Free Missing the Big Picture by Luke Donovan

They sat right next to me and laughed uproariously at what they had written to each other. After a couple of weeks, I had enough and showed the chemistry teacher a note I had confiscated. I remember her being very bug-eyed, as she seemed quite conservative and straitlaced. That was the end of my being lab partners with Dan. My other lab partners were just a sympathy group. They felt sorry for me because I had nobody else to work with.
    In November, my mother celebrated a huge accomplishment for the both of us. My grandmother sold her house, my mother and I moved into a duplex, and my grandmother moved into an assisted living facility. It worked out well for everyone involved. At forty-five, my mother didn’t have to spend hours doing tasks for my grandmother. She was able to visit with her sister and not have to lie about it, since my grandmother was always jealous when my mother visited my aunt or went out with anybody. Plus, my mother didn’t work two jobs anymore and hadn’t for the past year.
    My grandmother needed people around her, too. She was always very social and loved being around other seniors. The ladies would often go to the movies, and when there wasn’t enough room in the car for everyone, one squeezed in the trunk. My grandmother ended up doing the Heimlich maneuver once and saved a woman from choking on a piece of popcorn. She even volunteered at the assisted living center’s store, where she could socialize and find out what was new with everyone. There wasn’t a time when I visited that she didn’t have a friend over.
    I was very motivated to get into college when I was a junior. Toward the end of my sophomore year, I had slacked with my grades at Saint John’s and just wanted to get out of that school. To improve my resume for college, I decided to join the Key Club, a community service organization, and some other after-school groups.
    At the first Key Club meeting, I saw two girls that I knew from middle school, Tori and Zoey. All of us used to be in plays together. Zoey had a great sense of humor and a loud voice—right up there with Fran Drescher. We had some classes together, too—AP English and AP U.S. History.
    In AP U.S. History, the teacher made me change seats because Zoey and I were talking too much. I was moved to the back of the class and sat in front of a student named Randy. Randy had a large group of friends, of which Zoey and Tori were included. Randy was very musically inclined and starred as Danny in the school musical Grease that year. He was in a chorus group and played bass guitar, too. He was really nice; there wasn’t anybody that he wouldn’t talk to. The first time we talked I remember he was really close to me, and I made him laugh because the closeness of his face made me feel awkward and I moved back in my chair. He wanted to mention to me that scene in Austin Powers when the two characters in the tent are simulating sex. Randy and I became friends soon enough; he had a great sense of humor and a very likeable personality.
    I was involved in a lot of activities my junior year. I joined the mock trial team because I wanted to be an attorney. Just like every other club in school, there was one day when we had to take a photo for the yearbook. The club advisor reminded me that the yearbook photo was going to be after school that day. I was nervous and found myself in a predicament. I was very insecure and didn’t want to be perceived as a geek. On the other hand, being an extreme people pleaser, I didn’t want to disappoint the advisor and not show up for the photo. So, my seventeen-year-old mind came up with a brilliant plan. I was going to show up for the photo, and before the light came on, run out of the photo before anybody noticed. However, I realized that I wasn’t faster than the speed of light, so when the flash went off, I went running out of the way. The photo that was used in the yearbook consisted of me running out of the frame with a bunch of studious