If Only

 

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Entry #1

I don't really know where to start, but I suppose here is a good a place as any. My name is Kyle and today is the first day of my high school life. Here's to hoping it doesn't suck.

It's not easy being the new kid on the block, especially when that block is Croweton, California. I always thought of Los Angeles or San Fransisco when I thought of Cali state; both are hubs of innovations in the arts and technology. Well, Croweton must not have gotten the message, because the entire place looked like one of those nuclear test towns. If you ignored the 21st century cars and the local Best Buy on the outskirts of the square, you would think the entire town was a time capsule from the year 1950.

Basically, it was a small town with a small high school and people still using standard definition T.V.s and flip phones - you know, 1950s technology. Just kidding, I'm not that ignorant. The town really did look like it was from the 1950s, but the tech was more circa 2005. For a teenager living in the year 2015, everyone in Croweton might as well have been living in the year 1950. 

Anyways, such a small town meant that the high school was really small too. There were fifty four students in my grade starting high school. Basically everyone knew everyone except me. I knew no one. As if being the new kid wasn't bad enough, I was like an extraterrestrial from Florida with a giant neon sign saying, "Hey! I'm different!"

The walk to school wasn't long; you could get to anywhere in the town in less than fifteen minutes. I kept my head down, staring at the white washed sidewalk and my bright blue and green Nikes as I made my way to school. A lot of kids hung out outside the entrance to the school talking, but as I approached, they all started whispering and I was ninety percent sure it was about me, but I didn't look up.  

One dude ran up and tapped me on the arm. "Hey, I'm Graham. Are you new to Croweton?" he asked. I was clearly not making eye contact with anyone because I didn't want to talk about it.

He reached his hand out for a shake. I begrudgingly rose my head and answered, "Yeah. I'm Kyle." I shook his hand, carefully using the right amount of force so he didn't think I was a weakling or one of those douchers who tries to assert dominance in a handshake. He seemed nice enough though.

He was shorter than me, probably five foot four, but his afro stuck up a solid foot higher. His dark skin accented the lean muscle underneath. Clearly Graham was more athletic than I could ever hope to be.

"Nice shoes, any thoughts about joining soccer? We could really use some members if you're down for it. The girls in this town really go for soccer stars. Or dudes, well, just Jake. He's kind of the only gay dude at Croweton High, as far as I know. It's a small town, but I've seen him watch the soccer team practice before," he rambled, as if he was trying really hard to be politically correct.

"Uh, thanks? Not gay as far as I know, but I'll keep you posted. Not a big soccer dude, though - I just like sneakers. Honestly, I'm winded just from walking to school; you could say that I'm more of a stationary, sit-in-front-of-the-screen kind of guy. I appreciate the offer though," I said, walking away.

It wasn't technically true. I did play on a team in Eighth Grade. Defense was the position with the least amount of movement it seemed, so naturally that was the one I played. Then half of the players stopped showing up and the coach wanted to move me to forward because I could shoot. I refused, we lost every game, and I resigned to a nice life of video games. It was a good few months after that.

"Let me know if you change your mind! Athletics look good on college applications and I can tell you're totally a soccer guy!" he yelled as I walked away. Sure, me, a soccer guy. Maybe Graham needed some glasses. Pushing the door to the school open, I found my way to the Administration Office to get my schedule.

I spent the first half hour of school at the guidance counselor's office getting my schedule sorted out. The office was very colorful and stereotypical, like she copied it from a magazine or a movie. Motivational cat posters like the infamous, "Hang In There", covered the pale green walls and were clearly positioned to be visible from the hall, through the large glass window. She had one of those colorful old Mac computers that I saw in a documentary. Your standard plastic ficus sat in it's fake soil pot in the corner, with a standard miniature one on her plastic wood desk. Joining it was a name plate, reading "Carol Smith", a fake apple, and an small trophy for "Best High School Counselor In All of Croweton" - as if there were more than one.

Here I was, arguing with the most drone-like counselor in all of California, trying to get her to bend the system. At my old middle school, honors math and science classes were pretty standard so that AP classes would be available in high school.. Here, there were two classes for each grade level, honors or not, but everyone took the same classes at the same time. They told me on the phone that I'd have to repeat the classes I already had credits for because the class codes don't match up, but I was sure it was because they didn't want a freshman mixing with the upperclassman. 

"That doesn't make any sense," I argued.

The pale skinned, slightly overweight counselor furrowed her brow. Her over curled, shoulder length, blonde haired bounced as she shook her head back and fourth and said, "I'm sorry Mr. Ren, but these are the rules set by our board of education. If we let you skip classes-"

"Skip?! I already took those classes! It's not skipping, it's continuing where I left off."

"Be that as it may, the rules clearly state that must receive credits for each class as set by the school board. Because the standards of your old school don't agree with the standards of California, it's impossible to give you credit for the classes and as a result, you're simply going to have to repeat them." She smiled unsympathetically and straightened her already straight mini ficus, then proceeded to randomly type on her keyboard like she was a movie hacker.

Ugh. "Ugh, fine. I'm going to look into this when I get home, but for today I guess I'll just deal with it."

