When living in a beautiful, sunny, hot place like Miami, Florida, what is needed to get away from? I’ll tell you. Boys, tests, a pack of mean girls, the drama with an, “I hate you”, and a “You’re a female dog!” and last of all, parents. I really don’t think there is any place in the world you can go without dealing with most of this. Even if you went to Antarctica, you’d have drama with the penguins! So sometimes you feel like you just have to get away for a while.
Rose Shevoy, is a girl I’ve known for as long as I can remember. However, we did not become good friends until the first grade. She is beautiful, funny, smart, sweet, athletic, and has the best sense of style. She has the most beautiful, long, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and the whitest teeth. Rose barely even needs make up because her skin is so flawless. She can get almost anything she wants no matter the cost. Rose is just one of those lucky people that doesn’t have to work for their money, they are just born into a rich family. Even though she is rich and you would probably think she’s snobby, stuck up, and only cares about herself, she doesn’t. That is her parents’ personality, and Rose does not want to be like that. She actually cares about people who care about her. And the one person who cares for her the most, is me, Samantha Rousch.
Rose has always been there for me. No matter what time, day or night. What is even better about her is that she puts her problems aside to listen to other people. Because her parents are so snobby, they don’t seem to listen to Rose when she has something to say. Nor do they sit down as a family and have a movie night. They don’t really do anything together. To me, Rose is a wonderful person and I don’t know what I would do without her.
Next I guess you could talk about me. Unlike Rose who plays basketball, volleyball, and softball, I am a cheerleader. Even though almost everyone here at Miami High school despises cheerleaders, Rose doesn’t. Every day she doesn’t have a game, she comes to my games. And everyday I don’t have a game I go to hers. We spend as much time together as possible. And the thing is, we don’t ever get sick of each other, nor do we ever run out of things to say. It seems like we have been best friends forever, which really it almost has. It has been eleven years and will definitely keep going. We are already seniors, and to me, it’s just the beginning.
When I was younger and in the first grade, I didn’t have many friends. One day in class during snack time I realized I had forgotten my snack. Rose sat next to me and saw that I didn’t have one so she offered me some of hers. From that day on, we were the best of friends I am four months younger than Rose. And even though she’s not that much older than me, I still look up to her.
Looking at the differences between us, I guess you could say that they are what make us the best of friends.
Now, you can’t possibly think there are no mean girls at our school. Well, there are definitely some mean girls, but the leader of the pack is Jennifer Matthews, a.k.a. queen of the world.
Being rich is not what makes her so hateful and rude. Neither is being the best at everything. For one, she isn’t rich. And second of all, she most definitely is not the best at everything. Even though she may think so, she’s not. The reason for her snobbiness is the fact that she thinks way too much of herself. Why? I don’t know.
“Oh my gosh. I hate tests,” said Rose. Rose and I sat in the back of the classroom and she sat right next to me.
I replied, “Ughhh, I know!” Mr. Goddard’s class is probably the most boring of all. He teaches Physical Science, and he doesn’t make it interesting at all!
“Hey, what are we doing after school,” I asked.
“Well, I’m not really sure. I need to get my dress for Homecoming. Do you want to go with me to the mall to get it?”
“Yeah. I need to get my dress, too. We can get ours together.” Ring ring. The bell for sixth period rang. As I was walking out the door, I ran into Jennifer Matthews and dropped all of my books.
“Oh my god, you really need to watch where you’re going,” said Jennifer.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. But you know, if you want an apology, you should probably say something a little bit nicer than that.” Then I thought to myself, She really needs to be nicer to people. I can’t wait until winter break. As I was walking down the hall, I started thinking about what dress I was going to get. I couldn’t wait for that day to be over. I was tired of classes and Miss I-Think-I-Know-It-All.
Sitting in my next class, French 4, I kept going off into space. When it got closer to the end of class, our teacher Madame Laraina gave us our homework assignment. Our homework was an essay, in French, with a topic of whatever we choose. I have a hard enough time writing essays in English let alone in French! That was exactly what I needed. More homework. All that day I had just been loaded with homework. Granted I had all weekend to do it, but still, it was going to be a lot of work.
As I walked out of the school to meet up with Rose, I was moaning and groaning all the way because of my heavy bookbag.
“Rose, I think my back is going to break in half,” I said.
“Well that may be possible considering you’re only a twig,” she replied.
I smiled and replied, “But seriously, this bookbag weighs a ton. Do you have any idea how much homework I have this weekend?!”
We were walking to our favorite clothing shop which wasn’t far from the school and Rose was telling me about her hard day in class. She said she was tired of her teachers giving her unfair grades, stupid Jennifer, and her boyfriend who won’t talk to her for some weird reason. Finally, I had an idea.
“Hey! I have the perfect solution. How about, during Christmas break, we go on a trip. That way we can just get away from everything for a little while,” I said.
“That sounds great! But where will we go?”
I thought for a minute, “What about New York City? We could see all of the beautiful lights, huge Christmas trees, and snow.”
Rose then said, “Well, my parents will have no problem with it because they barley even notice me when I’m at home, let alone me leaving the state.”
“But you know my parents are a totally different story. You know how they are. They barely let me spend the night at your house because they say my home is with them. They don’t think I need to go to other people’s houses to sleep. It will take a lot of convincing,” I replied.
“Oh, don’t worry. I will make sure you go on this trip one way or another,” Rose said reassuring me.
That night when I got home, my parents were in a good mood. This way they were going to be much easier to talk to. I walked into the family room where my mom was watching TV, and my dad was doing paperwork.
“Hi Mom, hi Dad,” I said to them.
“Hi, honey. How was your day?” asked my mom.
I replied with a simple, “Fine.”
Then I just started into it. “Ok, I have a question for you guys. Well, Rose and I were talking today, and we realized we really needed a break from school and tests, and all of that other stuff. Well, we thought if we were to pay for everything, we could go to New York City over Christmas break.”
My dad looked up from his papers with wide eyes. “You thought you could go all the way to New York, by yourselves?”
“Well, yeah. We said we could pay for it and we really need this vacation.” I explained.
After a lot of convincing and discussing, my parents finally agreed to let Rose and I to go on our much needed vacation. However, there was one condition. We had to call every night to let them know we were safe.
About two weeks after that, it was homecoming weekend. I was so excited, and I really needed to do some dancing. When Rose and I had gone shopping for our dresses, I found one that seemed to have been made especially for me. Of course with Rose, everything fit perfectly on her and looked absolutely gorgeous.
When the night of homecoming came, I was so glad. The minute we got there, we started dancing the night away. I had a wonderful night and I think I lost like three pounds. I even danced with Matt Ingland, the hottest guy at Miami High. Rose and I had such a great time and we were so excited because there were only two and a half more weeks until we left for New York.
Two and a half weeks later, we are off of the plane and standing in the New York City airport.
