"Field Hospital"

My first experience of Venustiano's might wasn't a happy one. Everything turned into a mess and I witnessed a brutal attack against a person that I knew. I saw Franco getting brutally beaten, and I witnessed Gerardo experience a nervous breakdown due to his job. The thought of the ordeal stresses me out, I wish I handled it better.

I can't blame myself too hard for being there, even if I never cared to show up, Franco would be brutalized eventually. Gerardo was now given a chance to leave the position that he found himself in. Josef will probably end up worse since Venustiano has threatened to meet him outside of school. I wonder what happened to Josef, that was all yesterday.

Today was Friday, the day that I meet Luciana after school. However, I can't really find my mind to come at peace. What if I'm not mentally capable of helping Luciana in private, what will she even ask of me? I never studied, and I can't study now after what the hell just happened. I feel as if my world is falling apart in front of my face.

I can't deny Luciana, I can't flake on her. She asks for help often in our class and I can only show her a problem or two, but a private session would mean that I could actually go over most of the subject matter for the units and previous lesson units. However, I still know that I'm not a good teacher. The recent experiences with showing Luciana some problems in class has given me some level of confidence, but going over entire units seems a little outside of my skillset.

It is the last period of the day, my Biology class, and I am sitting next to Jennifer as we have a partner assignment to complete. However, ever since what happened yesterday, I haven't been focused at all during school. I think even Luciana noticed my excessive spacing out during second period. I am incapable of focusing on the group work that we have here in sixth period, however Jennifer doesn't seem to care.

"Johnny," Jennifer waves her hand in my face to take me away from my thoughts, "what the fuck is wrong with you?" She asks with severe impatience.

"Nothing, I just don't feel okay right now." I give her an honest response and I face my head down.

"Yeah that's terrible and all," Jennifer doesn't seem to care, "but we have this assignment to do." Jennifer explains to me in an unempathetic voice. Sometimes I think Jennifer values pride and academics way too much. Those are two things she shares with Ashley as well, especially academics.

The clock strikes three-ten in the afternoon. It was time for the school day to be over. It was time for me to face the situation that is going to be placed in front of me. After packing my bags and being the last one to exit the classroom I enter the traffic jam in the indoor hallway. Maybe it's my current frustration that is making me feel this way, but the school's crowdedness is truly starting to piss me off. I'm sick of the crowd at the end of the day, I'm sick of the traffic, I just want to get out of here.

I digress. I complete my journey to the entrance of the school in a similar fashion to what happened with Lynn, however this time my mind doesn't give a shit about excitement, I am only in despair at yesterday's scenario.

I lift my heard to scan the area for Luciana. I discover her waiting here just outside the gate like a patient dog. The nerves begin to overwhelm my mind and I feel my soul fill with gut-wrenching thoughts about the day prior.

I might need a fucking therapist.

Luciana nearly springs toward me as I descend the front steps, "We're going to the public library." She tells me with excitement.

I then respond with extreme uncertainty as I was broken from my harassing thoughts, "Uh, alright." I reply.

Luciana then pulls an unexpected move, as soon as I finish my response and look her in the eyes, she grabs my hand in a similar fashion to Lynn, just this time the rush is not because of bus times as the bus seems to be running late today. She then guides me toward the bus station just as Lynn did, and let me tell you...she walks fast.

This girl is a speed-walker, it's astonishing how intensely excited this girl is for something like studying and tutoring at the library. Why is this so important to her? I never even tutored anybody before, yet I'm not excited about the occasion. Is this just a difference between guys and girls? I don't mean to be sexist, but I find it more common for girls to be studious than guys, take myself as an example.

The guys seem to rather engage in politics and violence, while the girls want to do well in school and hang out. It's a rather strange difference, but there are exceptions as well.

Luciana leads me to the bus stop and we stop there, she then looks at me puzzled, "Did we miss the bus?" She asks me.

I take a quick look at my wristwatch to discover that the time is three twenty-seven, "I don't think so, I think the bus is just running late since it usually comes exactly around this time." I explain to her.

"I hope it doesn't take to long to come." She sounds like she is trying to be playfully upset about the situation. Maybe it's an attempt to make conversation.

"Well, even if it takes a while I'm sure it won't be too long." I defuse the situation, "I can wait, that's fine by me." At that moment I realize my hand is still being held by hers, I feel quite uncomfortable so I lightly pull my hand away.

I take a seat in the unstable and rusty bench that signifies this bus stop, Luciana follows by taking a seat next to me. I stare into the street in front of us for a few moments, until Luciana turns her head at me and I follow.

"Johnny, you are a really calm person." She begins to converse, "I don't understand how you can be so calm with how you present yourself. You are calm in class, you are calm outside of class, you are calm right now when the bus is running late." She explains to me.

I look at her perplexed, "Well I guess I try not to overreact to situations. I don't make a big deal out of most things." I respond to her observation.

"You're still so smart even if you don't make a big deal out of it." I assume she is attempting to compliment me, or at least project her envy, "How do you do it?"

