Eating Lunch In the Band Room

It physically hurt, their judgements like daggers bore into every pore of my body. I turned my paperbag lunch in toward my thigh, so no one could see my name and the heart mom had scrawled on the outside. I walked invisibly, hoping no one would see how lost I felt. The cool steel of the door gave way and I was enveloped in silence. The stairwell felt good and I left the cackle of lunchroom behind. Just beyond the cafeteria was the bandroom and I went inside slowly. Felicia was in Mr. Pethoud's office, leaning agaist his desk. As I stood in the frame they both looked up and he said, "Oh, hi Steph. Want to eat lunch with us?". I felt like I was interupting, but continued standing there with a half smile. "Yeah, that'd be cool."
Felicia looked at me like it was definitely not cool. Her disdain was nothing compared to the lunchroom, so I squatted on the floor and started eating half a warm peanut butter sandwich. They turned the conversation to include all of us, and I felt a bit more at ease. Still, I felt somehow alien anyways and made an excuse to use the ladies room soon after wolfing down my soggy sandwich.

A few hours later I showed up for class and found her gaze meeting mine from the french horn section. We were faced in a horsehoe configuration, me in the front inside circle and her in the back opposite. I felt an unspoken warning hit me in that short gaze and took note. The next week I ate lunch with a bunch of misfits somewhere in the middle of the cafeteria and steered clear of her time at lunch. Mr. Pethoud thumped his foot on the podium and raised his baton. We all snapped to pay attention and his white baton held still in the air. With a downward swoop he began, and we tried our best to follow him along with the foreign language on the page. It was such a challenge.