章 3: 1. Hi, I'm Tyler

-Memory 1-

-This'll Be My Year-

-Train-

2016. As soon as that year began, I had high expectations. I've lived my whole life in The Nameless City, inside The Happiest Country in the World. It isn't a big place. Apart from being located in America, the other known fact about it is that we receive a lot of tourists. That's it.

Back then, I was in seventh grade. My life was pretty good, but I could've never imagined that it could change in just a year. Thanks to my grades, I got accepted into the school that would define my social circle for the next six years. On the day of my admission exam, I thought that I did terrible in the test. I started to believe that I wouldn't make it and that I would have to go to another depressing high school. Thank God, it didn't turn out that way. Yes, you read right. All of my memories of those ages have been influenced by my religion and, just as I've always tolerated who thought differently to me, I hope you do the same.

Back to the topic. I did get accepted. During January, the setting classes started. People always warned me that this school was tough and that the exams were really hard. However, during those classes, everything seemed pretty easy to me. During the second day, I met a new friend —which was big progress to me back then—. The day before, we were introduced to the discipline system; a coordinator explained to us what we had to do if we wanted a behavior report wrapped up inside our files.

Also, that year's generation welcomed us to the school. We did several activities with them in order to break the ice and meet the boys, the girls, and the assholes with whom we would share the next six years of our youth. That way, I managed to get a new friend. Jacob was a good guy. I liked him. He seemed friendly —attribute that would be useful in a partner, cause I didn't have that kind of charm—. However, I kept a low profile during the first two trimesters, or at least that's what I tried. The first time I talked to him was when they were teaching us the way we had to form every day before classes start. They gave us our lists and organized the groups. Jacob and I ended up in group 7-D, with other 36 students, which many of them would change my life for good, or bad. He was next to me in the line, so it was quite easy to talk to him while the other students were getting arranged.

—Hi, I'm Jacob. We met during the welcome of the generation —he pointed, to break the ice.

—Yeah, I remember. I'm Tyler. Nice to meet ya —I answered while we traded a fist bump.

Since then, I stuck to him the whole week. Then, February arrived and normal classes started. The horror of getting up early to go to school at 06:50 now tormented me every day. I met my new teachers and new people, but there was nothing remarkable, except for three events that took place during the third week. By then, I had several disagreements with Jacob because of a school project. For something minimal, I ended getting away from him, and until now, it is something that I keep out of my regrets list. I started having lunch with other classmates during the first months —by then, I had already met the 3 most important people of my life, even though I wasn't aware of it—. They were a nice company, but they were just lunch friendships. However, during the first Monday of the third week, two of those special events took place.

Personally, I've always been a videogames' fan. Of all in general, either retro or from nowadays; I like all of them. My favorite saga is The Legend of Zelda. I have several action figures, necklaces, rings, games, and accessories related to it. But why do I mention something so trivial? Simple. An object related to that was the reason for this first event. That day, my schedule said that I had Conversational English classes, just like the rest of my group. It was a particularly exhausting class because it started at midday until the end of the day, late afternoon. We had an assignment for that week; the first one for that class. However, for some reason, the teacher arrived one hour late, which is why we had a lot of extra time to work on our presentations. During that hour, I spent my time seated at the cafeteria, working on my project, wearing a striking geek necklace of The Legend of Zelda.

And there, there was when I met her. I had never seen such a beautiful girl. Her voice was sweet, hand in hand with a charming personality. From my point of view, she was a friend of everybody. The kind of girl that's liked by everyone. The kind of girl that anyone would fall in love with. The kind of girl that doesn't fall in love with the nerd of her class. And that was me. But back then, I was content just to look at her and hear her voice daily.

I had seen her several times in the halls and, even though she seemed depressed and lonely, I never thought she would take such a risk.

—Do you like Zelda? —she asked as if we had been friends for a lifetime, while she held my necklace with her right hand to look at it. She was too close to me. Closer than any girl would have ever been in my life.

—Mmm... yeah, I do —I answered, way too nervous to think about saying anything else.

—I never thought you were a Zelda fan —she pointed. And I never thought a girl like she and I could have anything in common.

—Well, yeah, I've played it since I was a kid and I've finished every game —I said, thinking that I was talking way too much. I didn't want to seem like a nerd in front of her, after all, but I guess it was too late.

—Seriously? Me too! —she said, enthusiastic; she was ignoring my nervousness. Even though I loved to talk to her, usually I wasn't capable of starting a casual conversation. As soon as she stopped talking, her friend made her lose her attention from my necklace and took her somewhere else, leaving me there with my brain trying to figure out what just happened. After a while, I went back to class and forgot about it until nightfall. Since then, I got used to thinking about everything that happens to me during the night instead of sleeping, so that's what I did. It took me the whole week to figure out her name. It was almost an odyssey. All along the year, besides my grades, she started to invade my thoughts, just like an addiction. And then, by the end of that week, all those thoughts had a name. And that name was Sea.

When I found out, I thought it was a metaphor too right to be a coincidence. To me, at least, her personality was like a sea full of stars; endlessly bright and beautiful. I'd never felt like this in my whole life. But suddenly, I caught myself thinking about her day and night, wondering if she thought about me too, or if she even knew my name. Probably she didn't.

At high school, once you get in, people tag you depending on the way you are, dress or look. Yeah, just like a supermarket product. And, as if that were not enough, they establish a social scale, as those people had back then in the Middle Age. On top of it, the popular. Guys and girls that have either sportings and humorous talents. It doesn't mean that practicing sports turns you into one of them. I mean those who believe that the school is theirs, for them and just for them; so that the rest of us are just stones obstructing their hallways. I definitely did not want to be part of that hell. Next, the shy and the nerds. Those who get obsessed with videogames and usually have lonely lunchtimes at the cafeteria. Part of me was inclined to that group. Then, the regular guys. All of those who work hard to pass the year without leaving any subject with red numbers. And finally, my tag. The good guy of the group, who never hurts anybody. If he has friends, they are not a lot, and if he doesn't, nobody notices neither his presence nor his absence, unless he answers one of the teacher's questions during class or solves any assignment that is just way too hard for the rest of the group. I could dive into more details about this social scale, but I guess that's enough for you to understand the context in which the events take place. After the first of them, I went back to my Conversational English class, as always. And that was when the prelude of the second event happened. But that's something for the second memory. For now, let's focus on Sea.

She and I started to develop a casual friendship throughout that year. In the beginning, speaking to her was something just like a puzzle to me. I didn't know what to tell her, how to tell it or what excuse I should make up to talk to her. Little by little, through my own methods, I managed to figure out some important facts about her. Fortunately, I knew her best friend since kindergarten. We did the admission test together and ended up in the same group. Somehow, the met and became best friends. I took advantage of my few social ties to find out some things about her. One of them was about her last relationship. More specifically, why it ended before the beginning of the year. Her ex started to date her best friend from the previous year behind her back while he was dating her too. Since then, she became a sad girl —at least compared to how she used to be—. Her heart was broken. Throughout the years, I learned through the bad that, when a girl is heartbroken, the last thing she wants is to have wooers. That's why I had to make sure of not overwhelming her. She had had several bad experiences with love and didn't want anything with anybody.

Running out of options, my only choice was to be a close friend of her. Guys have a really bad reputation these days. This is because most of the attractive boys for girls are superficial, and this leaves the rest of us apart as garbage. But anyway, that's just high school, after all.

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