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You know, once you get past the general dampness and piercing chemical stench, the janitor’s closet is actually a nice spot to spend your lunch… and free period… and any time at school where you aren’t required to interact with your peers or teachers.
Olivia is huddled on top of an upside down bucket (her comfy chair in this not so comfy hidey-hole) nibbling at a sandwich her grandma made her as she reads a book.
She cringes as she stains the corner of the page with her oily, mayo covered fingertip. She pops her finger into her mouth to lick off the mayo and grimaces once again, now by the taste of straight up mayo and also the spark of concern about the germs transferring from the paper to her mouth.
She’s considering using one of the industrial disinfectants on her hand when the door suddenly opens. Dreading another stern talking to from Brenigan, she's instead caught off guard by a boy she doesn’t recognize standing on the other side blinking behind his shaggy brown hair as surprised as she is, though, his surprise is also mixed with confusion.
“Uhm,” he says.
“...occupied?” she says, waiting too long to respond.
“Right, uh, sorry—” he starts to close the door and back away when Olivia holds the door open with her foot, almost falling off of her bucket in the haste.
“Wait!” she says. He freezes, turning slowly to face her.
“Yeah?”
“Uhm,” she gulps nervously, trying not to drop her book and sandwich as she readjusts on her bucket. “Do you… want to join me?”
He blinks.
“I, uhm, when you stack those boxes they can be pretty comfortable, but sometimes they’re not stacked and then they’re too low to be comfortable and I’m sure you could pick them up and stack them because you seem strong, not in a weird way, I didn’t mean that in a weird way. Just… uhm… boxes.”
He nods slowly. “Right. Are you… sure?”
She nods back. “If you’re the kind of person who’s considering spending lunch in the janitor’s closet then I’m sure we’ll get along.”
“Yeah… what are you doing in the janitor’s closet?”
“I eat lunch in here everyday,” she says, only realizing after she’s said it how lame that makes her sound. “The cafeteria’s just loud… and crowded… and… yeah.”
“I get it,” he says. He can pick up the boxes and stacks them to sit across from her.
He has one of those nice lunchboxes that have the inside that keeps everything cool and doesn’t leak when you put an icepack in them. He has the same kind of sandwich as Olivia but it’s got all of the fixings: lettuce and tomato and the cheese with the specks in it. Olivia likes hers better still.
“Hey,” he says. “You’re Olivia, right?”
Her whole body goes tense, the sandwich in her hands nearly crushed. “You know who I am?”
His eyes turn into saucers, body leaning in as his hands frantically wave. “It’s nothing bad, I promise. I just… you were in my English class and we had to anonymously swap poems one time and yours was… really good.”
“How did you know it was mine? It was anonymous.”
He smiles. “You still signed it.”
She closes her eyes with embarrassment. “It was probably muscle memory. I sign all of my poems.”
“I could tell,” he says. “Your signature was super cool. Like it was an autograph or something.” He looks up. “Hey, can I have your autograph?”
She splutters. “What? Why would you want an autograph? From me?”
“I don’t know a lot about poetry, but I bet if you put it in a book or something it’ll probably be famous to, like, poetry people.”
She laughs, going to cover her smile with her hand but instead smacking herself in the nose with her book. His hands rush to help but she waves him away. “That’s really nice of you.”
“Hey, this is just smart investing.” He hands her a sticky note that she signs with the first writing utensil she can find (a glittery purple pen that clashes against the neon yellow). “This is gonna be worth hundreds in a couple years.”
She shakes her head shyly. When she looks up, he sees him smiling cheekily at her. “Sorry. I don’t even know your name.”
“Charlie,” he says.
“Right! Charlie, I know your—”
“Brother Tommy?” he finishes.
“I was actually going to say, I know your fan club.”
His brows shoot up. “My what?”
“You really don’t know?” she says. “Girls are like… crazy about you.”
“What girls?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I don’t know their names. I just… hear them talk. And they think you’re cute I guess. I don’t know.”
“No way.”
“No way what?”
“No way they’re talking about me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Olivia says, blunter than she ever usually is with anyone else. His confusion only grows. “Girls like… fawn over you. From afar, obviously, but… you’re… you.”
“Yeah, I’m me,” he repeats. “I’m nobody.”
“You are not nobody,” she says. “You are not even close to nobody.”
