Dream Boy, My Best Friend, and New Slang -Abby R.

My name is Andrea Monagan and my life stinks. But you can call me Andy. And, okay, my life doesn’t stink. But it’s getting there. I’m a freshman at Colligan High, captain of the JV cheerleading squad, (as a freshman, which is impressive, but who’s bragging?) at the top of my class, and not to be conceited, I’m kind of pretty. Okay, maybe not pretty, but not too unfortunate looking. So you’re probably scratching your head, thinking, why does this girl think her life stinks? I’ll give you a few reasons. One, Meg Lieker, the most popular girl in school is dating the love of my life, Dominic Gartos, Italian God of the sophomore class. I’ll admit, I haven’t said more than two words to the guy, but still. He’s gorgeous. He has a full head of thick, long, brown curls that he’s constantly shaking out of his warm, brown eyes. His Italian frame is a solid six feet, and all the girls here at Colligan High simply swoon over his enigmatic smile. Two, even with my high-profile positions as cheer captain and potential valedictorian, my only real friend is Aidan Polly. Aidan is sweet, but still, he’s a guy, and how do you talk about girl stuff with a guy? He’s been my best friend since fifth grade, when he spilled tomato soup all over my new white jeans. To make up for it, he gave me his hot cheetos that his mom packed special for him in his lunch. From then on, we sat next to each other at everything and always played together on the playground. If only every relationship were that easy. And thirdly, my soul is screaming for more. I hate living in a small town, in cookie-cutter white townhouse with my family and the family dog. I hate my routine life of getting up for school, going to school, going to cheerleading, doing homework, going to bed and starting all over. I want excitement and fun and color in my life. I want to be exposed to something more than just this tiny little Vermont town that I see everyday. I want more. So, once again, my name is Andy Monagan and my life stinks.

Early on a chilly, snowy January morning, on which snow falling heavily, and more was expected, I rustled around in my locker, searching for my French book. Finally, I found it, slammed the door, only to find Aidan’s pink-cheeked face right there.
“It’s so cold out there,” he said, twisting his lock and swinging the door open.
“Uh-huh,” I yawned.
“You’re coming to the game tonight, right?” he asked, as the mound of books he was carrying got progressively taller.
“Let’s think. Look at Andy. She’s wearing her cheerleading uniform. Look. Process.”
He blushed.
“Okay, ha-ha, very funny. I just forgot, that’s all. Let’s go to French.” And then, just like any other day, I followed Aidan to the third floor and listened to Madame Smith chatter on and on about accents above letters and her love of conjugating verbs.

I was sitting in Algebra, twirling my hair and pounding on my calculator, trying to solve
n x 38[(408 x -72) -11] + 48 – (-square root of 14),
when I threw down my pencil in aggravation. Running my fingers through my hair and resting my chin on my right hand, I sat at my desk, positively fuming at the fact that I couldn’t solve this problem. Suddenly, the door creaked open, and silver Nike shock stepped into the room, followed by another. Long legs, a strong torso, and a beautiful head of curls followed. Dominic. In my Algebra class. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked up and stared. The world seemed to move in slow motion as he walked towards our teacher’s, Mrs. Morkan, desk.
“Mr. Lawrence needs to borrow your three hole punch, Mrs. M.”
His voice reminded me of chocolate cream. Sigh. Mrs. Morkan handed him the three-hole punch and he headed for the door, passing my desk on the way. As he passed me, his hip bumped my books and knocked them all to the ground. He instantly bent to pick them up, and I practically dove to the ground to help him. Handing me one of my notebooks, he said,
“You’re into the Shins? And Rocket Summer?”
For what seemed eternity, I sat with a confounded look on my face, until I looked down at the notebook he had just handed me that was covered in pictures of the two bands.
“O-o-oh,” I stuttered. “They’re my favorite! Wincing the Night Away completely changed my life,” I blushed.
“Oh yeah. Oh, Inverted World was great. My friends think it’s totally weird I don’t rock out to Ludacris all the time, but I still can’t get enough of ‘Australia’!” He half-laughed and rubbed his chin. He had that adorable five o’clock shadow. At ten in the afternoon. I loved that.
“Me too! I can’t eve-“
Mrs. Morkan cut me off by clearing her throat, and we both looked up. Smiling, he handed me the rest of my books and stood up.
“See ya, New Slang,” he winked, tapped the underside of chin with his index finger, and left. For the rest of the period, I couldn’t stop smiling, as ‘New Slang’ by The Shins ran through my head.