“I can’t believe we are actually here!” exclaimed Rose.
“I know isn’t it amazing?!” I replied.
We were so excited! We hopped into a cab and went to our hotel. When we got there, we couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. The hotel, its view, everything! We couldn’t wait to go sight seeing. As soon as we got our bags to our room, we called for another taxi and had them take us to the car rental shop. We rented a car, and started off around the city.
Rose and I were having the best time looking at everything, taking pictures, and shopping. Later that night, we got to eat at this wonderful Italian restaurant, right in the middle of Times Square. Since we sat right in the front of the restaurant, we got to watch all of the different people walk by and all of the beautiful Christmas lights.
During the next few days, we had gone to so many places, but there was still so much to see. We knew we weren’t going to be able to see it all, but we were going to do as much as possible. Rose and I were having the most fun getting new clothes, eating at really cool restaurants, and just enjoying our time off. Because we were having so much fun, we didn’t think anything bad could happen, nor did we expect it.
Two days later, we were driving around and accidentally took a wrong turn. We thought, Oh, well. We will just keep driving a little more and come out somewhere, then ask for directions. As we were driving, we didn’t see any cars. However, it was a side street so we didn’t expect many. Little did we know, it was a side street, but a one way side street. We kept on driving and started talking about how we were so excited about graduation in a few months. Then about how we promised to go to the same collage as each other, and how we were going to be each other’s bridesmaids when we got married. Rose then told me something that meant so much to me. She said, “Samantha, I am so glad we are best friends. I don’t know what I would’ve ever done without you. I think of you as my sister.” When I heard that I said that I thought of her as a sister to me.
Rose was driving and we were getting ready to turn a corner. Because it was a one way street, there was a car coming from the opposite direction that she could not see because of a building. Then, I remember waking up in the New York City Memorial hospital. When I asked the doctors what had happened, they told me I was in a head-on collision. I asked them what had happened to Rose and then I heard the worst news of my entire life. They told me she was found dead on the spot. She didn’t suffer, but had serious internal bleeding, a broken leg, and a cracked skull. At that point I felt sick at my stomach, I was in shock, and felt like screaming.
“Let me see her! I know she’s not gone. I was just talking to her as we were rounding the corner. You’re wrong!” I was screaming at the doctor. I didn’t know why he was telling me something that wasn’t true.
“Miss, I am very sorry but we tried our best but we weren’t able to bring her back. You can’t get up. Your leg is broken in three different places, you have one broken rib and your arm is broken in two different places. You also have a concussion.” At that point I was getting really dizzy, and was coughing uncontrollably. It soon got very hard for me to breath and the doctor told me that I needed to rest. But I couldn’t rest. No way was I going to lie down and know that my best friend was….dying. It took all of my energy to not burst out in tears when that thought came to my head. I then kept thinking to my self, No! She’s not dead, she’s not dying. It’s me that is hurt and she is completely fine and on her way here to see me. However, something deep down inside me knew that she was gone for good, I just didn’t want to admit it.
I still couldn’t believe anything he was saying. I burst into tears thinking about Rose. I thought about how she wouldn’t be there to graduate with me, or to go to collage with me, or to be in my wedding. Every time I would think of anything we did or what I would do without her, I just started crying more. It has been three days since the accident and I can’t get through anything. I think I might be going crazy. Oh gosh. No! I’m thinking of her again. Tears start streaming down my face as they did when I first woke up in the hospital.
Mr. and Mrs. Shevoy seemed to finally notice their daughter once they had gotten the news that Rose had died in a terrible car accident. I think it’s sad that it took this much, a death, for them to realize how much they valued their one and only daughter. When I got back to Miami, I tried to talk to Rose’s parents, but they seemed too upset to talk about anything at that time. I finally did get to talk to them, but not until three weeks after I had gotten back. I told them how much fun she had and that I missed her so much. I mean, I can’t blame them at all for their tears and sadness. But, it’s really upsetting knowing that they barely ever paid attention to her, and that, in a way, she didn’t have parents. After I had talked to them that day, it was very hard for me to see them on the streets and try to say hi to them.
Everyday at school, I would start crying during second period. The good thing was nobody asked me what was wrong or why I was crying because they knew exactly why. But I was very glad that they didn’t ask me because that meant that I didn’t have to answer them by saying, “My best friend is dead!” I know I really need to move on, but I just can’t seem to. Now that I have lost my best friend in the entire world, I have also lost a part of myself that I can never get back.
Some how I feel like it was my fault for the crash. I just don’t want to know that I lived and Rose didn’t. I think of her everyday. I want everyone to let the people that you love, know you love them because you never know when they won’t be here. It goes to show that you can be here one second, and be gone the next. I will never forget Rose and all the times we spent together.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Laguna - Elleree
This school year, no one knows what’s going to happen at Laguna High. This year, being a senior is awesome. But there are some serious changes that are going to happen. There’s a new guy in town, school drama gets nastier, and families fall apart. This year could be all Ahlieza wanted, or all the opposite.
Ahlieza Sutton sat alone on her piano bench in her cool, air-conditioned room. She sat playing to her hearts content, letting out all her emotions while doing so. She would always let her mind wander off to think of the impossible, of the craziest things. When the song ended, the fantasy ended. Every time it was like a dream. This time, her mind was strictly on the notes written in front of her. No fairytale came to her. It’s like her mind was blocked and she couldn’t think a thing. The notes stopped at the bottom of the page, and for the split second that Ahlieza stopped playing, she heard something. She went over to her window and opened it. There was an electric guitar blaring from the neighboring house. Once the boy playing saw her watching, he stopped, opened his window, and waved. Ahlieza had no clue who this guy was, but that didn’t stop her from returning his friendly smile with a wave.
‘He must be new here’ Ahlieza thought. Over the past couple days she couldn’t keep her mind off of him. She knew that she had never seen him before, but she wanted to keep him all to herself. So she didn’t let anyone know. Not even her best friend Dia Smith that had been her friend since preschool. He looked around her age; he had dark brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and was about 6 foot.
Dia was over at Ahlieza’s one day, describing the beautiful new coach purse she bought, when Dia realized that Ahlieza wasn’t paying attention at all.
“Hello, earth to Ahlieza!” Dia said.
“Huh, what?!” Ahlieza was too busy thinking about the guy across the street. She’d seen him only a couple times now. He’d been out in his yard playing with a soccer ball and she’d occasionally see him passing by his bedroom window. She still had not met him yet, though.
“I was trying to tell you about my new coach purse!” Dia exclaimed.
“Oh, yeah, right. It sounds cute.” Ahlieza said with no expression what-so-ever.
Dia knew that something was distracting Ahlieza. She just new Ahlieza well enough that she does not like to be bothered about things.
“So what do you think about being a senior this year?” Dia asked this particular question because she knew Ahlieza was so excited about feeling all superior to the underclassmen.