“Sometimes I wish I was,” he says. “It feels like I’m always living in my brother’s shadow. My teachers are always disappointed in me for not being as smart as Tommy, my parents are always disappointed I’m not reaching the milestones as fast as Tommy, and the team—” He cuts himself off. “The team isn’t just disappointed. They hate that I’m not him. And they hate that I suck at soccer. And they hate that I’m on the team because of him even though I suck at soccer.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia says quietly.
He lets out a breath, his angry fire extinguishing. “It’s not your fault.”
“Still,” Olivia says. “It sucks to feel that way.”
There’s a moment where he just looks at her in deep thought. “You feel that way often?”
“Not like that just… I don’t really feel like I fit in. I don’t know why or what makes me so different but… I’m too afraid to figure it out anyways.”
“Sometimes knowing why I’m different sucks, but it’s also nice to know it’s not all my fault.” He looks at her in a way that feels like she’s exposed and he can see into her bones. “It’s not your fault either.”
“Thanks,” she whispers, barely able to meet his eyes.
“Hey,” he says, drawing her attention again. He hands her a glass bottle of Mel’s lemonade. “For the autograph.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“Hey, this is high robbery on my part. This is gonna be worth thousands one day.”
“You said it’d be hundreds.”
“Yeah, well now I know it’s gonna be worth thousands.”
A smile grows on her lips and she takes a sip of the lemonade, her face scrunching from the sour taste, and a soft “ah” leaving her mouth after she swallows it down. “They’re not poems. By the way.”
“Yeah?”
“They’re lyrics.”
“You’re a singer?”
She immediately shakes her head. “No, I… I mean I sing but I’m not a singer.”
“I get that,” he says. “I play the drums but I’ve never… not in front of anyone. Not like I could anyways since I’ve gotta be the next Delegado soccer star.”
“I hope you do one day.”
“I hope you do too. If your singing’s half as good as your lyrics, I’m sure that autograph’s gonna bump up to be worth millions.”
“Then I better get yours too.” His brows scrunch together. “For when you’re a famous drummer. The next Ringo Starr.” She opens a page from her songbook and hands him the purple sparkly pen.
He grins and carefully scrawls out his name. “Maybe you’ll be my John Lennon.”
“Maybe,” she says. With a nervous breath as she builds the courage, she finally squeaks out, “You can look. If you want.”
He looks up, the page covered with his mindless doodles around his signature. He looks between her and the book reverently, clearly knowing how much what she’s offering means.
He turns to the previous page and looks through her lyrics, his finger tracing over the words, not touching the page but following along as he reads. It’s a quiet few minutes of anxious anticipation until he finally has read through all of the songs.
“Olivia… these are amazing.” She starts to shake off the comment but he cuts her off. “No. Seriously. These are really good. You’re like… awesome at this. These are like… some of the best lyrics I’ve ever seen.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious. Your songs are good. And you’ve written so many.”
“That’s not my only songbook,” she says. “I ran out of pages in the last one. And the other one.”
“Olivia,” he says ago. “You… you should do something with these. If you can’t perform in front of crowds, you could, like, sell them to someone famous. I’m sure they’d take it.”
“No,” she says, her voice firm. “I… if anyone heard these songs, then it’d have to be me singing them. Just… no one else will ever know these songs like I do.”
“I hear you,” he says. “Well, maybe one day you’ll be able to sing them for someone. But if not, then you should at least know that your lyrics are great and you’re a great songwriter. And I’m sure put to notes and rhythms they’re even better.”
She almost considers singing for him in that moment, but she’s stepped so far out of her comfort zone already that she’s plummeting to depths of uncertainty and anxiety she didn’t even know was possible.
The bell rings.
“Well,” Charlie says. “I hope you have a good rest of your day. Thank you for letting me crash your spot. And for showing me your songs. And, hey, thanks for the autograph. One day, you’ll be getting a Grammy and I’ll have that framed on my wall telling everyone ‘I told you so.’”
“And thank you for the lemonade,” she says. “And for… for everything. You really don’t know how much this means to me. You’ll find your thing. I know you will. Even if it isn’t soccer. And even if that’s what everyone thinks you’re supposed to do.”
He stops, taking in her words. “Yeah. Thanks.”
And so the two part ways, Olivia holding the songbook close to her chest and the half-drunk bottle of lemonade clutched in her hand like it’s the most precious thing she’s ever received, and Charlie smiling down at the glittery purple letters on the neon sticky note, the corner spotted with oil stains.