I don't really have a secret for how I keep my reactions in check, nor for my intellectual prowess, "I am not sure, I just try to pay attention and catch onto things. I don't know how to explain it, but when I am told something I construct it in my mind so that I myself can understand it better." I try to answer her questions the best I can, but the truth is that I don't really know what I do, I just know I do it.

I have this gut feeling that the way I'm answering makes me unattractive.

"You know Johnny, you're a quiet person." She states another observation to me. I feel a little attacked that she's pointing out a flaw of mine, at least I can assume it's a flaw, and honestly I don't understand why she would even bring it up.

I hope she isn't trying to unlock me like Lynn has.

"What do you mean by that?" Before I jump the gun, I ask for clarification.

"I think you're really smart, and you can take advantage of it." She seems to be trying to confront me about my lack in social skills. I don't know if I need this right now, but I won't be too mean about stopping her.

As she finishes her explanation, the bus arrives, it's only about a couple minutes late, so it isn't a major issue. The door opens and I allow Luciana to climb onto the bus before me. We each pay our due, and she guides me to an empty pair of seats near the very back of the bus.

I take my seat after Luciana does, and luckily I'm seated before the bus throws me forward like it tends to want to do. Luciana got the window seat, and quite instantly she looks outside the window with curiosity. As I watch her, I think to myself ways to make this situation a little more comfortable. I end up always talking about myself, maybe I should take initiative and ask her about herself.

"Tell me about yourself." I lay down my request quite clearly.

She gives me a surprised look, she even looks excited, and she begins to explain, "Well, my birthday is March 27th, I was born in 2000. I have five older brothers-"

My jaw drops, "Five?!" I question with serious shock.

"Yep," she answers rather enthusiastically, "I have four dogs, and I like to write poetry." She finishes her talk.

My attention has been grabbed, firstly, five brothers are a lot to deal with. I have this everlasting fear that if I end up doing something wrong with her that I will be killed five times, which this fear is intense. What also grabs my attention is her interest in poem writing.

"No kidding, you really write poetry?" I ask with genuine curiosity. I don't mean to send her on this possible directionless tangent, however I do want to know more about it.

She looks at me with some shyness, it seems that she has slight embarrassment talking about it. She gives me a little bit of laughter. I can understand why she might be so reserved about her writing, art can be difficult to share since it's the deepest form of outside expression, it's also the most judgeable form of human work.

"Yeah, I do write poems. I even won a few contests for poem writing." She looks to give me almost a blush as she says that. Her pride isn't at maximum, but I can tell that she doesn't mind sharing with me.

"I need to read one of your poems one day." I comment about her poems. I would definitely be interested in reading her work, especially if they have won her contests. I wonder what her writing style is like.

She gives me a definite near blush, "Maybe I can bring you one tomorrow." She presents the idea.

I let out a little excitement despite trying to control it, "You definitely should." I reinforce her idea.

"Meet me at lunch tomorrow?" She sets up the time.

"Sure, I'll see you at lunch tomorrow." I agree with the time.

She gives me a grin, but suddenly that grin fades away. She looks away from me in presumed embarrassment and I'm left perplexed as to what is going on right now. We were having a fine conversation weren't we? Did I say something wrong, am I doing something wrong? My mind begins to ponder all the problems that I could start.

"Am I coming off too strong?" She asks me. I give her a confused look. I understand why someone would feel like they are coming on too strongly, but I didn't see an issue with it until now.

"No, I don't think you are coming off strongly at all." I give an honest response, "In fact, I think that you are coming off just fine."

That grin returns, and so does the blush on her face. This situation is rather interesting for me. High school has had a crazy start so far, I found myself spending personal time with two girls now. Although things with Lynn fell apart, I still would have never expected it to happen.

Another question I want to ask pops into my head, "So, what brings you to this school? How come you transferred here and where did you come from?" I ask an arbitrary question.

She gives me a downcast look, "I used to go to Venice High School, but my older brother who is a junior now got into so many fights that they eventually expelled him. My parents thought it would be best to move both of us to the same school so it wouldn't be so hard having two of their children go to separate schools in different parts of the city." She explains her story, "My parents wanted to leave Venice out of embarrassment of my brother, so we moved toward the inner city which brought me here." She concludes.

The idea of a fight, it brings me images of Franco. I soon begin to sink within my thoughts. My heart cries out as I try to retain my collectiveness for Luciana. Violence must be a sensitive issue for me right now. I try not to look distressed, however my mind ends up nearly lost before I force it back to reality.

"I'm sorry to hear about that." I console with her, a little clueless and speechless.

"I don't understand why people are so violent, especially at school." She explains some of her beliefs which stems from her experiences. As she explains I feel a sudden wave of extreme guilt for what happened yesterday. "Why do all of these kids want to be so means to each other?" She asks with rhetorical concern.

"I think it's stupid," I force myself to agree with her to forgo my guilt, "It's better to conduct yourself in things like art. Take your poetry for example." I try to shine light on her before I cast myself into darkness. I feel my body start to shake. I don't know what to do.

I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack.

She seems down so I attempt to change the subject while being subjected to horrors within my thoughts, "So...," I say nervously, "what are some other things you like to do besides writing?"

