Online Love, Offline Hate

Chapter Six: Kameron

Saturday

For what it was worth, the first two weeks of Kameron’s life at Pristine had gone exceedingly well. The classes were easy to follow, the laboratories were packed with state-of-the-art equipment and the students were nice and helpful. He had even begun to make friends, scholarship and non-scholarship students alike.

He’d sworn to himself as he twisted the door knob of the classroom on his first day that he would keep a low profile and study hard. He’d entered the class, walked to the board and gotten his seat number. It was written on a hard card. He’d turned, roved his eyes around the class to find the seat, walked to it and sat down, all the while marveling at the quality of the furnishings of the room.

He had gotten a good seat, in the middle of the class.

Two seconds later, the door of the classroom opened again and Amy Exner walked in. Kameron blanched. The queen of the school was in his class.

Kameron watched with apprehension as she did exactly as he did a few seconds prior. The hard card in her hand, Amy Exner strode, with the confidence of someone who had done this several times before, to the seat directly beside his.

Kameron stopped breathing. His heart stuttered.

Amy Exner was sitting beside him. Would be sitting beside him for the next year.

The sound of the door slamming alerted him to the entrance of more students. Before, he would have liked to analyze them as they entered. Shelving them into scholarship or rich students. But not now. Now, he was concentrated on looking like he wasn’t concentrated on the person on his right.  

The top dog, the queen of the school, the one person he wanted nothing to do with was sitting right beside him.

His heart stuttered some more. But it turns out he was worried for no reason.

Amy Exner seemed to want nothing to do with him as well.

For the next two weeks, they sat side by side in some classes and were also lab partners but had never spoken to one another. For Kameron, it was because of nerves.

Amy Exner was quiet but had an intensity to her that scared him a little. She worked efficiently and diligently and left the lab once time was up. He told himself that this was why he never spoke to her but he knew the truth. And he always had the nagging suspicion that she didn’t like him. But as soon as those thoughts cropped up, he’d tell himself that he was imagining things.

Why would a girl he’d never spoken with dislike him?  

That was Kameron’s nature. Optimistic.

He soon wished he had listened to himself. It was on a Monday, in his Physics class when he mustered up his courage and spoke to her.

He stretched out his hand with a smile and said, “Hey, my name is Kameron. It’s nice to meet you.” Kameron had practiced this in the mirror and even tried to imagine where the conversation would go from there.

What he never fathomed was that his outstretched hand would be ignored and his greeting returned with a cutting remark.

“I’m Amy Exner. I would like it if you never spoke to me. Thanks.”

A ringing sound echoed in Kameron’s skull. What just happened?

Kameron was dazed. Those words have never been said to him before. He didn’t know how to react. He repeated the questions in his mind over and over, before realizing his hand was still extended.

He snapped out of his stupor, face red and retracted his hand. He was still thinking about what happened and failed to notice the murmuring in the class as they observed the failed interaction. He caught on soon enough.

Kameron suddenly wasn’t invited to any parties and had his previous invitations rescinded. The students he thought were friendly and kind stopped speaking to him and ignored him when he spoke.

Even Matthew, who he had begun to think of as a good friend, had avoided his eyes whenever they crossed paths. In the school building, in the dormitory, in gym. He had even blocked Kameron on all social media platforms and blocked his number as well.

Without warning, Kameron found himself friendless and isolated.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew it had to do Amy Exner. He had noticed that there were always people hanging around her and hanging on her every word. She was the constant in the equation and it was partially out of the desire to know why that he spoke to her. Now he wished he had kept his mouth shut.

Kameron sighed. There was no need thinking about it now. The situation now was that it was a Saturday and he had nothing to do. It was afternoon and he had already done everything he could do in his dorm room. He had cleaned, done the laundry and most of the outstanding assignments for the next week. Now, there was nothing to do.

He picked up his phone and stared at it for a while before opening the dating app he had downloaded the night before. Yesterday, something had sparked in him after spending the entire week being ostracized. Full of restless energy, he searched for the most popular dating app, downloaded it and completed his profile.

Now, he felt a little stupid. Use a dating app to find friends? Seriously, what was wrong with him? Kameron shook his head and dropped the phone. He would go out.

The school was quite relaxed when it came to allowing boarding students to leave the hostel and head into the city. They would leave their visitation cards at the front desk and answer questions about where they were headed to and when they expected to be back. A limited amount of visits where given per week and per month.