"Great! Well then, there are two different schedules. I'll let you have your pick since you're being so great about your little issue. Would you like to start the day with Algebra or with Biology?" she asked, as if that slight degree of choice made up for the fact that I'd be repeating both classes. I'd later find out just how much of blessing that choice was.

"Any recommendations, o wise and omnipotent counselor?" I asked sarcastically.

"Ooooo! Well, I always did like math," she said as she began to type in my schedule.

"Then I'll take Biology." I smirked.

"Okie dokie artichokie," she said positively, not even missing a beat. She pressed a button and an ancient printer from behind me began to work. It might finish printing before I graduated. "You can take that schedule when it's done and head off to your first class. It's down the hall."

"Every class is down the hall," I muttered as I grabbed the piece of paper and walked out the door. This school was just one long hall with twelve classrooms and administrative rooms, a small gymnasium and football field, and a cafeteria. I'd seen Walmarts that took up more square footage than this place.

Once in the hallway, I found myself skipping from blue tile to blue tile. The floor was one of those weird designs where it was mostly white except for random blue tiles all over the place. The blue walls were covered in bulletin boards and club posters, all trying to cover up the sickly brown paint from where lockers had obviously been removed. I couldn't tell if it was recent or if the school just never felt like repainting.

"Are you having fun, Sir Leaps-a-lot?" a female voice asked. I was mid air when she startled me and forgot how to land because of it. My foot slid and I tumbled onto my back, staring up at a girl in blue and white cheerleader outfit but walking on crutches. Her bright blue eyes complimented her short, wavy, dark blue hair. God, she was pretty. And she was wearing pink panties.

"You may want to be a bit more careful, I can see up your skirt," I said, still staring. She whacked me upside the head with one crutch and proceeded to hop to a safe distance away. "OWW."

I heard her mumble "I new I should have worn the bottoms even if I wasn't practicing today."

Clearly upset, she asked, "Are you the new kid? I've never seen you in Croweton before." Then she flipped personalities, held out an ivory hand to help me up, and introduced herself. "Hi. I'm Emily Wheeler. My dad runs the hospital down the road, and my mom is leader of the P.T.A." Her bright blue eyes 

She was surprisingly strong for a fourteen year old girl on crutches. When I took her hand, she yanked me up so fast that I nearly fell over again. "Wassup... I'm Kyle Ren. My dad has a start up for IT work and my mom is the new Art Teacher or something. I'm not really sure, I don't really pay attention when people talk."

"So, where are ya from?" she asked.

"Uh, around the center of Florida," I said.

"Soooo, Orlando? Have you been to Disney World?" Suddenly her eyes lit up with the Disney magic.

I sighed. Why do people always think Orlando? I thought. "A little bit north of there, you wouldn't know the city. To answer you're second question, yes, I've been to Disney World, but not since I was younger. It's pretty cool, but my parent's usually picked the beach over Disney for vacations."

"The beach doesn't sound too bad. All of the beaches close to here are really cold. You have to drive three to four hours to find one that doesn't suck. Anyways, you haven't asked where I'm from," she said as she gave me a mischievous smile.

"You're not from Croweton?" I asked, playing along.

"Nope."

"Then where are you from?"

"Tokyo, Japan. My dad used to be a doctor for the military, and he was stationed at the base there, so my mom moved to be close to him. I was born a few years before he resigned, packed up, and got a job here."

"Really? That's actually pretty cool," I said, a bit stunned. I expected somewhere in the states at most.

"No, sadly, I wish it were something cool like that. Both of my parents were born here, but my dad really was in the military for a bit and stationed in Tokyo. Of course, it only lasted for about six months before he moved back and started working at the local hospital with his father. You'll find that just about everyone from Croweton has been here for a generation or two. Not a lot of people looking forward to moving into a rustic town that barely knows what computers are."

"I guess that's why my dad picked here. Where better to start an tech support company than a place where people need help setting the clock on their VCR."

"Hey, I take offense to that. I'll have you know that my house has had a blu-ray player for over a year now. We have a 4G cell tower and everything. We're not quite living in the stone age," she rebutted. 

"LTE?" I asked. "And my grandparents have had blu-ray players for like, four years now."

"...I see your point," she conceded.

"Yep," I said. Suddenly there seemed to be an awkward silence. I could hear the ticking of the clocks in the classrooms close to us - none of them were in sync and it was driving me crazy.

What should I say now? This girl, Emily, has sort of keeping the conversation going until now. She seems really nice and pretty. Should I say something. Oh, I wish she'd say something. This is awkward. Maybe I'll just head to Biology even though it's almost over. It's not like she'll ever talk to me again after this. Once she loses interest from me being the sparkly new thing in town, she'll come realize how antisocial I am and leave me alone. Alright, I should walk away now. Better that I put some distance between us now and get this over with before I start to full on crush. She's not flirting, she's being nice. Walk away now, I thought.

"I should probably get going..." I said.

She frowned a bit, bit her lip in the most adorable way, and asked , "Hey, what's my name? And what do my parents do?" 