Her returns to mine, and the only thing I can hope is that she doesn't observe my anguish, "I don't have too many other hobbies, but I do like to play guitar and even sing." She returns a blush and smile on her face. She nearly hides in embarrassment when she says she sings.

"No way, I love to play the bass guitar." I nearly nerd out at the fact she is another musician, "I'm not very good since I only started playing last year, but I still love music."

"We should start a band." I know she said this jokingly, but the thought about starting a band suddenly hit me as attractive.

"Imagine." I respond to the joke, "What kind of music would we even play?" I ask jokingly once more.

"Well I'm into more classic rock." She tells me, "I'm not a fan of the use of electronic instruments in modern music."

"I completely agree with you." I say in complete agreement, "I don't like how people use synths and sampling to make songs nowadays, music does not feel genuine anymore." I explain my agreement.

Just as we continue our talk about music, the bus stops right at the stop at the local library. The library isn't too far away from the school, but it is far enough that a walk would be uncomfortable dreadful. Thus, taking the bus is the most viable option.

We get off of the bus, and we walk a short distance from the bus stop into the parking lot of the public library. The street that runs adjacent to the library is notably busy this time of day. I take a look around to bear witness to some kids stop by and get ice cream at the fifty year old ice cream shop that sits just next to the Library down the busy street.

We walk through the front automatic door of the library and make our way into the second automatic door that leads to the front desk where the few librarians working here are on their computers and doing their daily business. The library looks like he hasn't been renovated since the eighties, and a quick look around makes you feel like you are a character in an old movie from that time period. The library layout is rather simple, there is a children's section that is next to the many desks where kids of all ages can be found completing homework, either in a group, with their parents, or by themselves.

We walk toward the tables and find an empty one at the very end. We take a seat and Luciana sits just directly across from me. She immediately pulls out her backpack and takes out the homework that was assigned for the weekend. The very homework that I always forget about anyway.

This week we've been doing both a mixture of algebra review and a new trigonometry unit in our geometry class. I can see how Luciana can be construed with the mixture of lessons, however I am more used to the system, thus I think I can try and explain to Luciana how the math works. I am not a big fan of trigonometry, to be honest without writing down the formulas to find sine, cosine, and tangent I would probably fail everything. However, I do understand it enough to explain the thought process behind the math.

We spend a good portion of time together, I would assume it's been about ten minutes. I was flying through my essential points when trying to explain how to think about the math. However, this seemed to confuse Luciana even more. I sensed slight frustration coming from her.

I became self-conscious about my teaching, and thus I began to lack in skill even more than I had in the very beginning. As we reach more and more time trying to figure out one problem, I find myself losing confidence that I can even explain anything to her. I become more timid and less detailed, and this has a great affect on her.

We came across a particularly challenge section where I myself was having difficulty explaining the complex theory behind the equations. This is Luciana's breaking point. As I am struggling to present my words, she places her head down. I believe she's crying right now, or at least very upset.

I immediately put a halt to my explanation. I pause there for a moment witnessing the distressed girl and become very frightened as to what to do. I don't want to just stare at her, but what do I say? What just happened?

She begins to speak softly, like a whisper to me, "I'm not very smart." She says to herself.

"Hey," I attempt to comfort her, "you'll get it, this is very difficult subject matter and I know you are capable of getting it."

"I don't understand so many things from these classes, and I study so hard to try and figure it out myself." She continues to speak.

I sit there rather speechless, I'm not fit to handle these situations, nor am I fit to comfort someone. She quietly sobs to herself for a while, I just kind of watch her with fear and empathy. I feel so bad, this is really affecting her, and I myself treat this like it doesn't even matter.

"I'm sorry," she says to me quietly, "I'm just a little frustrated with this."

"No, no need to be sorry," I explain nervously, "let's take a break, it will be alright."

I reach over to her side of the desk to close the textbook in order to signify that we should take a break. As I return my arms back to my side she looks up at my with a sad face.

"I'm sorry, I'm just scared that I won't do well on my first test next week." She tells me her concerns. Every two weeks in our class we have a test which does make up for most of our grades, "I don't want my grade to drop so suddenly."

"Well hey, it's okay to have your grade drop in the beginning of the year, that means you have all year to make up for it and bring it back up." I reason with her emotions, maybe not the best to do in this situation.

"You don't understand," she returns her head back downward, "My mother will get really upset if my first report card is not all A's. She threatens to take all of my belongings if that happens." She tells me her problem.

Many people have strict parents. I can't relate, thus I lose sight of things that some people might freak out about. I don't care that much about my grades, B's and C's are just fine to me, as long as I don't fail. My own mother could care less about my grades anymore, but Luciana's mother is a different story.

I think it would be best if we left this library. We can spend another day on the subject, so I simply get out of my seat, without a word I pack Luciana's things in her bag, and she follows along with what I am doing. I help her get up and escort her to the front entrance. I assumed we were there for only thirty minutes, but in fact we were there for about an hour. The sun goes down early in the winter time, so the sky was already polluted with street lights. As we meet our feet with the pavement of the sidewalk, Luciana pulls an unexpected move on me, she wraps her arms around my shoulder.