Because of his sudden ostracism, he hadn’t left the hostel throughout the week so there was no chance of him exhausting his visitation. After dressing up, he left his room and submitted his card at the hostel’s front desk. Now he was out, there weren’t many places he could go. It wasn’t long since Kameron arrived in this city so he didn’t know much about it. And there was no one to call or text.

One of the few places he knew was the mall, so he headed there. He wandered mainly on the first floor, checking out the stores there. Just stepping on the second and third floor would make his bank account shiver so he steered clear of those floors. 

Kameron sighted a good looking waffle place and decided to check it out. He entered, browsed their assortment and made a choice. He took his tray of food and found a nice place to sit and eat.

Polishing off a delicious waffle cone topped with whipped cream and coconut flakes, he wondered whether he should see a movie before leaving the mall. That’s when he saw Amy Exner coming down from one of the top floors.

Kameron’s stomach twisted.

“I’m Amy Exner. I would like it if you never spoke to me. Thanks.”

The sentence flashed through his mind a couple of times. He kept his head down and hoped she wouldn’t see him. Once he was done with the waffle, he left the mall. He couldn’t take the chance that they would bump into one another.

It would be best to leave those unpleasant interactions in school.

It was evening when Kameron returned to his room. He collapsed on the bed, once again, feeling the boredom and nothingness that made him leave creep up on him. He took out his phone, holding it above him and scrolled through his apps. Seeing the red heart icon, he tapped on the app again.

He scrolled through the different profiles available. He sent invites to the profiles that seemed okay, all the while asking himself, “What am I doing?” He received some replies and started chatting with two people but the chat wasn’t progressing in the way he wanted.

He dropped the phone and stood up from his bed. Switching on the lamp near his table, he sat and began to complete his all assignments.

Thirty minutes later, Kameron was almost done with the pesky assignments and decided to take a break and browse the app again. He saw that MayRene had accepted his request and sent a text.

“Hey. I’m Kameron.”

No response. The profile image was lit up so he knew she was online. He typed, “Are you busy? We can talk later,” and waited.

Still no response. He dropped the phone to concentrate on his assignment and didn’t notice when his phone vibrated once.

“No. I’m not busy.”

Once Kameron was done with his essay, he put it away and picked up his phone again. He saw the message and replied immediately.

“It’s nice to meet you. Do you want to hang out some time soon?” As soon as Kameron sent the text, he groaned and wished he could unsend it. He sounded desperate. But the other person had already read it.

“No.”

A cold response but Kameron decided to tease and see how the other would respond.

“Why? I’m really handsome though.” He waited. No response. Kameron glimpsed at MayRene’s profile as he waited for an answer. An English teacher at age 25. The profile picture was that of a woman in a black suit. And even though her face wasn’t showing, he knew that this was a serious person. She might not take his joke kindly.

“But it’s fine if you don’t want to meet up. We can just chat if you want,” he added.

A reply came soon. “Yes, we can chat.”

“That’s good.” Kameron was relieved. He racked his brain for topics to discuss and said, “How’s work? I hope it’s not too stressful?

“No, it’s fine.” She didn’t elaborate.

“That’s good to hear. Where do you teach?”

“That’s kind of personal so I’d rather not say.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” She seemed a little stiff so he decided to talk more about himself. “Well, I’m a high schooler. I study at Pristine High School. I just arrived a while back and I don’t know much about the area.”

Remembering her reluctance to meet, he asked, “Do you know any nice spots I can visit? I’m a little bored at school.”

“There are some nice museums in the area. The city has a long history so you may like it.”

Kameron stared at the screen and then burst out in laughter. Such a reply.

It was within his expectations as a stiff teacher but it still made him laugh. He clicked on the voice message icon and recorded a message.

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that. Have you been there before?” He waited, expecting a yes. He assumed she would have visited the museum either alone or with her class.

There was no reply. He looked and saw that she had gone offline. Did she leave to do something? He waited and waited. She never came back online.

Kameron reread the messages they had exchanged. Did he say something wrong? He didn’t think so.

He looked at the time and saw it was getting late. Maybe she fell asleep. He reluctantly closed the chat and went to prepare for bed. After he was done with his nighttime routine, he opened the chat again. She was still offline.

She probably fell asleep. “Good night J ”

He sent the message, turned off the lights and went to sleep.