In seventh period, (That’s family life, which is such a joke, let me tell you. Our teacher Mrs. Michaels seriously thinks those fake babies you have to carry around are real. I came in once to ask her about a paper I’d written, and she was feeding one of them formula.) I was bent over my notebook, doodling a fleur de lis, the PA crackled, and our principal, Mr. Steel, cleared his throat and began to speak in his monotone voice that we all continuously mocked.
“Due to severe weather conditions and a very large amount of snow accumulating around the school and in the streets, I have very upsetting news. We will not be able to dismiss students or any faculty members until the storm lets up and the streets can be cleared. All practices, games, meetings and other after school activities have been cancelled and parents are being notified of this as of now. Teachers, please check you e-mail for further instructions, and students remain calm and quiet in your seventh period classrooms. We may be here all night, so it would be greatly appreciated if you would co-operate. Thank you.”
For a moment, it was silent. Then someone started the “Jerry Maguire” clap, which went completely ignored. I looked around to see what everyone was thinking, until someone yelled out,
“It’ll be like one huge sleepover!”

Ten minutes later, our teachers ushered us into the gym, where I found Aidan sitting in the top row.
“Crazy, right?” he asked, looking excited. I thought it was kind of cool too, so I replied with a,
“Yeah it is. What do you think we’ll do all night?”
“I dunno. I kind of want to see what it looks like outside. Can you imagine how much it fun it would be to have snowball fight out there?”
“I know! Do you think we’ll be able to g-“
Suddenly, Mr. Steel interrupted by tapping on a microphone someone had plugged in for him.
“I want to thank you all for all of your cooperation and understanding during this time. I have talked to some weather officials, and they have informed me that this storm most likely won’t let up until tomorrow morning. I’m sorry to inform of this, but we’ll have to keep everyone over night. As we speak, I have various faculty members collecting the needed provisions for tonight. I’d like all the students and a few teachers to remain in the gym. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.”
Chatter started up again until suddenly, a burst of music erupted from the corner of the gym. I raised my head to look what was happening, and I saw Mrs. Smitt bopping back and forth as she walked away from a boom box that was turned up uncommonly loud. Everyone started flooding onto the gym floor and started to dance. Shocked at the movie-ness of it all, I grabbed Aidan’s wrist and pulled him onto the floor. Before I go on, you have to understand something. Aidan cannot dance. He has never been to a school dance, he didn’t ask anyone to homecoming, and has no rhythm. So the very fact that he let me pull him onto to the gym floor is a miracle in itself. So, as we trekked down the steps of the bleachers, I heard Aidan yell above the noise,
“This’ll be fun!” More than he knew.

A few minutes later, after jamming on the “dance floor” with Aidan, we stood on the outskirts of the huge group and looked on. There was one group in particular that held my attention. There they were, the “It” crowd, dancing right under the basketball hoop. But one thing was out of place. Meg wasn’t with Dominic. She was with some second stringer from the junior varsity basketball team. Dominic was nowhere to be found.
“I’m gonna go get some water,” I called to Aidan, with a sneaking suspicion that Dominic would be there too.
“I’ll go with you,” he started forward.
I held up my hand. “No, no, it’s fine. I know where it is. I’ve been there a million times, Aid. Thanks though.”
He shrugged in a defeated kind of way and shrunk back. I walked to the gym doors and pushed myself out. As soon as I turned a corner, it appeared much brighter than usual and I could’ve sworn I heard angels singing. There he was. Bent over the drinking fountain in dark wash Diesel jeans, a white polo shirt that looked luminescent against his olive skin, and the leather cord necklace he never took off, with a stumpy, fat cross looking thing attached to it, hanging out of his shirt. For a moment, I froze, unable to speak or think, unable to make any sense of the English language. I swallowed hard, and took another step forward, just as he pulled back from the fountain. Flicking my hair back, I took another step forward, and bent to get a drink, but stopped, mid bend when he said one word.
“Hey again.” One word. Just two words and I almost melted all over my asics.
“Hey,” I squeaked back, feeling like a huge nerd.
“It’s Andrea, right?” he said, pronouncing it On-dray-a.
“Andrea, actually, but you can me Andy.”
“Cool.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and almost looked nervous. “So we almost got our butt sent to detention today, Huh?”
“Oh yeah,” I said timidly. “Mrs. Morkan was ready to bust us.”
“So you wanna get back?” he asked jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “It would stink to miss an impromptu dance like this one, eh?”
I loved that. The way he says ‘eh?’ I know, I’m such a dork.
“Um, yeah sure. I-I-I mean, if you want to.” I could’ve murdered myself. Stuttering? Not cool.
“Only if I can dance with you,” he smiled.
Oh my gosh. No he did not.
“What about Meg? Aren’t you guys kind of a ‘thing’ around here?”
He took a few steps towards me and spoke in a hushed tone. “I kinda dumped her. Way immature. Always mean and everything. Not my style.”
“Oh. Well. Then okay!” He stuck out a hand, which I took, and led me back to the gym, making me forget that I hadn’t ever gotten a drink.

