet you have to shave a lot," I tell him and then instantly die.

He quirks an eyebrow at me. Straight face keep a straight face do not blush just smile just smile act natural oh god I'm going to diiiie.

The girl and Alex both burst out into laughter, and Alex holds out a hand to shake as well. I activate my handshaking protocols once again, but I'm much more interested by Alex's other hand, because it has a triforce tattoo.

"Are you left-handed?" I ask.

Now it's Alex's turn to quirk an eyebrow.

"Why do you ask? I'm shaking with my right."

I blink.

"Oh, um, me too!" I realize, suddenly, that the handshake has gone on for an awkwardly long amount of time and let go. "I just mean, um, I noticed you had the tattoo on your left hand, and like Link's tattoo is always on the left because he is left-handed, so I thought maybe it was because of that, but Ganondorf and Zelda have the triforce show up on their right hand, so I was sort of hoping… um. I mean, not that it's bad you're right-handed and the tattoo is... uh."

I trail off, my own hands gesticulating at nothing in particular. Alex grins wide.

"No, you're spot on. Hardly anyone catches that."

"Oh," I squeak. "Cool."

I managed to smile back. Was that a successful social interaction!?

"Oh good, another dork," Sasha says, although she's smiling too. "Hey honey, it's great to meet you."

Did… did she just call me 'honey?' I feel like that's weird, but I'm not sure why. It's super weird, right?

"Um, hi?" I sputter.

"What, no fancy insight?" she taunts.

"Your… hair is nice?" I hedge.

She stares at me intensely for an increasingly stressful period of time, then suddenly throws her arms into the air with a huff.

"Okay, Sam, you win. I like her. Let's get in line already."

"Told you," Samantha grunts. "She's weird, but she's cool."

Wait, Samantha thinks I'm cool?

"Sam, you had to drag me here because if you didn't I was going to go catch bugs alone in the forest," I remind her.

"Yeah," Samantha agrees. "Cool."

"But you hate bugs!"

"Wait, back up a moment," Sasha insists, wrinkling her nose. "You catch bugs?"

"Hey, I'm sure there are lots of good reasons to catch bugs," Alex counters. "They're good sources of protein! A lot of cultures eat crickets and stuff, right?"

"Yeah, just make sure you cook them first," I warn. "You can't get most diseases from bugs because the genetic differences are too great, but they can totally still have parasites. If you need an uncooked snack, ants are the safest. Pretty bitter, though, and not a zero percent risk."

Everyone is staring at me now.

"U-um, I mean, I don't normally eat bugs… I mean, I don't eat bugs! I just, um, I collect them and, uh, I have to catch them to feed my pet tarantula! Her name is Mr. Bubbles and she's a grammosto… I mean, a Chilean Rose Hair! I got her when I was seven and she's the best! So anyway I catch live bugs for her but I have to take the time to gut load them to make sure they're safe to eat and... oh, um, gut loading basically means that after I catch live food for her, I feed the food nutritious stuff that it's nutritious when she eats it. Like veggies and things! And, um… uh..."

And I just hyperfocused on a rant about eating insects in the middle of a restaurant! Good! I'm just doing so good at this being social thing, I'm so glad that I got pulled all the way out here! Please kill me!

Alex coughs politely to capture attention, then flashes a winning grin.

"I think I get it," Alex says. "So basically, when Tom whines about the delicious Arby's cuisine not having proper nutrients, he's actually just looking out for the giant eight-legged monster that plans to devour him whole. Good on you, Tom."

"Yeah, that must be it," Thomas answers sarcastically. "I can't possibly be concerned about my own health."

"No, Alex has a point, Thomas," Sasha insists. "I've never thought about nutrition that way before, but now I'm worried. When I inevitably get kidnapped and tortured for my family's money, I can't very well be rude to the insane cannibals they feed my dismembered parts to."

"Wait, what?" Samantha asks. "What fantasy is this, exactly?"

"Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, Sasha," Alex butts in. "They can't mail the dismembered parts to your parents if they're being fed to cannibals. Think about the continuity here! You can be carved open to use your pretty skin as a suit, or you can be ransomed to your parents, but not both."

"Sure I can," Sasha argues. "Why, in this day and age it's not like you could use the Postal Service to send someone body parts. They'd notice! It makes much more sense to hire the cannibals to bite my fingers off and just send my parents a video of it."

"How do you hire cannibals?" Thomas wonders. "Is there a website for it? Some kind of cannibal guild? Do you think they unionize? What kinds of payment do they accept?"

"Well, I imagine they'd accept fingers."

"Next!" The guy behind the register calls out, and the four friends take it in stride, approaching as if they hadn't just been publicly talking about cannibalism while surrounded by people who intend to eat in the immediate future. I continue forward in awkward silence.

"Well," Sam says grudgingly, "these are my other friends, Eve. I am sure that they just made a fantastic first impression."

"Um... I guess I feel a lot less weird, actually," I admit, managing a small smile.