“Oh my gosh! It’s going to be ah-maz-ing! I can’t believe senior year is finally here!!!”
“Yeah, I guess it might be fun.” Dia said.
“You guess?” Ahlieza was shocked, ‘Oh, what does she know’ she thought to herself.
***
The morning of the first day of school in Laguna was balmy, and very dark. Ahlieza woke up with a start as her radio started blaring ‘Me Love’ by Sean Kingston.
She slowly got up out of bed and made her way over to her closet to pull out her already picked out clothes. When she was about to leave, she checked her phone before turning it off to see that she had 1 new text message. She opened it, and it read ‘Meet me outside in 10’. It was from Dia. The time on the message said that it was sent 12 minutes ago. Ahlieza rushed downstairs and opened the door to find Dia standing there leaning against a new yellow mustang.
***
“Where’d you get it?!” Ahlieza exclaimed as her and Dia were riding down the road to school.
“My mom finally decided to get me one.” Dia explained.
“Since when could you drive stick-shift?”
“Since yesterday, now shut-up! I’m trying to drive.” Dia looked absolutely concentrated like nothing could distract her.
Ahlieza smiled and watched the road ahead of her.
When they came into the school parking lot, they were the 5th people there. They parked, and waited there for 15 minutes watching cars come in and find their own spots. Ahlieza watched an all black Pontiac G6 pull into the parking spot next to theirs and saw the boy from next door walk out of his car.
“Hey Dia, I’ll be right back.” Ahlieza said.
She got up out of their own car and walked over to the boy.
“Hi, I’m Ahlieza. You know, the girl next to your house.” She looked at the guy for about 10 seconds.
“Yeah, I’m Clay.” He looked surprised to know that she remembered him.
“Are you new around here? I haven’t really seen you.” She thought the name Clay suited him.
“Yeah, I just moved in.” his face looked confused, “How’d you know?”
“Well, I just kind of figured since I know about everyone in this town.”
“Oh, well I have to get to class.” He started to walk away.
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
He turned around as he said “I guess so.”
***
Ahlieza was sitting in 1st period trying to explain why she hadn’t told Dia about Clay, when their teacher, Mrs. Grey, did her ‘Welcome Back’ speech.
Ahlieza leaned over and whispered to Dia “I didn’t think he was that big of a deal!”
“Well if you kept him a secret then he definitely would be!” Dia whispered back, “Is that why you were so distracted over the summer?”
“No, it was other stuff” Ahlieza defended, “I wouldn’t be wasting my time thinking about some guy I don’t know.”
Ahlieza still wasn’t so sure about that. She really didn’t know why she thought about him all the time. Was it his extremely good looks, or his amazing smile? She wasn’t for sure, but she definitely knew she wanted this conversation to be over. She straightened up in her seat and listened to Mrs. Grey’s boring speech. But hey, it was better than trying to figure out what was up with Clay.
The bell rang 2 minutes after 8, and Ahlieza set off to her next class. The halls were packed, but as a senior, everyone moved out of her way. She felt so tall and mighty, even though she was only 5’1”.
The next few classes were a breeze. All the teachers just talked about their summers and asked about ours. Then came French 5. I knew it would be hard, but I was literally shaking as I walked into Madame’s classroom. I forgot all the words we studied last year and the year before that… I even forgot how to say ‘hi’! It was bad.
“Bonjour class.” Madame said.
That’s the word for ‘hello’!
“How was your summer?” Madame asked.
Alright this will be easy Ahlieza thought. It’s the first day! We’re not going to do any French.
***
Ahlieza saw Clay in the cafeteria during lunch. She got her food and sat down beside him.
“So, what are you up to?” She asked him.
“Oh, hi. Nothing.” He seemed surprised once again.
“Sorry, did you not want me to sit here?”
“No, it’s fine.” He said.
“So, how’s the first day at Laguna High?” Ahlieza asked trying to start a conversation.
“It’s OK. This school is kind of weird though, and big.”
“Yeah, it is. I have a hard time finding my classes.”
“But you’ve gone here for years!”
“Yeah, well I guess there are some things I’ll never get used to.”
“Yeah. Alright, I have to go.” He smiled and waved.
Ahlieza smiled back and ate her lunch until Dia joined her.
“I thought there was nothing there.” She said.
“Neither did I.” Ahlieza said in shock.
***
A couple days into school, Ahlieza started to hang out with Clay more. She found out that his old school won the soccer championships and that he’s trying out this year. He also runs track. Ahlieza loved the thought of him being athletic. To her sports = 6 packs.
One Tuesday, Ahlieza was in French when she got called down to the office. Her heart skipped a beat. She was terrified that she was in trouble. However, when she got down there, all they asked was if she’d taken any interest in any colleges. She said ‘no’ and they advised that she should hurry up. Graduation is coming closer. As if she didn’t know.
That same day, Dia got called down to the office. She was told that her parents had just gotten a divorce, and that she could have the whole day off to go home with her mom.
***
“Did you know this was going to happen?” Ahlieza was freaking out. “Did they fight a lot?”
“Ahlieza just shut-up. You talk too much.” Dia was sitting on Ahlieza’s desk chair after school.
Ahlieza knew that Dia was in a bad mood, but she was really being rude.
“I’m sorry. I’m just wondering what could have happened.” Ahlieza said.
“Well so are the rest of us! But we aren’t complaining!” Dia took her jacket off of Ahlieza’s shiny black Yamaha piano and stormed out of the room.
Ahlieza stood in the doorway, surprised about Dia’s sudden outburst.
***
Everyday at school, Ahlieza saw Dia in almost all of her classes. Dia hadn’t spoken one word to her since Tuesday night. Ahlieza hung out with Clay most of the time. He was becoming very popular, having made the starting team for soccer. All the girls were in love with him, the jocks looked up to him, and that left me to be his friend. I missed having all those girl talks with Dia. I couldn’t talk to Clay about guys or anything because that would be weird.
After awhile, Clay found other friends, Dia had her group to hang out with, and Ahlieza didn’t have anyone. She felt alone. She played her piano most of the time. Forgetting about what was most important, like homework, and looking for colleges. She just couldn’t seem to find exactly the right one. She wanted one far away from Laguna. There was too much drama to deal with. She wanted somewhere peaceful and calm. The hassle of school was restless and pained. There was no perfect school for Ahlieza. She needed to make do with something. Somehow she just couldn’t.
Ahlieza’s grades started sinking. It was very unusual because Ahlieza had always been an A, B student. She slacked in almost every subject (especially French), and she would barely utter a sound unless she had to.
***
“I don’t see you hanging out with Dia very much anymore.” Ahlieza’s mom said, “Why’s that?”
“It’s nothing, really.” Ahlieza said finishing her dinner and taking her plate to the sink full of other dishes.
“Oh, well.” Sighed Mrs. Sutton, “It’s your night to do the dishwasher.”
