A Lonely Afternoon

So, if you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that I was supposed to have Color Guard practice last Wednesday, but nobody showed up. Unbeknownst to me, it was cancelled. Here is something I wrote while waiting - it's all nonfiction and exactly as it happened to me.

"I sit here alone. Have they forgotten about me? Color guard practice was supposed to start half an hour ago. There’s no one in the commons. I am utterly alone. It’s a strange feeling in this room that’s normally so full of people. Occasionally a soccer player or member of the track team will walk across the dully shining white speckled tile, and I can feel their gazes: somewhat curious as to why I’m sitting here alone, reading Phantom of the Opera, but I’m so far out of their realm of existence that they don’t really care to know who I am or why I’m here. My feet hurt, but I don’t dare take my shoes off and reveal my Winnie the Pooh socks. I already look like a ten-year-old, I’m sure. My shorts are eight or ten inches longer than those of ninety percent of the girls at my school, I know this shirt makes me look younger than barely-fifteen, and I am make-up-less and ponytailed. I look every bit the part of Little Girl Lost. And don’t forget pathetic. Even though the other Color Guard girls are nice (all whopping three of them), I can’t help but to wonder if this wasn’t a set-up, like in those cheesy cliché chick flicks. Although is embarrassment is what they’re going for, they could do lots worse.

A faculty member, vaguely familiar, walks along the perimeter of the commons and out the glass-and-metal double doors, not even noticing me. She wears a black coat with silver buttons down the front – like Miss Mary Mack, only not. This is a little odd seeing as how it’s sixty-five degrees outside. She also wheels an older-model vacuum behind her.

The grossest guy in school offers to buy me a soda, calling from the vending machine across the room. I had actually considered buying one myself earlier, but I shake my head no, a single harsh movement. I am so not in the mood to take charity from this creep.

The school secretary starts setting up tables. This concerns me. Is it possible practice is cancelled and I don’t know, because I forgot my phone at home? Fat lot of good it would do me, anyway. Only one girl, the other freshman, has my number, and her presence is questionable. It’s forty-five minutes past when practice supposedly started, and none of the other girls have shown up.

Track members start streaming in, in groups of two and three. Last week practice was four-thirty to five-thirty, and if it turns out to be those times again this week, then there’s only fifteen minutes left of waiting. But I was told three-thirty to four-thirty. I’m really starting to get actually kind of mad now. I’ve been sitting here while my sister had to walk home alone, and I actually have things to get done. I go to Mom’s tomorrow, which means I have to pack. I also have Fahrenheit 451 reading for English, but I’m putting that off. I probably should be utilizing this time by reading that instead of Phantom of the Opera, but there’s a written study guide to go along with the reading. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a problem with reading.

And now it is four-forty, ten minutes past when it might have started. So I give myself permission to go home.