On The Arcade Floor

[Acidic†]

Caleb walked into the "fun factory" (as his younger half-siblings had called it, who he was here to supervise) with Cheryl and Troy tugging him to move faster. His large frame awkwardly bent down as he let them guide him by hand to the air hockey tables. The holidays had been busy visiting family, shopping for, and getting gifts. So to give his parents a break Caleb offered to take the kids to The Castle so they could blow some of the money they got for Christmas, and to let Mom and Joel have the house to themselves for a bit. Everyone was happy, as it should be.

Caleb had worn his presents to show them off. A black jean jacket that was a bit snug, but he still liked it as was grateful to Joel's parents for getting it for him. A dark red polo shirt under the jacket, and some new blue jeans. Walked to an air hockey table Caleb's hands were released as the game was paid for then Cheryl and Troy walked to the opposing sides of the table.

Leaning on a table next to him Caleb watched as they battered the puck between them, giving some encouragement to Troy when he scored first. Cheryl gave him the stink eye as she retrieved the puck, and shot it straight into Troy's goal. Not expecting that, Caleb lifted his eyebrows in surprise and said,

"Nice one, sis." Before making a quick glance to see if anyone he knew was here.

[Megami†]

((Start: Melissa Angelicchio))

It was weird, Melissa thought.

The large arcade area was the sort of place she spent hours and hours in when she was a kid. Not this one, of course, but there had been one in Redmond as well. As she walked through the area, arms folded over her chest, she couldn't help but watch the younger kids adamantly tapping the buttons of the various arcade games. Each one of them reminded her of herself at a younger age.

Then again, she'd never quite given up the gaming scene. Maybe that was why she had wandered in here. She had been shopping with a friend from Redmond who had conveniently "had something come up" and "would be right back", right after a certain boy from her high school had texted her. Then again, that was nothing new for Kristine, and Melissa was used to it. She didn't mind, either. It was nice to spend time with old friends, but this friend in particular had a tendency to get overwhelming.

She breathed a quiet sigh as her eyes scanned the arcade, looking for something of interest. Part of her was dying to grab ahold of a free arcade game. The other part of her was cautioning against it. She had thoroughly hidden the 'gamer girl' side of her when she came to Aurora High School during her freshman year, and even now, it wasn't something she openly discussed with people. It probably wasn't something worth being embarrassed about, but she was.

The whirs of the air hockey table, and the sound of pucks slamming against blockers caught her attention, and she glanced over at the kids engaged in an intense game of airhocky just in time to watch the girl sink the puck into the other child's goal. A voice rang out from a nearby table, congratulating her on a good shot, and Melissa glanced that direction, thinking that it sounded familiar.

The voice belonged to Caleb Matthews, one of her classmates.

She paused for a moment, not sure whether to stop and say hello or to go on with her business. A quick glance at her cell phone confirmed that Kristine was still MIA, and given the fact that she hadn't bothered to text, had probably met up with her guy friend. Melissa slid her phone back in her pocket.

Oh, what the hell...

She moved toward the table and nodded toward Caleb.

"Hey there, what's up?"

[Acidic†]

Caleb didn't see Melissa approach, but didn't start too much when she spoke. He smiled when he turned to face her. If he remembered right Melissa came to Seattle almost a year after he did. Not that her move was as extreme as his was, but he decided that he didn't know her well enough to judge that.

Still, they did have a bit in common. Both moved in, and both got quite popular despite being the new kids. Yet, they never really spoke. He always thought she was kind of nice looking.

"Not a lot. Just watching my brother and sis for my parents," He motioned towards them, but they were too engrossed in the game to give more than a monotoned, "Hi." while Troy made another score. It was two points for Troy, and one for Cheryl. After giving Troy a thumbs up, Caleb went back to Melissa,

"and this place is kind'a cool to hang out at. So it's a win/win." Leaning back on the table Caleb asked,

"How are you?" Caleb didn't know who to expect to see here, but was surprised Melissa turned up. The puck was served, and it was batted back and forth.

[Megami†]

((Good grief I'm sorry, I forgot all about this thread. Feel free to slap me via PM if that ever happens again.))

She shrugged nonchalantly and shifted her weight onto her right leg, her gaze moving back toward Caleb's siblings and their intense game of air hockey.

"I'm good," she mused, the corner of her lip turning up into a half smile, "Was spending some time with a friend from my old school, but she ran off a while ago, said something came up. Just passing time until she gets back..."

Melissa trailed off momentarily, then added with a light laugh, "If she comes back."

She brushed a stray strand of hair from in front of her eyes and started to pull her phone out once again, but stopped as her fingers slid across the top of her pocket, deciding it was rather rude to check one's cell phone mid-conversation. Then again, she wasn't quite sure what to say to keep the conversation going anyway. Melissa was a person who, to describe it in her own words, was 'popular by accident'. She had just so happened to make friends with the 'fun' crowd, and hang out with 'fun' people. Fitting in with them had been a natural thing for her, and she and her friends had a kind of chemistry that had just worked well together.

