The Story of Theodore, Part 2.

The more time Teddy spent alone, the shorter his patience became. He felt as though he was always waiting – stuck at a metaphorical train station with an expectant look on his face, constantly being overlooked and forced to watch every train rush by without even slowing down.

There was only so much waiting he could take.

From early grades to middle school, Teddy’s love for his peers lessened and warped, turning into desperation. All he wanted was someone to speak to him, like they would talk to a friend. He never got that.

He didn’t get bullied, anymore, which his mother thought was a large step in the right direction. Teddy disagreed. It would have been refreshing, if anything, to be spoken to without that note of pity and condescension…and, if he was to be given those sympathetic looks from time to time, he would have preferred them to be motivated by injustice.

Better to be pitied for being bullied than pitied for being who he was.

He was starting to notice girls. Like most of the other boys in eighth grade, he developed a rather large crush on the pretty brunette girl who was the reigning ‘queen bee’, and asked to take her out one night. Her eyes took on that look, and she averted them as she stammered an excuse about having too much homework.

At that point, Teddy stopped thinking he would ever be anything but alone.

Hence, it came as a massive surprise when, in the tenth grade, that same girl asked if he’d like to go to their Winter Formal dance together.

Teddy’s mother was overjoyed, and helped him pick a suit. She drove him to the school, where he met up with his date in front of the gymnasium. He’d brought her a corsage, which he fumbled before managing to properly tie it to her wrist. His mother took a picture, and told them she’d be back to pick up Teddy at ten o’clock.

He almost told her to come pick him up sooner than that. He was nervous enough to sweat through his dress shirt, and he prayed that his dark suit jacket and the dimmed lights hid the stains.

It turned out, he had very little reason to worry.

Asking Teddy to the dance had been enough to alleviate her conscience, and she proceeded to spend the rest of the night dancing and laughing with her friends. She didn’t notice, when he left.

No one noticed.

Teddy’s mother spent all night driving around town, searching for him. When the police finally located him, they found that she hadn’t needed to go very far, in actuality. They found him in an empty classroom, sitting by an open window. Shivering, pale, isolated, and cold.