“I’ll get to it.” Ahlieza said as she climbed the stairs to do her homework.
She was going up to her room when she heard the phone ring downstairs. She waited to see who it was.
“Oh, hi Dia!” Her mom was saying, “It’s so nice to hear from you again.”
There was a pause, and then Ahlieza’s mom said “Yes, I’ll give her the message. Thanks for calling!”
Ahlieza rushed into her room and waited for her mom to come up to give her Dia’s message.
Once her mom was up the stairs, she said “Dia called to tell you that she’d like you to come over tomorrow morning before school.”
Ahlieza was shocked to hear Dia called and even more shocked that she wanted her to come over the next morning. There was only one way to find out.
***
Ahlieza walked over to Dia’s house the next Saturday morning. She rang the doorbell awaiting someone to answer the door. Once the door did open, she saw Dia’s mom looking horrible. Her hair had that bed head look like she hadn’t combed it for days and her breath smelled horrible as she said,
“Dia’s in her room.”
She walked upstairs, and into Dia’s room just like she had done so many other times. Dia rushed to give her a hug the moment she entered the doorway.
“I am so sorry. I over reacted.” Dia said over my shoulder, “I was just so stressed with the divorce and everything.”
“I know, it’s alright. I get it.” Ahlieza said.
Everything went back to usual. Monday morning Dia came to Ahlieza’s house to pick her up in her yellow mustang. They walked in the front doors discussing how Rihanna’s dress in the VMA’s was absolutely hideous, and whether they really thought pink was the new black. With this century’s skin tones, no one could ever know!
***
After Dia and Ahlieza apologized to each other, school seemed to be so much better for Ahlieza. She was now really focused and she even started hanging out with Clay more. Dia came to like him and they became pretty good friends. Ahlieza found a college that both she and Dia liked so they could go to school together. Actually they both found about 5 collages. Ahlieza loved school, even her French was starting to get really good. There was so much drama lately, and it was just 4 weeks into school. Ahlieza didn’t want to know what was going to happen next. She just wanted to know that it wasn’t going to happen to her.
Elleree E.
Ahlieza Sutton sat alone on her piano bench in her cool, air-conditioned room. She sat playing to her hearts content, letting out all her emotions while doing so. She would always let her mind wander off to think of the impossible, of the craziest things. When the song ended, the fantasy ended. Every time it was like a dream. This time, her mind was strictly on the notes written in front of her. No fairytale came to her. It’s like her mind was blocked and she couldn’t think a thing. The notes stopped at the bottom of the page, and for the split second that Ahlieza stopped playing, she heard something. She went over to her window and opened it. There was an electric guitar blaring from the neighboring house. Once the boy playing saw her watching, he stopped, opened his window, and waved. Ahlieza had no clue who this guy was, but that didn’t stop her from returning his friendly smile with a wave.
‘He must be new here’ Ahlieza thought. Over the past couple days she couldn’t keep her mind off of him. She knew that she had never seen him before, but she wanted to keep him all to herself. So she didn’t let anyone know. Not even her best friend Dia Smith that had been her friend since preschool. He looked around her age; he had dark brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and was about 6 foot.
Dia was over at Ahlieza’s one day, describing the beautiful new coach purse she bought, when Dia realized that Ahlieza wasn’t paying attention at all.
“Hello, earth to Ahlieza!” Dia said.
“Huh, what?!” Ahlieza was too busy thinking about the guy across the street. She’d seen him only a couple times now. He’d been out in his yard playing with a soccer ball and she’d occasionally see him passing by his bedroom window. She still had not met him yet, though.
“I was trying to tell you about my new coach purse!” Dia exclaimed.
“Oh, yeah, right. It sounds cute.” Ahlieza said with no expression what-so-ever.
Dia knew that something was distracting Ahlieza. She just new Ahlieza well enough that she does not like to be bothered about things.
“So what do you think about being a senior this year?” Dia asked this particular question because she knew Ahlieza was so excited about feeling all superior to the underclassmen.
“Oh my gosh! It’s going to be ah-maz-ing! I can’t believe senior year is finally here!!!”
“Yeah, I guess it might be fun.” Dia said.
“You guess?” Ahlieza was shocked, ‘Oh, what does she know’ she thought to herself.
***
The morning of the first day of school in Laguna was balmy, and very dark. Ahlieza woke up with a start as her radio started blaring ‘Me Love’ by Sean Kingston.
She slowly got up out of bed and made her way over to her closet to pull out her already picked out clothes. When she was about to leave, she checked her phone before turning it off to see that she had 1 new text message. She opened it, and it read ‘Meet me outside in 10’. It was from Dia. The time on the message said that it was sent 12 minutes ago. Ahlieza rushed downstairs and opened the door to find Dia standing there leaning against a new yellow mustang.
***
“Where’d you get it?!” Ahlieza exclaimed as her and Dia were riding down the road to school.
“My mom finally decided to get me one.” Dia explained.
“Since when could you drive stick-shift?”
“Since yesterday, now shut-up! I’m trying to drive.” Dia looked absolutely concentrated like nothing could distract her.
Ahlieza smiled and watched the road ahead of her.
When they came into the school parking lot, they were the 5th people there. They parked, and waited there for 15 minutes watching cars come in and find their own spots. Ahlieza watched an all black Pontiac G6 pull into the parking spot next to theirs and saw the boy from next door walk out of his car.
“Hey Dia, I’ll be right back.” Ahlieza said.
She got up out of their own car and walked over to the boy.
“Hi, I’m Ahlieza. You know, the girl next to your house.” She looked at the guy for about 10 seconds.
“Yeah, I’m Clay.” He looked surprised to know that she remembered him.
“Are you new around here? I haven’t really seen you.” She thought the name Clay suited him.
“Yeah, I just moved in.” his face looked confused, “How’d you know?”
“Well, I just kind of figured since I know about everyone in this town.”
“Oh, well I have to get to class.” He started to walk away.
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
He turned around as he said “I guess so.”
***
Ahlieza was sitting in 1st period trying to explain why she hadn’t told Dia about Clay, when their teacher, Mrs. Grey, did her ‘Welcome Back’ speech.
Ahlieza leaned over and whispered to Dia “I didn’t think he was that big of a deal!”
“Well if you kept him a secret then he definitely would be!” Dia whispered back, “Is that why you were so distracted over the summer?”
“No, it was other stuff” Ahlieza defended, “I wouldn’t be wasting my time thinking about some guy I don’t know.”
Ahlieza still wasn’t so sure about that. She really didn’t know why she thought about him all the time. Was it his extremely good looks, or his amazing smile? She wasn’t for sure, but she definitely knew she wanted this conversation to be over. She straightened up in her seat and listened to Mrs. Grey’s boring speech. But hey, it was better than trying to figure out what was up with Clay.
