Cloudy with a Chance…

I normally don’t talk too much about my life, but here goes:

Wait, that’s a total lie. I ramble about myself all the time. But let me continue:

So, today in English class the teacher assigns a new project. We have to find a song and relate the lyrics to different elements of “The Great Gatsby”. It’s a really cool assignment (I’ve actually already found my song).

Anyway, the teacher tells us that we have the option of working alone or with a partner. Now, as I have mentioned before, I hate group work, and when given the choice, I tend to work alone. So, I had already decided to work alone. And that’s when – we’ll call her Lisa- came along…

Lisa is an exchange student from Taiwan. She and her twin sister – we’ll call Ashley – (who also happens to be in this class) are really nice. I talk to them occasionally, especially in chemistry class (well, when I was in their chemistry class; I’m in a new one now). Anyway, Lisa walked up and said, “Do you want to be partners?”

“You’re not working with Ashley?”

“No, I don’t work with my sister.” She said it in a begrudging (is that a word?) tone that really surprised me, along with the tiniest eye roll (you really had to pay attention to notice it).

Now, I was in a bit of a dilemma: As much as I wanted to work alone, I have this weird desire to please everybody, so I said yes, BUT VERY HESITANTLY. I figured that maybe- just maybe- she would look at my body language and tell that I would rather work alone. But she didn’t. Then, she asked me if I had any idea what song I wanted to choose.

“Umm, I’m not too sure. You?”…

To which she responded with, “Nah. No idea.”

That’s when I realized- this is going no where. So I did what I really, really, REALLY didn’t want to do. I had to tell her that I’d rather work alone.

But how to go about it? Should I go the self-deprecation way and  say that I’m not very responsible? Not convincing enough- she’s seen me give awesome presentations in history class…

What if I just admit that I’m anti-social? No… that wouldn’t work… Plus, I would feel stupid for saying that later on into the day.

I KNOW! I’m getting oral surgery tomorrow! I’ll just talk about how I won’t be in school on friday, and how I won’t really be able to talk on saturday and sunday, and how I might not have completely recovered by monday, and since it’s due on tuesday, we would be completely unprepared!

So that’s what I did. And it was the perfect plan right? Right??? WRONG!

She started biting her nails. She gave me a confused look. She stuttered a little when she asked me, “But, why?” I felt sooooo bad! Here she is, this completely kind person who just wanted a little help with a project, and I have to be a complete douchebag and say no, AFTER I’ve already said yes! I – SERIOUSLY – almost said, “Oh, it’s not you, honestly! It’s me!” But thankfully, I stopped myself before the words left my mouth, because I don’t think I could have dealt with the embarrassment of saying that.

And later on in study hall, when I was re-telling the story to one of my friends, I thought to myself: Dude, did I just go through a break-up?