Upon entering the gym again, I felt as though my stomach was in my throat. Dominic’s hand in mine sent shivers through me, and when he pulled me on to the floor, it felt like an electric switch had been turned on inside me. He held my hands, and we bopped back and forth to the same beat, and the whole time, he stared down at me with this amazingly gorgeous smile. He occasionally spun me, making me laugh, and making me feel like the luckiest girl in the whole world. I didn’t even notice Meg staring at me with dagger eyes, and Aidan standing by himself off to the side. Suddenly, a slow song came on, and Dominic, or ‘Dom’ as he asked me to call him, wrapped his arms around my waist, and held me tighter than I expected. Not that that was a bad thing. Swaying back and forth to some cheesy love song, Dom said really softly,
“You’re a pretty good dancer.”
Oh my. Am I dreaming?

An hour later, I was in the bathroom, washing my hands and face (you have no idea how hot gyms can get!) and I heard a stall door open. Meg Lieker stepped out, and she didn’t look happy.
“I saw you with Dom.”
“Um. Yeah,” I said, expecting her to rip my hair out.
“I just want you to know that you have it coming,” she turned on a faucet and turned her back to me. I threw away my paper towel and ran out as fast as I could. Once I was outside of the bathroom, I leaned up against a wall to catch my breath, and then I saw Aidan jogging towards me carrying clothes.
“Come on, put these on.” He handed me my warm up pants for my cheerleading uniform and my heavy winter coat.
“How did you get these?”
“The janitor gave me your combination, and I knew since you were in your cheerleading uniform that you’d need long pants.”
“For what?”
“Just put them on and you’ll see.”

After putting on my pants and coat, Aidan grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards door, where our school janitor was holding the door open, letting in severe amounts of cold air.
“You’ve got 45 minutes tops,” he said gruffly.
“Thanks, man,” Aidan clapped him on the back.
Aidan pulled me out of the door and onto the school steps.
“Oh wow,” I whispered.
Night had fallen, and the snow that was everywhere glistened like diamonds. Mounds and mounds of snow looked like piles of cotton that were begging to be jumped into.
“I had to give him twenty bucks, but I got the janitor to agree to let us outside. Mr. Steel isn’t letting anyone out here, but the janitor could sneak us out. Remember when we were little, and we’d stay up really late so that we could be the first ones to walk in the freshly fallen snow? Well, here you go.” I couldn’t help but hug Aidan.
“Race you to the oak trees!” I took off as fast as I could.
“Hey, no fair!”
As I sprinted to the trees, I looked around at the sparkling world before me. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And Aidan had done it just for me. That is the sweetes-
“Oof!” I landed face down in the snow.
“Ha! Got you!” Aidan yelled as he stood up. He had tackled me from behind. It was war now. I grabbed a hand full of snow and hurled it at him, and it hit him squarely in the face. He responded by throwing more snow, and so on. We played like children for what seemed like hours, until finally, we both collapsed beside each other under the starry sky.
“That was fun,” I panted.
“Yeah,” Aidan breathed back.
“Hey, Aid? What do you think of Dom?”
“’Dom’?” he asked, sounding kind of mad. “Is that what you’re calling him now? You’ve known him for like two minutes, Andy.”
“He asked me to call him that, and I know. He’s just really nice. And I think he might like me.”
“Yeah, well that’s probably not good,” Aidan huffed. “He’s a bad guy, Andy. He does bad stuff.”
“Oh please, you sound like my mother. Why do you even care?”
Aidan sat up and looked me dead in the face. He clearly had something important to say.
“I care because I-“
“Hey!” Someone cut Aidan off. Someone gorgeous. I looked up to see Dom standing in the snow, looking very cold, but very cute.
“Come on inside, An! We’re gonna eat, and I want you to sit with me!”
Aidan gave me a look that clearly meant ‘don’t go’, but I wasn’t about to pass up a chance at dinner with Dom.
“Sorry, Aid. We’ll finish later, okay?”
“Whatever,” Aidan said, looking rejected. I stood up, dusted myself off, and walked over to Dom. He took my hand, and we walked back to the school, leaving Aidan sitting in the snow.