The bell rang 2 minutes after 8, and Ahlieza set off to her next class. The halls were packed, but as a senior, everyone moved out of her way. She felt so tall and mighty, even though she was only 5’1”.
The next few classes were a breeze. All the teachers just talked about their summers and asked about ours. Then came French 5. I knew it would be hard, but I was literally shaking as I walked into Madame’s classroom. I forgot all the words we studied last year and the year before that… I even forgot how to say ‘hi’! It was bad.
“Bonjour class.” Madame said.
That’s the word for ‘hello’!
“How was your summer?” Madame asked.
Alright this will be easy Ahlieza thought. It’s the first day! We’re not going to do any French.
***
Ahlieza saw Clay in the cafeteria during lunch. She got her food and sat down beside him.
“So, what are you up to?” She asked him.
“Oh, hi. Nothing.” He seemed surprised once again.
“Sorry, did you not want me to sit here?”
“No, it’s fine.” He said.
“So, how’s the first day at Laguna High?” Ahlieza asked trying to start a conversation.
“It’s OK. This school is kind of weird though, and big.”
“Yeah, it is. I have a hard time finding my classes.”
“But you’ve gone here for years!”
“Yeah, well I guess there are some things I’ll never get used to.”
“Yeah. Alright, I have to go.” He smiled and waved.
Ahlieza smiled back and ate her lunch until Dia joined her.
“I thought there was nothing there.” She said.
“Neither did I.” Ahlieza said in shock.
***
A couple days into school, Ahlieza started to hang out with Clay more. She found out that his old school won the soccer championships and that he’s trying out this year. He also runs track. Ahlieza loved the thought of him being athletic. To her sports = 6 packs.
One Tuesday, Ahlieza was in French when she got called down to the office. Her heart skipped a beat. She was terrified that she was in trouble. However, when she got down there, all they asked was if she’d taken any interest in any colleges. She said ‘no’ and they advised that she should hurry up. Graduation is coming closer. As if she didn’t know.
That same day, Dia got called down to the office. She was told that her parents had just gotten a divorce, and that she could have the whole day off to go home with her mom.
***
“Did you know this was going to happen?” Ahlieza was freaking out. “Did they fight a lot?”
“Ahlieza just shut-up. You talk too much.” Dia was sitting on Ahlieza’s desk chair after school.
Ahlieza knew that Dia was in a bad mood, but she was really being rude.
“I’m sorry. I’m just wondering what could have happened.” Ahlieza said.
“Well so are the rest of us! But we aren’t complaining!” Dia took her jacket off of Ahlieza’s shiny black Yamaha piano and stormed out of the room.
Ahlieza stood in the doorway, surprised about Dia’s sudden outburst.
***
Everyday at school, Ahlieza saw Dia in almost all of her classes. Dia hadn’t spoken one word to her since Tuesday night. Ahlieza hung out with Clay most of the time. He was becoming very popular, having made the starting team for soccer. All the girls were in love with him, the jocks looked up to him, and that left me to be his friend. I missed having all those girl talks with Dia. I couldn’t talk to Clay about guys or anything because that would be weird.
After awhile, Clay found other friends, Dia had her group to hang out with, and Ahlieza didn’t have anyone. She felt alone. She played her piano most of the time. Forgetting about what was most important, like homework, and looking for colleges. She just couldn’t seem to find exactly the right one. She wanted one far away from Laguna. There was too much drama to deal with. She wanted somewhere peaceful and calm. The hassle of school was restless and pained. There was no perfect school for Ahlieza. She needed to make do with something. Somehow she just couldn’t.
Ahlieza’s grades started sinking. It was very unusual because Ahlieza had always been an A, B student. She slacked in almost every subject (especially French), and she would barely utter a sound unless she had to.
***
“I don’t see you hanging out with Dia very much anymore.” Ahlieza’s mom said, “Why’s that?”
“It’s nothing, really.” Ahlieza said finishing her dinner and taking her plate to the sink full of other dishes.
“Oh, well.” Sighed Mrs. Sutton, “It’s your night to do the dishwasher.”
“I’ll get to it.” Ahlieza said as she climbed the stairs to do her homework.
She was going up to her room when she heard the phone ring downstairs. She waited to see who it was.
“Oh, hi Dia!” Her mom was saying, “It’s so nice to hear from you again.”
There was a pause, and then Ahlieza’s mom said “Yes, I’ll give her the message. Thanks for calling!”
Ahlieza rushed into her room and waited for her mom to come up to give her Dia’s message.
Once her mom was up the stairs, she said “Dia called to tell you that she’d like you to come over tomorrow morning before school.”
Ahlieza was shocked to hear Dia called and even more shocked that she wanted her to come over the next morning. There was only one way to find out.
***
Ahlieza walked over to Dia’s house the next Saturday morning. She rang the doorbell awaiting someone to answer the door. Once the door did open, she saw Dia’s mom looking horrible. Her hair had that bed head look like she hadn’t combed it for days and her breath smelled horrible as she said,
“Dia’s in her room.”
She walked upstairs, and into Dia’s room just like she had done so many other times. Dia rushed to give her a hug the moment she entered the doorway.
“I am so sorry. I over reacted.” Dia said over my shoulder, “I was just so stressed with the divorce and everything.”
“I know, it’s alright. I get it.” Ahlieza said.
Everything went back to usual. Monday morning Dia came to Ahlieza’s house to pick her up in her yellow mustang. They walked in the front doors discussing how Rihanna’s dress in the VMA’s was absolutely hideous, and whether they really thought pink was the new black. With this century’s skin tones, no one could ever know!
***
After Dia and Ahlieza apologized to each other, school seemed to be so much better for Ahlieza. She was now really focused and she even started hanging out with Clay more. Dia came to like him and they became pretty good friends. Ahlieza found a college that both she and Dia liked so they could go to school together. Actually they both found about 5 collages. Ahlieza loved school, even her French was starting to get really good. There was so much drama lately, and it was just 4 weeks into school. Ahlieza didn’t want to know what was going to happen next. She just wanted to know that it wasn’t going to happen to her.
Elleree E.
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.
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.
A Walk on the Beach - Jordan
A Walk on the Beach
Hi! My name is Sarah Louis. I have lived in one place my entire life, Washington D.C. Most people think it would make a wonderful home, but it doesn’t. There’s always traffic, too much noise, and there’s always political gossip. I know it still doesn’t sound that bad but you’ll just have to trust me. As I was saying, I have lived here my whole life, and as much as I complain about it I am really glad I live here. I have the best friends, the best school, and I wish I could say I have the best family, but that would be a lie. My parents are getting a divorce. Everyone keeps telling me it is going to be okay because they feel bad for me. The weird thing is I don’t really mind. I knew it was coming from about a year ago when my dad started sleeping on the couch and they stopped talking to each other. I am just afraid that I will be moving away depending on who gets custody of my sister and me. My parents keep telling us that it is going to be up to us because of our age and I think we both agree that we want to live with mom. I mean, think about it. We are two teenage girls and with a dad that just doesn’t click. On the other hand, if I stay with dad I will stay in Washington D.C. and mom plans on moving. It’s a really hard decision that I don’t know if I can make.