When it came to one-on-one social interactions, she wasn't awful at it by any stretch of the imagination -- at least, not anymore -- but she had never quite mastered the art of small talk. She found herself watching Caleb's siblings again, her lips curled into a faint smile. She could remember standing behind the game machines as a chunky little girl, totally engrossed in the screen in front of her. She'd always liked that feeling -- the idea of being someone else, setting out on an epic adventure. It just made real life seem so dreary and bland.

"So, is this a routine thing for you guys? Like... do you guys come here a lot?" she asked after a moment.

[Acidic†]

Nodding as Melissa laughed, Caleb added,

"At last, erm ..." He paused, pretending to trying to remember a name, "Melissa's friend, we hardly knew thee." When She brought out the phone Caleb decided to look at the game again. Yeah, it was weird to do that in the middle of a conversation, but that was a sad norm he noticed in the people up here. He had a hard time imagining anyone from back home doing that. He stared at the table for awhile, then he was surprised when Melissa asked if this was a regular thing for them.

"Eh, kind of." He said as he slid his hands in his pockets. "Every couple of months I try and get us here, but school and life can get in the way."

[Megami†]

That's cool, Melissa thought as Caleb commented on his attendance at the Castle. She nodded in response, a faint smile forming in the corners of her lips.

"Right on," she mused, pausing for a moment before speaking up again, "That's cool that you do stuff with your kid siblings. I can't really speak for myself, since I don't have any, but like... you don't see that very much."

That wasn't exactly true, she realized. She had half-siblings on her father's side, but she had nothing to do with him, and by proxy, had nothing to do with either of them. In fact, she didn't even know for sure how old they were now. Part of her felt sort of bad about that. Then again, it wasn't like either of them had ever gone out of their way to 'befriend' her either. That might have been an incredibly selfish way to look at it, but that was how she genuinely felt.

She pushed the thoughts of her paternal relatives from her mind. It always seemed to sour her mood, so Melissa simply opted not to think about them at all. She had never had a need for that side of her family, and with her father being the only one of four boys to ever get a divorce in a heavily religious Catholic family, she had always felt sort of like the 'black sheep' of the Angelicchio side of her parentage anyway.

It had only just occurred to Melissa, but it was possible that Caleb's close ties with his siblings were a cultural thing. She had never really known his background -- in fact, she couldn't recall having ever really interacted with him much -- but his darker-toned skin was a giveaway to the fact that he wasn't solely Caucasian. Then again, maybe that had nothing to do with it at all.

"So..." Melissa spoke up again, "I guess we've never really talked much, have we?"

She laughed softly and gave a small shrug.

"It's kind of funny how that works, isn't it? You can hang out with the same kinds of people and never really interact with one another. Aurora's a pretty big school though, I guess. You haven't been there much longer than I have, right?"

She couldn't remember if she had heard that from a classmate, or if it had been part of a school newspaper article, or what, but she seemed to recall that he had moved to Seattle during freshman year.

"Is it much different from your old school?"

She couldn't remember where he was from originally, either. She had moved from a much smaller town, and had originally found Aurora High School very daunting because of it. In fact, she'd been really socially reclusive through most of her first year there because of it. She had always sort of wondered how much it had affected other students -- their class in particular seemed to have a lot of transfers and foreign students. That was exactly why she never brought it up with anyone. She felt kind of stupid finding the school so intimidating when other people had come from across the world, and had fit in just fine.

Then again, Melissa had had a lot of self-confidence issues at the start of her tenure at AHS that she had forced herself to overcome. It was still hard for her, sometimes. She still hadn't hit a point where she 'felt' attractive, even though she had blossomed into a pretty nice looking girl. Even now, during her senior year, she still thought of herself as 'fat'. She never, ever let that slip in public though, and always tried to portray an air of confidence about herself. Sometimes, she wondered if the other transfer students to Aurora felt that way, too.

[Acidic†]

Flattered at the complements Melissa gave, Caleb smiled and nodded. He loved the positive attention he got for doing things with his siblings (putting half in front felt wrong), but it concerned him that everyone didn't do the same. He could use the cliche of "Trying not to judge," but it was something he was concerned about often.

Maybe it was the difference that Caleb didn't get to see his siblings as much as he wanted to, or he was just different in personality compared to his peers. In the end it didn't matter, because he loved his family and was gonna spend as much time with them as he could.

The conversation died a little bit, but before he could say anything Melissa gave a shot at reviving it. Talking about how funny it was that they barely talked despite being in similar circles. Caleb didn't object since the fact had been hanging over them at an awkward angle, and talking about it would probably make it move away enough for a proper conversation to fill its space.