Once back in the school, Dom led me to the cafeteria.
“All that they could scrape up is leftovers from lunch today, so it definitely won’t be awesome.”
“Gross.” We entered the cafeteria, and it was full of chattering students. Dom nodded to a bunch of his jock friends and their girlfriends. We went over to their table, where a mound of food had accumulated.
“How did you get this already?” I asked, eyeing the long line that didn’t seem to be moving.
“Privileges,” said one of the varsity basketball players, as he picked up a slightly bruised apple and winked at me. The group started to chatter, and Dom was completely ignoring me, so I picked up a wilted salad, and began to eat. But before a single bite could enter my mouth, a nasty voice slithered into my ear.
“Good thing you picked the salad. Your hips couldn’t take anything else,” Meg sneered at me, from across the table, where she had her feet up on a chair and a basketball player’s arm around her neck.
“Lay off her, okay, Meg?” I felt an arm come around me, and Dom’s voice right in my ear. “Just because you’re too immature to hang with me, doesn’t mean you have to be a brat to everyone around you.” Meg flicked her hair.
“Why don’t you go get high, druggie?”
“Why don’t you go throw up, bulimic?”
I felt the whole group tense up, and watched Meg’s eyes flash angrily. Dom stood up, and threw down his fork, never taking his eyes off of Meg.
“Let’s go Andrea,” he said, still staring at Meg, and pronouncing it wrong again.
“It’s actually Andrea but you know-oh, okay, ow, ow,” I said as Dom cut me of and began to push me towards the door roughly. Once outside of the cafeteria, Dom kept walking, but I stopped him.
“Is that true?’ I asked timidly.
“Is what true?” he said, looking infuriated.
“That you do drugs.”
“Well, yeah, of course it is. But it’s no big deal.”
“Yes, it is Dom. It’s a huge deal.”
“Oh, please, An. Almost everyone on the team does it, and I’ve been doing it for years. It’s harmless. I’m just fine, okay?” I shook my head and turned sharply on my heel. As I started to walk away, I heard him yell to me.
“Come on, An. Get over it. Maybe if you just try it, you’d understand.”
I whirled around and faced him.
“Never in a million years would I do something as stupid as that. Not even for you.” And with that, I marched off in search of Aidan, while Dom stood in the empty hallway with an infuriated and confused look on his face.

I wandered the empty hallways to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. I thought of all the time I had spent wishing and dreaming of being with Dominic. I wanted to kick myself for exploding on him, but I was also freaking about the fact that the god of this high school had such a terrible dirty little secret. I knew that I wanted to be with him. Really, I did. But I wasn’t sure how willing I was to give up my morals for some Italian. His attitude about the whole thing scared me too. What if something bad was to happen to me while we were dating and he just blew it off like that? My hands were shaking, and I felt sick to my stomach as I paced. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that I might be able to talk to Aidan. I saw him coming out of the men’s room and quickly approached him.
“Hey! I’m so glad to see you,” I said, resting a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged the hand off.
“Where’s ‘Dom’?” he asked mockingly.
“Eating with his stupid friends. I really have to talk to you. I have huge decision to make and I really need your help.”
Aidan looked madder than I’d ever seen him.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Andy. If it’s about Dominic, I definitely don’t want to talk about it. He’s a jerk, and he’s not right for you.”
“I’m sorry, why are you mad all of a sudden?” I asked, taking a step back.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You blew me off for that freak, and then come running back to me with one of your little boy problems. You wanna know what I was gonna tell you today when we were outside?”
“What?” I asked, terrified to know the answer, and absolutely livid at him for belittling my struggle.
“I was gonna tell you that I like you. More than Dominic does. Plus, I have that added bonus of not being a pothead. I’ve watched you for years go from guy to guy, and never said anything, but this year I decided things would be different. I was going to tell you. But never mind. Please, go enjoy Mr. Gartos while you still can. He’ll be high by the end of the night, and he’s not nearly as charming then.” He started to storm off, but I called after him,
“Aidan, come on. Just give me another chance. Can we just talk? Please. I always talk to you when I have this kind of problem. Please?” I was on the verge of tears, but I wasn’t going to cry in front of Aidan.
“I’m done talking Andy. I don’t want to talk anymore.” With that, he turned swiftly on his heel, and stormed away, leaving me with nothing to do, except sink to the ground, cry softly, and wonder why I ever wanted excitement in my life.


By Abby R.