Well the custody decision has to be made so I am going with my mom. I am really sad because I am leaving all of my friends and everyone I knew behind in Washington and starting over in Cape Cod, which I think sounds like a boring place compared to Washington. I am also extremely nervous about starting at a new school because I won’t know anyone there and it might be hard to make friends. I know people at my school don’t want to be friends with the new people, so it’s a little bit on the scary side.
We drove all the way from Washington D.C. to Sandywind, Cape Cod. Yes, I know it sounds generic, but surprisingly it was gorgeous! Our house is bigger than the one in Washington and the view from our back porch was even better. We are right on the beach and we come down off our porch onto sand. I was actually happy until my mom said I you needed to be getting to bed soon because I have school tomorrow. Then my heart was in my throat because now it was only a few hours away!
I went to school in Washington for a month so I will be starting my first day while everyone else is already a month into the year. It’s September, so it’s not the warmest out, but I can deal with it because jeans and a sweatshirt is my favorite outfit. Once it really gets cold out it won’t be as much fun though.
When I walked into my first class everyone was staring at me. It made me really nervous so I went to an empty seat in the back and sat down. I tried not to talk because I was afraid I would say something stupid. After a few minutes they forgot I even existed, which I must point out was a good thing to me. I got to second class early so I thought no one would notice me. Then I looked over to the person sitting next to me and I realized he had been looking at me too, and on top of that he was gorgeous! Later in class I found out his name was Derrick when the teacher called on him to answer a question. I was so excited! I got the most amazing guy to notice me without having to do anything but sit there and listen to the teacher.
Then in my third class I noticed him sitting next to me again. This time when I looked over at him he didn’t look away, he just smiled an amazing smile that melted me! I couldn’t believe it was my first day and I was already falling in love with someone I knew wouldn’t ever love me back…. Out of all 8 of my classes, he was in 5; Algebra, Spanish, Language, Art, and lunch. In almost every class he sat by or near me!
That afternoon, at the end of the school day, he stopped by my locker. He asked me where I was from, if I had any siblings, and where I lived. Then he said good-bye and we went separate ways, but I was so happy! I know guys like him don’t just go to a girl’s locker for no reason, but then again he had to have a girlfriend didn’t he? I mean, come on, he’s gorgeous! Well, I guess the important thing was that he came.
The next day at school he smiled at me in Algebra and I smiled back. At lunch, I sat with two girls, Samantha and Allie. They seemed really nice and friendly. They talked a lot about after-school activities. Samantha said that she was going to join the swim team and Allie said she wanted to play volleyball. I said that I wanted to join the tennis team because that’s what I played at my last school and, not to brag or anything, but I was the champion. Then I asked them about Derrick and if he had a girlfriend. Allie said that he did and that her name was Amanda, then Samantha pointed her out. My first thought was wow! Amanda looked so pretty. I knew I could never get a guy that already has a girl like that, but I really liked him so I decided we could be friends.
After the showing of his girlfriend, Allie gave me the whole story of them. Derrick and Amanda have apparently been dating for a few months and seem to be very happy together, but Derrick only sees Amanda’s sweet and pretty exterior and not the real her. Amanda is a rich, spoiled brat, plus she’s popular: A deadly concoction. Truly, the correct definition of Amanda was snob, but that’s not what Allie called her. Derrick is the amazing, athletic, smart, and popular boy. They go together like cookies and milk. That was pretty much what I got from Allie, though she was a little more descriptive.
Later that same day I talked to Derrick a little bit, and the next day, and the next day too! This time though he said he would introduce me to some of his friends at lunch. I was expecting guys, and at first that’s what I got. He took me to his lunch table and introduced me to Brian, Michael, Jake, and Sam. Then he told “the guys” he would be right back and he took me to another table, except this time I wasn’t as happy about it. He took me to Amanda’s table. When Amanda saw him coming and with me, a girl, she jumped up and hugged him. I introduced myself to Amanda along with Rachel, Emily, Katie, and Becky. They all seemed to be very nice, except Amanda. It was obvious she didn’t like me because I was hanging out with her boyfriend a lot. It was also obvious to me that I wasn’t taken as a threat but that was okay because I wouldn’t have seen me as a threat either if I were her.
Amanda invited me to sit down, but I immediately replied, “No, I’m sitting with Derrick today,” and I could tell that bothered her. Then she said, “Then you must sit with us tomorrow.” I decided to say yes because the last thing I needed on my first week was an enemy. Somehow I knew I would regret it.
I walked with Derrick back over to his lunch table where we sat with “the guys” and ate lunch. “The guys” were surprisingly interested in my stories about Washington D.C. and my life there. I enjoyed sitting with them because they made me feel at home. I wish I could sit with them tomorrow instead of sitting at Amanda’s table. Well, I guess it’s too late. I was committed and I believe that people should always honor a commitment.
The next day at lunch, I was walking toward Amanda’s table and I thought about turning and going toward Allie and Samantha, but I didn’t. I walked right over and Amanda pointed for me to sit right next to her. I sat there and I surprisingly enjoyed myself and all of the girls were quite nice and friendly. They even invited me to sit with them tomorrow, and this time I said yes without hesitating.
The next day before lunch, Derrick came up to me and asked if I wanted to do homework with him tonight. I surprised myself by saying that we could do it at my house if he wanted because I live on the beach and we could take a walk when we were finished. Derrick seemed to like my idea, and he said that he would be there around 6 o’clock. Then we walked to lunch together!
I went to sit with Amanda again, but when I sat down I got a rude awakening. I had sat down into a cup of chocolate pudding. My natural instincts kicked in and I jumped up and ran toward the door crying. Then the unthinkable and unbelievable happened. Derrick jumped up grabbed my arm and pulled me close. He told me to wait there and that he would be right back. I watched as he walked to Amanda’s table where they were all giggling. He quickly stopped the laughing and pointing with a very angry side of him. He asked Amanda what was wrong with her and how she could do anything like that to someone like me who had never done anything to her. Then as he turned and began to walk to me he shouted over his shoulder, “I don’t know if we are going to be able to work this out.” That was the end of that discussion. He took me to the lost and found where I got the only pants they had, a pair of blue sweat pants. I couldn’t help but keep thanking him. After what he did for me, he practically ended his relationship with Amanda because he didn’t like seeing her hurt me. After he left to go back to lunch I kept thinking of the awful thing she did to me and that just reminded me of how he stood up for me and yelled at her. This also reminded me of how much I wished he was mine.
