{IRIS}
The first class of the day had been tolerable enough—mostly theories, which demanded nothing more from me than to sit still and pretend I belonged amongst the others.
But when the bell tolled for lunch, a familiar dread rose like cold water around my ankles.
Lunch. The battlefield of the social world. The one place I had hoped the gods would smite from the schedule entirely.
Jay, for all his strange mannerisms and bizarre humor, always seemed to survive this hour effortlessly. He carried an odd jolliness, a quirkiness that made people gather around him despite his insistence on living in a world of his own. He didn't need to try. People simply gravitated to him—because he was funny, because he was gay, because he was… Jay.
I, on the other hand, was none of those things.
Not funny.
Not brilliant.
Not charming.
