Personal Narrative Draft

                Alyssa and I were forced to spend the day together during an AP US History field trip to the Freedom Trail our sophomore year; neither one of us had been able to identify another friend to work with. Her dull hair was chopped into an angular crew cut, and she appeared to have obtained her oversized clothes from rummaging through her father’s closet. I’d seen her on the school bus before, always silent, always with drooping blue eyes, and I’d secretly wondered whether she were a boy or a girl.

                Thrust into a group with her, I decided to determine whether she lacked friends by choice or by social stigma. I attempted conversation and found that I was speaking to a brick wall. I told her at length about my music taste, my love for fashion, my infatuation with the written word, yet I received few words in return. I tried my best to communicate and, receiving no response, gave up for the day.

                I interacted with her occasionally throughout the rest of our sophomore year, wishing her happy holidays, and, at the end of the year, a fantastic summer. Only during our junior year, when we were placed in the same AP History class, did I glean any more information about this background character in my life.

                She never spoke in class unless called on. When the teacher asked for her input, her responses were cutting and witty, but dulled by a soft frontal lisp. She giggled sweetly whenever I spoke, and if you really looked at her, you could tell that she was beautiful. Everyone in the class fell in love with her weird charm, and she, in turn, attempted to glare back at everyone in the class – only for her sullen stare to subside into a smile.

                She never did her homework, yet she scored high marks. I wondered what she did every day, when the school bus dropped her off at her rented house in the woods. She had no friends to hang out with, and she certainly didn’t spend her time studying. I once half-jokingly told her that I’d bet she had an “expansive internet presence,” and she replied with only a sly grin. I knew there was something more to the boyish girl in my history class.

                I decided to give her a copy of a little collection of poems and art I had compiled in a “zine” with a friend who lives in Toronto. I handed her the small stack of folded papers and said, “I know I don’t know you that well, but I thought maybe you’d like this.”

                With a sincerity foreign to any of her history class retorts, she raised her soft gray eyes and said, “Thank you so much.”

                Two days later, I noticed that the blog associated with the little zine I had given her had a new follower. I clicked on the blog that had followed mine and discovered a simple website with a black background. I scrolled a bit and realized that the blog was a collection of drawings of chairs from the same angle, and a new drawing had been posted each day for several months. Some of the drawings explored negative space, while others were line drawings or forays into cubism or strange abstract scribbles. Yet each drawing decidedly resembled a chair, and the blog was remarkable.

                Pondering the identity of this brilliant anonymous artist, I immediately thought of Alyssa. I sent her an instant message asking, cautiously, whether she were the creator of this blog.

                “Yep,” she replied. “You found me.”

N.B. Ms. Hoff and Ms. Dubofsky, you can both probably tell who this is about. I'd just like to ask that you please respect her privacy by not sharing this narrative with anyone -- she doesn't even know that I'm writing this about her. Thank you very much.