Missing the Big Picture by Donovan, Luke (great book club books txt) 📕

and was desperate for a friend. When he wasn’t online, I would e-mail him—almost every day. He wouldn’t write back most times, but it became like having a blog, and for some reason I kept doing it. I knew that he would show Eric and Dan my e-mails and even occasionally post them in the senior lounge. I was always a quiet kid, so when I was talking about my classmates and sharing my different opinions, it sparked some curiosity.

Eric, like he usually did, would always find something to cause drama. In the e-mails, I would make fun of Eric and Dan, which definitely came back to bite me. One time, when I was leaving school, I heard Eric and his friends throw a water bottle down the stairs and yell, “Stop e-mailing him!” Another time, I was leaving the school parking lot and noticed somebody tailgating me. In my rearview mirror, I saw that it was Dan and thought Eric probably put him up to something as retaliation for trash-talking Eric in the e-mails. I guess I was a pioneer in cyber bullying. I was curious to see how far Dan would follow me or if he would get out of his vehicle, so I drove down side streets with no agenda, just to see if he would follow. Of course he did, and the only time I lost him was when I went through a drive-through at KFC.

In late January, I sent my daily e-mail to Carmine and he wrote back swearing and telling me to stop e-mailing him, saying he didn’t give a fuck about anything I had to say. I stopped e-mailing him for a while. Carmine was dating his first girlfriend at the time, so when he was mad at me, his girlfriend Theresa, who definitely had a snobbish attitude, would walk past me in the hallways and shoot me looks of disgust. Carmine’s life actually revolved around Theresa. He was seventeen and very late to start dating. Some of the other kids even thought that he was gay. He was nice and smart, and for a long time he was single, which some of the students at Colonie equated to being gay—gay as in wearing leather ass-less chaps in a pride parade. There was even a story that when Eric, Carmine, and some other friends scored fake IDs and went to Nite Moves, an all-female nude strip club in Colonie, Eric’s friend got a lap dance—after which, Carmine walked over and gave him another lap dance, too. It was just Carmine’s typical sense of humor, though.

As the second half of my senior year approached, I got my guidance counselor to switch my schedule around. Some of my half-year courses, such as economics, were done, and I finally got a free period. I liked my second semester schedule because I was moved into a different physical education class, with which I was thrilled, and a new lunch period.

Instead of going to the library for lunch, I started spending my lunch period in senior lounge. I sat with Randy, my friend from U.S. history, and his girlfriend, Michelle, on whom I had a crush. The senior lounge was adjacent to the cafeteria, and it was reserved for senior students to relax in and have lunch. It looked like a basement with video games and a television, but it felt like a big honor to go in there.

Michelle was outgoing, intelligent, and funny, and she loved politics. That first day at lunch, I was able to make both of them laugh with stories of working at the Gap—walking in on people in the dressing room, when the mannequin I had to dress came undone, when the assistant store manager accused me of joking around and pretending to feel up another mannequin. I also noticed that with my new schedule, Eric was now in my government class and my physical education class. When I told my mother this, she replied, “I thought you said you had a good day.”

As much as I loved having lunch with Randy and (especially) Michelle, Michelle soon decided to take sociology during that time period, so I started to just sit with Randy. Shortly after the semester began, I also noticed that Carmine and some of his friends had the same lunch as me. They sat at the table right in front me, with all the girls. One of Carmine’s closest friends was Claire, another senior at Colonie. Claire was very loud and opinionated. Zoey had run track with her and heard all of Claire’s wild sex stories on the bus rides homes. Apparently Claire liked college guys, especially Asian men. Even Randy knew how much Claire talked about sex, mentioning that she had “fucked three guys already.” Claire described herself as “a sexually liberated woman who likes to fuck.” I had a little crush on her, mainly because I was a senior and she had a reputation for being easy. I was seventeen and wanted to explore being sexually active. Basically, I was looking for a ho, not a housewife, and I knew Claire could fit that part.

Just as lunch began one day, I thought I heard Claire ask me what I was doing Friday night. Even though my back was turned, I was convinced she was talking to me. So, I figured I would tell her that I liked her. The next day I got all dressed up, bought some cologne from the Gap, and geared up to ask her what she was doing over the weekend. I waited until lunch was over because I was too nervous to ask her with other people around. I ended up trying to run up to her, but I tripped and almost ran over her.

A few days later in government class, which I shared with Claire, we were doing research in the library for our term papers. I chose to do mine on abortion, and I later did a class presentation on abortion. Many