Alex barks out a laugh, and the others smile. Before I know it, all of us are sitting down with our food, Sasha and Alex sandwiching an irritated Thomas in the booth while Samantha sits next to me. I wish I'd had the forethought of letting Samantha sit down first, but unfortunately I am now trapped in the booth and have to bother her if I want to get up and do anything, so I will just have to hope that I never have to get up ever. Dipping my chicken nuggets in ketchup, I nibble my meal slowly so as to always have an excuse not to speak. Sasha is telling some long story I got distracted from listening to halfway through, so now I don't have any idea what she's talking about anymore and I'm just hoping the conversation ends soon.

"So at this point I'm just thinking 'okay, well it sounds like all these problems you're complaining about are entirely your own fault—'"

"Oh yeah, for sure, oh my god," Alex nods along.

"Right? But of course I can't say that to her while she's gushing at me and almost crying so I just smile and nod and look friendly and then out of nowhere she starts calling me her 'best friend' and—"

My head leans back, and I end up staring at the ceiling. Why did Sam take me out here to meet these people? I guess they’re her friends, and she's my friend, apparently. She's nice. She helped me out when I was missing my classes, and we always did projects together when we could. But she initiated all of that. I've kind of been ditching her lately to hang out with Tara. I guess she just wants to hang out with me?

But… she has all these other friends. I've never really done anything with Sam other than school stuff. I never hung out with her that much before, we just studied. Maybe that's it? As far as Sam knows, I don't have any other friends. I guess that's really cool of her, although meeting three new people at once when I don't know any of them and they're already a whole group is kind of a bit much. I feel so out of place. I wonder if—ooh, what's that?

High up on the wall above my table is what appears, at first glance, to be a small glob of dried paint, left behind by some careless interior designer. However, my experienced eye sees it for what it really is: a bug, camouflaged in much the same way monochamus notatus may disguise itself on bark. Why is it the boring light beige of an Arby's wall, though? That's an odd evolution. I'm gonna yoink it!

I stuff the last of my chicken nuggets into my mouth, chug what remains of my soda, and pour the ice out on that tray which always comes with dine-in fast food meals to contain it.  Then, wielding my empty cup, I climb up onto the table and clap it over the cutie pie before it even knows what's going on. Oh, shoot, I forgot a step.

"Hey Sam, could you unzip the little pouch on my backpack and grab me a note… card…"

Oh yeah.

There are other people here.

I'm standing on a table, in a public restaurant, holding a cup to the wall like a fucking maniac. It's still dripping sugar water. The conversation Samantha's friends were having has abruptly stopped, all faces at the table and most faces from other tables pointed at me. The staff is giving me weird looks, the manager is trying to figure out if she needs to walk over, and Samantha is—

"Here you go," Samantha says, handing me a note card.

"Thank you," I squeak.

I slide the note card under the cup, trapping the bug inside. Slowly, I sit down, blushing so hard I think my cheeks might bruise. Placing the cup-card combo on the table (to Sasha's modest dismay) I root around in my backpack for my portable terrarium. Well, it's really just kind of a clear plastic box with air holes, but that doesn't sound as nice.

I carefully start to open the cup into the terrarium, although I doubt the bug I caught is going anywhere fast. With the residual soda inside I think I might be hard-pressed to coax it out of… huh. As soon as I give it an opening big enough, the bug walks into my box on its own, almost indignantly. I stare at it. It stops, and stares back.

The bug reminds me somewhat of a fly, but like a beetle its wings are capable of being pulled back under its carapace to better camouflage them. It's stocky and small, barely the size of my pinky knuckle, and as I watch it the colors on its back change, dulling and becoming harder to notice against the murky walls of translucent plastic. Spider-like pedipalps twitch on its head, sharp enough to pierce skin.

This is not a bug from my world.

Carefully, I set the terrarium down, wet a napkin, and stand up to wipe away the mess I made on the wall.

"Oh yeah, let me help you with that," Thomas says.

Sasha grunts and slaps at his thigh as he squishes her trying to stand up. Alex heads out to grab more napkins.

"So! You really do like bugs, huh?" Sasha asks, grinning fakely from behind Thomas's leg. "Enough to just leap up and grab them! Well, that's… good! I'm sure they don't want them inside the restaurant!"

Oh gosh, she's treating me like I'm a complete crazy person. Which maybe isn't that unfair…

"Sorry," I mumble, accepting the influx of additional cleaning supplies when Alex returns.

"No, no, really it's fine," Sasha continues. "You get your insect, I get soda splashed on my face, and everyone else gets this lovely display of ice on the table. Truly, it's a win for everybody."

"Sasha…" Samantha warns.

"I should go," I manage to choke out, finishing with the wall and sitting back down to grab my backpack.

Thomas bonks Sasha with his thigh again on purpose and Alex leans in to give her a glare of disapproval, but at this point no amount of friendly support is going to calm me down and I know it. Sam is sitting next to me, looking my way with a concerned, apologetic face and blocking my exit from the booth. I stare back at her, pleading, not willing to let the words out of my mouth. Please, I silently beg. Get up. Get up and let me out before I start crying, before I cement my status as an insane bug girl without enough self-awareness to act normal in public or even enough self-esteem to shrug off the consequences. Please, please, please allow me to keep at least some semblance of dignity before I start bawling in a fucking Arby's.

Sam stands up, thank goodness. My breathing already a little uneven, I gather my backpack and bug box and quickly shuffle out of the restaurant moments before the tears start to flow.

"What?" Sasha asks her friends as I leave. "Too much?"