Later that evening, Derrick showed up right on time. First we ate a dinner of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and pork chops. Derrick gave his complements to the chef, a.k.a. my mom. After dinner, we went up to my room and did algebra and Spanish homework together. While we were doing this I finally realized how smart he is. After our homework was done, we decided to take the walk on the beach. We hadn’t walked far when we began playing a game of tag. Derrick was it, then I was it, then Derrick again…. It went like this for a while because we weren’t really trying hard to get away from each other. Then when Derrick was it, I took off running down the beach, but he was quick to follow and was right behind me. Then I tripped on a pile of drift wood that I couldn’t see because of the dark. I ended up lying on my back facing up toward the sky. Derrick slowed down and walked quietly up to me. He peered down at me from above with a big smile on his face, poked me with a stick, and said, “Tag, you’re it!” I laughed but I didn’t get up so he lay down beside me.
We lay like that, staring at the stars, for a long time. Then he said, “They remind me of you.” I was a bit shocked by this and confused. After a few seconds I asked, “How?” He replied, “They are so beautiful and amazing.” I could feel myself blushing. Then Derrick grabbed my hand. When I could feel that he was looking at me I looked over at him too. We stayed there staring at each other for a minute and then he kissed me. I was so surprised and it was so unexpected that I didn’t really kiss back, but either way, it was a kiss of a lifetime! Then he looked back at the sky and whispered, “I think I love you.” This was more than I could handle…. It took my breath away…. When I could finally breathe and speak I muttered, not wanting to hear the answer, “What about Amanda?”
Hearing this, Derrick got to his feet, and for the first time I saw him look sad. He had always seemed so happy and smiling, always, but now he looked sad. Very sad. He looked down at the sand, then up at the sky, then down again. Finally he said, “I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure what to say next and he could tell. Finally, I said, “We should be getting back soon.” Derrick looked at the ground again and began to walk back the way we had come from. I caught up to him and took his hand, and we walked that way the rest of the way home. The only bad part about it all was the feeling I got when I thought about tomorrow and Amanda.
The next day at school, I couldn’t help but notice that Derrick was smiling at me more than usual. Then lunch time came and I knew this wouldn’t be fun. I sat down at Derrick’s usual table, but he didn’t. He sat down at Amanda’s and he didn’t look happy. He sat right next to her and started talking. I couldn’t hear because it was too far away and I’m not good at lip reading either, but I watched intently. After a minute, Amanda broke out in tears and Derrick got up and walked over to me. He sat down and started eating like nothing had happened. I asked what they were talking about even though I already knew. He told me that he broke up with Amanda because she wasn’t his type. She was mean to girls that were his friends, and she was in the way of something much more important to him. Then I said, “Want to do homework at my place tonight?” I paused. “We could go for a walk on the beach afterwards.” At that very moment I knew I was starting a very interesting chapter in my life.
Okay, I thought maybe I could give you a little bit of what happens in the rest of my school year at Sandywind. Amanda became my first and only enemy at school and Derrick and I are still together and will be for a really long time. Amanda tried to start things because she despised me for, as she would say, “stealing” her boyfriend. I never did let her do so, but she sure did try. I finally adjusted to my new school and made many friends. Over all, moving wasn’t such a bad idea.
Hi! My name is Sarah Louis. I have lived in one place my entire life, Washington D.C. Most people think it would make a wonderful home, but it doesn’t. There’s always traffic, too much noise, and there’s always political gossip. I know it still doesn’t sound that bad but you’ll just have to trust me. As I was saying, I have lived here my whole life, and as much as I complain about it I am really glad I live here. I have the best friends, the best school, and I wish I could say I have the best family, but that would be a lie. My parents are getting a divorce. Everyone keeps telling me it is going to be okay because they feel bad for me. The weird thing is I don’t really mind. I knew it was coming from about a year ago when my dad started sleeping on the couch and they stopped talking to each other. I am just afraid that I will be moving away depending on who gets custody of my sister and me. My parents keep telling us that it is going to be up to us because of our age and I think we both agree that we want to live with mom. I mean, think about it. We are two teenage girls and with a dad that just doesn’t click. On the other hand, if I stay with dad I will stay in Washington D.C. and mom plans on moving. It’s a really hard decision that I don’t know if I can make.
Well the custody decision has to be made so I am going with my mom. I am really sad because I am leaving all of my friends and everyone I knew behind in Washington and starting over in Cape Cod, which I think sounds like a boring place compared to Washington. I am also extremely nervous about starting at a new school because I won’t know anyone there and it might be hard to make friends. I know people at my school don’t want to be friends with the new people, so it’s a little bit on the scary side.
We drove all the way from Washington D.C. to Sandywind, Cape Cod. Yes, I know it sounds generic, but surprisingly it was gorgeous! Our house is bigger than the one in Washington and the view from our back porch was even better. We are right on the beach and we come down off our porch onto sand. I was actually happy until my mom said I you needed to be getting to bed soon because I have school tomorrow. Then my heart was in my throat because now it was only a few hours away!
I went to school in Washington for a month so I will be starting my first day while everyone else is already a month into the year. It’s September, so it’s not the warmest out, but I can deal with it because jeans and a sweatshirt is my favorite outfit. Once it really gets cold out it won’t be as much fun though.
When I walked into my first class everyone was staring at me. It made me really nervous so I went to an empty seat in the back and sat down. I tried not to talk because I was afraid I would say something stupid. After a few minutes they forgot I even existed, which I must point out was a good thing to me. I got to second class early so I thought no one would notice me. Then I looked over to the person sitting next to me and I realized he had been looking at me too, and on top of that he was gorgeous! Later in class I found out his name was Derrick when the teacher called on him to answer a question. I was so excited! I got the most amazing guy to notice me without having to do anything but sit there and listen to the teacher.
Then in my third class I noticed him sitting next to me again. This time when I looked over at him he didn’t look away, he just smiled an amazing smile that melted me! I couldn’t believe it was my first day and I was already falling in love with someone I knew wouldn’t ever love me back…. Out of all 8 of my classes, he was in 5; Algebra, Spanish, Language, Art, and lunch. In almost every class he sat by or near me!
That afternoon, at the end of the school day, he stopped by my locker. He asked me where I was from, if I had any siblings, and where I lived. Then he said good-bye and we went separate ways, but I was so happy! I know guys like him don’t just go to a girl’s locker for no reason, but then again he had to have a girlfriend didn’t he? I mean, come on, he’s gorgeous! Well, I guess the important thing was that he came.
The next day at school he smiled at me in Algebra and I smiled back. At lunch, I sat with two girls, Samantha and Allie. They seemed really nice and friendly. They talked a lot about after-school activities. Samantha said that she was going to join the swim team and Allie said she wanted to play volleyball. I said that I wanted to join the tennis team because that’s what I played at my last school and, not to brag or anything, but I was the champion. Then I asked them about Derrick and if he had a girlfriend. Allie said that he did and that her name was Amanda, then Samantha pointed her out. My first thought was wow! Amanda looked so pretty. I knew I could never get a guy that already has a girl like that, but I really liked him so I decided we could be friends.