"Yeah, but I think only a for few months more." She than asked about his old school. This was a topic Caleb couldn't avoid, but still dreaded. Talking about living in Lincoln meant steering around the family matters that kept his mother and him apart. Thinking on his phrasing before he said anything. Caleb felt like a lier, but for the sake of suppressing drama and pity he could do it.

"It's quiet different." He answered.

"My old school was in Nebraska, so it took me awhile to get used to not riding a horse to class." He chuckled, since humor was a good way to distract from any serious questions.

Hopefully.

[Megami†]

((Sorry for the delay, was having a crazy amount of writer's block.))

Melissa nodded in response to his statement about having moved to Seattle right before she had. She couldn't tell for sure, but his facial features seemed to tense up a little at the mention of his old school, and for a moment, she felt like perhaps she had asked something she shouldn't have. This thought was pushed aside, though, as Caleb non-chalantly answered her, and she began to think that maybe she had just imagined the initial reaction.

She had always kind of sucked at reading people's body language, anyway.

His response completely threw her off, and she let out a soft laugh, eyebrow raising slightly," A... horse?"

Was he serious?

Even having moved to Seattle from a smaller town, it was still a suburb. She had never traveled much, and their choice vacation spots had never been in the middle-of-nowhere type area that he had described. She had such a hard time picturing her classmate riding to school on horseback. Then again, Nebraska was a much different place culturally than the Pacific Northwest. Maybe he really had ridden horses to school.

Or maybe he was completely teasing.

She laughed again, and shook her head, a few strands of chocolate-colored hair making their way in front of her eyes, "If you told me you were serious, I think I'd believe it," she mused, her lips curled into a smile.

"God, I can't even imagine living somewhere without all the buildings and the traffic and the people. I mean, Redmond was a lot smaller than Seattle and all, but it just felt like suburbs. Not having neighbors for miles, and having like eighty people in the same grade... seems like a whole different world."

The idea of it sounded awful, but at the same time, seemed sort of nice. She had never pictured herself being happy as a small-town girl, where everybody knew everybody, and everyone's personal business was public news. She had always imagined that's how it would be, too. Maybe that was why she had never liked the idea of it. Melissa preferred to leave the "old Melissa" back in Redmond. The idea of having memories of fat little tomboyish Mel drudged up by neighbors every day wasn't pleasant-sounding to her.

"So how did you adjust?" she inquired curiously, "I mean, you've made a name for yourself around school since you've been here. How do you go from--," Melissa giggled, "riding horses to school to being in Aurora's inner circle? That's quite the leap."

[Acidic†]

((So sorry this is late.))

He quickly shook his head when she asked if he was serious, but he didn't think she noticed. It wasn't the wild west down there, but it was fun to play around with the "city slickers's" idea that it was. It wasn't too mean, or at least he didn't think it was. She said she would believe him if he was serious, but that was normal for some people. The horse joke was actually a serious question from another student, and Caleb just kept it for future use.

Melissa mused how much it would suck to live in a place like the hyperbole he made of his home city. Maybe he could show her pictures of his city from when he lived there. He had about a dozen glued on a poster board his friends made him as a going away present, and still a few more photos lying around his room and on facebook.

Then she asked about he managed to climb the social ladder in his new school, and how he adjusted.

"Well, in my opinion, people aren't all that different. I mean, there's things like personalities, cultures, ideals and beliefs. Those can make us seem different, but when it comes down to it people like it when you're nice to them." Sure, Caleb had made mistakes when he fist came here, and he was embarrassed by them. Still, he thought, that he became a better person since then.

"So I guess it comes down to the golden rule of treating people as you like to be treated." It didn't hurt to be on the football team, but he didn't want to sound like he was bragging. Or end up blatantly bragging about it.

[Megami†]

Caleb's words rang true in Melissa's mind. Now that she thought about it, she supposed that was how she had gone about making friends, as well. She was definitely a "people pleaser" at heart. Never said no to anyone, tried never to vocalize bad thoughts about other people. Ever since coming to Aurora High School, she had sort of walked on pins and needles when it came to her classmates -- the idea of turning into a social pariah was a definite fear lurking in the back of her mind.

She nodded, shrugging her shoulders in response, "It's funny, I still remember being terrified my first couple of weeks here. I felt like such a..." she paused, searching for the right word, "I don't know, like a hick, I guess. I mean, my move wasn't as drastic, or anything like that, but it's still a much bigger city, and the school is like... triple the size. But you know, everyone's been so nice, and I've made a lot of good friends since then. It's weird to think graduation is right around the corner."

It really did seem like time had flown by since Melissa and her mother had made the move into Seattle. The idea of things changing again very soon was pretty intimidating. She immediately pushed it out of her mind -- thinking about "what happens next" after high school is over always seemed to cause her a lot of frustration.

Her ideas for conversation topics trailed off, and she found herself turning to watch Caleb's siblings again.