"Congratulations," he told me. "For what?" I asked. He told me it was an honor to join NHS. It wasn't (to me). Like, everyone who applied got in. I mean, sure, you have to have a 3.5 GPA and commit to community service or whatever, but I really didn't care. I actually didn't even want to join. It felt like some weird fake pat on the back club. The point? Unclear. I was leery of what we were "supposed" to do to get into college. The things I really cared about didn't seem to be relevant, and I resented that. The SAT was supposed to be a great equalizer, but the rich kids all took a Saturday class.
I could have dropped it, but I felt spicy. He never congratulated me on anything. Truly nothing. We went to speech tournaments almost every weekend where I went on stage and got trophies and usually only the freshmen marveled. I worked very hard, but I did it alone in my bedroom. I stopped having nerves after my first round of junior year. I came in cool and did my thing and left with hardware. I was cast as the lead in the school play. I narrowly got an A in physics. But he didn't even shrug. It didn't bother me. I accepted that any and all high school achievements were fake. He was punk-ish, so naturally, he would too. But then he said congrats on the stupidest extra curricular activity known to teen. And I just knew, knew, so suddenly and surely it was because he was in it. I wasn't graceful.
"It's interested you told me congratulations for that. Because you don't tell me congrats for anything else." A shadow of disgust before he shrugged and went to his desk. A couple rows from mine. A few weeks later, I, still trying to make good on my philosophy that none of it mattered was talking to a friend. "I guess I don't really care I got a Nationals spot. I already accepted my place at the state drama program." He turned around, from within a separate conversation, feet or miles away, just to say, "Liar." Now I shrugged.
But I did end up skipping the drama program for Nationals. My coach told me either choice was a good choice, but people who do really well usually go twice. The decision makes no sense to me now, and I don't think it did then either. I've always liked theatre more than standing around doing monologues in classrooms. I wanted to badly to go to that program. There'd been a write-up about me winning the invite in the local paper. My friend Jimbo cut it out and gave it to me and everything. I don't remember the day I called and said I wasn't coming. Or why.