After the showing of his girlfriend, Allie gave me the whole story of them. Derrick and Amanda have apparently been dating for a few months and seem to be very happy together, but Derrick only sees Amanda’s sweet and pretty exterior and not the real her. Amanda is a rich, spoiled brat, plus she’s popular: A deadly concoction. Truly, the correct definition of Amanda was snob, but that’s not what Allie called her. Derrick is the amazing, athletic, smart, and popular boy. They go together like cookies and milk. That was pretty much what I got from Allie, though she was a little more descriptive.
Later that same day I talked to Derrick a little bit, and the next day, and the next day too! This time though he said he would introduce me to some of his friends at lunch. I was expecting guys, and at first that’s what I got. He took me to his lunch table and introduced me to Brian, Michael, Jake, and Sam. Then he told “the guys” he would be right back and he took me to another table, except this time I wasn’t as happy about it. He took me to Amanda’s table. When Amanda saw him coming and with me, a girl, she jumped up and hugged him. I introduced myself to Amanda along with Rachel, Emily, Katie, and Becky. They all seemed to be very nice, except Amanda. It was obvious she didn’t like me because I was hanging out with her boyfriend a lot. It was also obvious to me that I wasn’t taken as a threat but that was okay because I wouldn’t have seen me as a threat either if I were her.
Amanda invited me to sit down, but I immediately replied, “No, I’m sitting with Derrick today,” and I could tell that bothered her. Then she said, “Then you must sit with us tomorrow.” I decided to say yes because the last thing I needed on my first week was an enemy. Somehow I knew I would regret it.
I walked with Derrick back over to his lunch table where we sat with “the guys” and ate lunch. “The guys” were surprisingly interested in my stories about Washington D.C. and my life there. I enjoyed sitting with them because they made me feel at home. I wish I could sit with them tomorrow instead of sitting at Amanda’s table. Well, I guess it’s too late. I was committed and I believe that people should always honor a commitment.
The next day at lunch, I was walking toward Amanda’s table and I thought about turning and going toward Allie and Samantha, but I didn’t. I walked right over and Amanda pointed for me to sit right next to her. I sat there and I surprisingly enjoyed myself and all of the girls were quite nice and friendly. They even invited me to sit with them tomorrow, and this time I said yes without hesitating.
The next day before lunch, Derrick came up to me and asked if I wanted to do homework with him tonight. I surprised myself by saying that we could do it at my house if he wanted because I live on the beach and we could take a walk when we were finished. Derrick seemed to like my idea, and he said that he would be there around 6 o’clock. Then we walked to lunch together!
I went to sit with Amanda again, but when I sat down I got a rude awakening. I had sat down into a cup of chocolate pudding. My natural instincts kicked in and I jumped up and ran toward the door crying. Then the unthinkable and unbelievable happened. Derrick jumped up grabbed my arm and pulled me close. He told me to wait there and that he would be right back. I watched as he walked to Amanda’s table where they were all giggling. He quickly stopped the laughing and pointing with a very angry side of him. He asked Amanda what was wrong with her and how she could do anything like that to someone like me who had never done anything to her. Then as he turned and began to walk to me he shouted over his shoulder, “I don’t know if we are going to be able to work this out.” That was the end of that discussion. He took me to the lost and found where I got the only pants they had, a pair of blue sweat pants. I couldn’t help but keep thanking him. After what he did for me, he practically ended his relationship with Amanda because he didn’t like seeing her hurt me. After he left to go back to lunch I kept thinking of the awful thing she did to me and that just reminded me of how he stood up for me and yelled at her. This also reminded me of how much I wished he was mine.
Later that evening, Derrick showed up right on time. First we ate a dinner of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and pork chops. Derrick gave his complements to the chef, a.k.a. my mom. After dinner, we went up to my room and did algebra and Spanish homework together. While we were doing this I finally realized how smart he is. After our homework was done, we decided to take the walk on the beach. We hadn’t walked far when we began playing a game of tag. Derrick was it, then I was it, then Derrick again…. It went like this for a while because we weren’t really trying hard to get away from each other. Then when Derrick was it, I took off running down the beach, but he was quick to follow and was right behind me. Then I tripped on a pile of drift wood that I couldn’t see because of the dark. I ended up lying on my back facing up toward the sky. Derrick slowed down and walked quietly up to me. He peered down at me from above with a big smile on his face, poked me with a stick, and said, “Tag, you’re it!” I laughed but I didn’t get up so he lay down beside me.
We lay like that, staring at the stars, for a long time. Then he said, “They remind me of you.” I was a bit shocked by this and confused. After a few seconds I asked, “How?” He replied, “They are so beautiful and amazing.” I could feel myself blushing. Then Derrick grabbed my hand. When I could feel that he was looking at me I looked over at him too. We stayed there staring at each other for a minute and then he kissed me. I was so surprised and it was so unexpected that I didn’t really kiss back, but either way, it was a kiss of a lifetime! Then he looked back at the sky and whispered, “I think I love you.” This was more than I could handle…. It took my breath away…. When I could finally breathe and speak I muttered, not wanting to hear the answer, “What about Amanda?”
Hearing this, Derrick got to his feet, and for the first time I saw him look sad. He had always seemed so happy and smiling, always, but now he looked sad. Very sad. He looked down at the sand, then up at the sky, then down again. Finally he said, “I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure what to say next and he could tell. Finally, I said, “We should be getting back soon.” Derrick looked at the ground again and began to walk back the way we had come from. I caught up to him and took his hand, and we walked that way the rest of the way home. The only bad part about it all was the feeling I got when I thought about tomorrow and Amanda.
The next day at school, I couldn’t help but notice that Derrick was smiling at me more than usual. Then lunch time came and I knew this wouldn’t be fun. I sat down at Derrick’s usual table, but he didn’t. He sat down at Amanda’s and he didn’t look happy. He sat right next to her and started talking. I couldn’t hear because it was too far away and I’m not good at lip reading either, but I watched intently. After a minute, Amanda broke out in tears and Derrick got up and walked over to me. He sat down and started eating like nothing had happened. I asked what they were talking about even though I already knew. He told me that he broke up with Amanda because she wasn’t his type. She was mean to girls that were his friends, and she was in the way of something much more important to him. Then I said, “Want to do homework at my place tonight?” I paused. “We could go for a walk on the beach afterwards.” At that very moment I knew I was starting a very interesting chapter in my life.
Okay, I thought maybe I could give you a little bit of what happens in the rest of my school year at Sandywind. Amanda became my first and only enemy at school and Derrick and I are still together and will be for a really long time. Amanda tried to start things because she despised me for, as she would say, “stealing” her boyfriend. I never did let her do so, but she sure did try. I finally adjusted to my new school and made many friends. Over all, moving wasn’t such a bad idea.
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