Friend Request [hannah]

“Those guys are jerks. Just ignore them.”

Alex tried to ignore them. He nodded. “I know.”

“Seriously,” his friend Sara tried again. “They’re jackasses.”

Alex smiled. “Jackasses,” he muttered. He told himself he was strong enough to take it. It wasn’t the first time jackasses had called him that name. It probably wouldn’t be the last time. He looked over his shoulder at the huddle of frat boys. Two of them looked over. One whispered something while the others snickered.

Alex kept walking. They reached Sara’s dorm and said goodbye. Alex walked two buildings over to his own dorm and climbed the stairs. They’d just installed new grey rubbery flooring in the stairwell. It smelled like industrial strength adhesive.

He walked into his room and threw his book bag on the floor. He turned on his computer. He logged into Facebook. He waited for the top icons to tell him how many new notifications he had. He waited to see who cared.

No notifications.

Alex leaned back in his chair and stared at the profile on the screen. His own face smiled back at him. Under that a collection of tiny faces. All different. 437 friends.

437 friends and no notifications.

He got up and walked to his mini-fridge. He grabbed a bag of stale cookies off the top of it. He turned back to his computer, glancing at the empty bed on his way there. The bed was more than empty. It was naked. Just a mattress sitting on the plain bed frame. A reminder that his school-assigned roommate just couldn’t live with him anymore.

Alex ate a cookie.

He sat back at his computer and grabbed the mouse. He swirled the cursor over familiar names. There had to be someone he wanted to interact with. He pulled up a detailed list of his friends, but none of them looked interesting. He saw a link on the screen inviting him to find new friends, maybe from a list of his classmates. He clicked on a link to view students in his graduating class at Kent State.

He scrolled through faces and names. He scoured eight pages of people Facebook thought he should know.

On the ninth page Alex saw him. He didn’t know him, but his smile caught Alex’ attention. It wasn’t the normal college-guy smile-- that cocky, possibly drunk, macho smile. It was an open, vivacious smile that wasn’t even aimed at the camera capturing it. The smile was for someone standing outside of the camera’s range, or maybe the smile was meant for no one at all. It was just the uncontrollable act of someone who is genuinely happy.

The smile reached out of the screen and grabbed Alex. He couldn’t look away from it. He stared at it and heard laughter. Bright, true laughter. He wanted to laugh with whoever owned that smile.

Alex looked to the rest of the person in the picture. He had a great face. Not only the captivating smile, but lively blue eyes, a smooth jaw, and a square chin. Curly blond hair peeked out from beneath his ski cap. The name next to his picture was Jude Malone.

Jude.

It was interesting name. He must have interesting parents.

Alex looked back at Jude. He definitely had that all-American college dude look. He was probably in some frat house right now, intoxicating coeds with his smile and cheap beer.

But there was something about the smile. Something that didn’t fit the frat boy mold. Alex didn’t know why, but he believed the smile was never used to attract drunk girls.

Or maybe any girls at all.

Alex clicked on Jude’s name. The computer told him Jude went to Kent State and was born on August 31st. Alex couldn’t see anything else in the profile. He would have to become Jude’s friend to view more.

But he wasn’t Jude’s friend.

Alex stared at Jude, his mouse cursor hovering over his face. He had every intention of closing the window, but he stalled. And stared. And wondered if he would ever meet Jude Malone.

…

It was Sara’s idea to go to the club. Alex didn’t like clubs. At least not the kinds of clubs Sara wanted to go to. Somehow she dragged him to one almost every Thursday night. A few more girls would go with them. Sometimes the two chubby girls who lived next door to Sara. Sometimes Sara’s roommate. Alex and Sara always went though. They were a team. Sara manipulated Alex into having fun, and Alex made sure Sara didn’t get scooped up by some creepy thirty year-old townie when she got too drunk to know any better.

Tonight it was just Alex and Sara. The club was dark and dirty, and filled with sweaty people. Sara tossed herself around to the music. She danced on Alex as if it was possible for him to be attracted to her. He moved his body along with hers. She must have been sneaking drinks from old guys again. She didn’t even notice that Alex was distracted. He looked away from her and over the heads of all of the writhing college students.

He didn’t mean to be searching for him. He knew that at a school that size, it was highly unlikely that Jude Malone would be at the same club on the same night. Alex told himself he wasn’t looking for him. Still he watched the crowd. His eyes narrowed every time they fell on blond curly hair.

…

Sara eventually sweated out all her energy and collapsed into Alex. He dragged her back to campus and dropped her at her dorm. He went back to his room. He sank into his desk chair and opened his computer. The bright screen burned his eyes. He pulled up Facebook. He clicked. One. Two. Three. Four clicks of his mouse. He’d memorized the fastest way to get to Jude.

He sighed and his eyelids sagged.

One more click.

He sent Jude a friend request.

…

Alex held the last of his poptart in his teeth while he zipped up his book bag and threw it over his shoulder. He started to leave the room, but stopped and went back to his desk one last time. He woke up his sleeping computer. He opened Facebook.

No notifications.

Jude did not want to be his friend today.

Just as he hadn’t for the past eleven days. Alex’ friend request was pending. Always pending.

He went to class.

He didn’t live far from his classroom, but he rode the bus. He sat and looked out a dusty bus window for seven minutes. He watched faces. He knew a lot of them. Not by name. He just saw them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as he took the same bus through the same part of campus at the same time.

His stomach twisted. He wrapped his arms around his waist.

The same faces. Over and over again. Never the face he wanted to find.

He saw his stop approaching on the right. The bus pulled over. Students put away their iPods and climbed off the bus. But Alex didn’t move.

He sat. He needed more faces. New faces.

Different students took the empty seats of those who’d left, and the bus groaned back into the street. Alex watched the sidewalks slip past the bus. He knew Jude was out there. Somewhere. In a dorm, or a classroom, or a booth at Taco Bell. He was somewhere in this tiny college town. And Alex had to find him.

…

Alex lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Sara called. He didn’t answer his phone. He didn’t move. Seventeen days, and Jude still hadn’t accepted his friend request. He was too good for Alex. He didn’t want to get to know Alex. He didn’t want to be Alex’ friend.

Sara called again.

Then texted Alex when he didn’t answer his phone.

Come on loser! I want 2 go out 2nite!

Alex threw his phone at his computer.

…

I log in to Facebook. I have a friend request. I frown at the screen.

I don’t get friend requests. This isn’t even a legitimate Facebook account. It’s just a joke account that I made for a fictional character to make my sisters laugh. I look to see who the friend request is from.

Alex Wright.

I don’t know anyone named Alex Wright. And there’s no way he knows who Jude Malone is. Jude is just a character in the unpublished novel I wrote.

I shrug. I hope this Alex kid doesn’t notice that Jude declined his request.