"Uh, what? You're Emily Wheeler and your dad is a doctor and your mom is in charge of the parent teacher group or whatever. By the way, is that a real job? I always thought it was volunteer work."

"And you said that you don't pay attention. You're a pretty good listener so someone who tries to run away from socializing. Yes, my mom is technically a stay at home mom, but she likes to help out around the community. Are you a geek? You look like a geek. Pale skin, emo hair, and horrible fashion sense. You're either a goth or someone who stays in all day, and you're not wearing guy-liner," she said everything upbeat like she didn't just rip me apart.

"Wow, way to make me feel good about myself. Sure, I probably don't get enough sun and could maybe use a haircut. But since when is a graphic tee and cargo shorts horrible fashion sense? Besides, you're just as pale as I am."

She looked horrified as if I'd just murdered her entire family. "Excuse me! My leg has been broken for most of the summer and my dad told me that I needed lots of bed rest. And for the record, your shirt has skulls on it. Why in the world would you buy a shirt that has skulls on it?"

Now I probably gave her the same horrified look she gave me. "Skulls are Rock 'n' Roll! You can't ever go wrong with a shirt with skulls on it. Black and skulls are the only criteria I have for shirts."

"Rock and roll died with the Beetles. Don't you know now that it's all about that bass, bout that bass, no treble?" She grinned at me, queuing me in on the joke.

"You're making fun of me..." I sighed.

"Except the thing about the skull shirts. Stop it. I'll take you shopping sometime this week and we can pick you up something that doesn't immediately scream 'I'm an outcast'."

"Wait, like a d-"

Paying me no mind, she yanked the schedule out of my hand and began to read it. "Cool, we're in all of the same classes. Biology, English, and World History today, then Health, Art, and Algebra tomorrow. Biology will be over in like five minutes, so let's just head off to Mrs. Cupcake's class. She's the English teacher. I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a class right now."

She began skipping off the opposite way, which was a really impressive thing to do with a broken leg. I chased after her like the hooked chump that I was. It was official, I'd developed a crush. There was no doubt in my mind that it would end badly for me, but for now that was okay. As long as she was looking at me, that was all I needed. Suddenly this crappy little town seemed a little bit better. 

So here we are, Entry #1.

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Entry #2

Two days had passed since my new life at Croweton High, and everything was better than expected. Fire had yet to rain from the sky and no rumors of a psychopathic killer had started. The worst thing that had happened so far was finding out we were assigned lab partners in Biology. I wasn't good at working with people; somehow it always came down to one person doing all of the work, and since I was smart, that was usually me. The best part was finding out who it was.

"Now if you zoom in on the sample, you should be able to see the the cell walls of the plant accented by the dye. Make sure to sketch what you see in the blank space of your lab report. If you can't see it, raise your hand. It's possible that I dropped the samples on the way to class and you're looking at more dirt than plant," Mrs. Isley, the Biology Teacher, confessed.

"What do you see?" Emily asked, leaning over my shoulder as if it'd help her see into the microscope at the same time as me.

"Basically the exact same thing they show in the book. It just looks like a bunch of circles next to each other, with a darker circle within each of them."

"That's probably the nucleus. How big would you say the nucleus is relative to the rest of the cell?" she asked as she leaned in closer. Her chest pressed against my back.

"Well, look at you two getting all cozy over there," Graham whispered at us. He and his lab partner, Anna, were stationed behind us. There were twelve black tables space throughout the room, in three columns, with two people to each table. Each table sat two people, and the person next to you was your lab partner. Mrs. Isley said that she let everyone pick where they wanted to sit, but since Emily and I both had missed the first class, she'd paired us up. Our table was in the back right of the room.

I jerked away from Emily out of nervousness and said to her, "You can just take a look you if you want," before I turned around and glared at Graham for teasing me. It was hard enough keeping calm around Emily without the thought of someone watching.

Emily swiftly backed off and argued, "I told you, I can't do it. It freaks me out."

Graham said, "Apparently she had laser eye surgery last year and woke up in the middle of it. She couldn't feel anything or move, and when the surgery was over and the anesthesia wore off, Emily freaked out - screaming and everything. My aunt is a nurse at the hospital and every one was talking about it for weeks."

"She doesn't even carry around mascara because she's too scared to put it on," Anna said, still looking at their sample.

Anna was clearly a girl who cared about appearances, but not really in a bad way. She had bright orange hair and green eyes, with really fair skin. Her face was covered in natural makeup that looked more professionally done than most adults I'd seen, including my mom. Her emerald eyes were outlined with a lot of black eyeliner, but it didn't look trampy, and she wore faint, green eye shadow that made her eyes pop. Going along with that, she wore a green halter top that seemed to show too much and not enough all at the same time, with dark blue, skin tight jeans. I had no doubt that she had a nice booty to go in those jeans.

Now that I thought about it, Graham was objectively attractive for a dude too. In fact, I don't think I'd seen a single ugly person in this entire town. I'm not bad looking, but by next to these super models, I was the Hunchback of Croweton High. Oh man, that's a blow to the self esteem, I thought.

"Just because you asked for makeup and I wouldn't give you any, does not mean that I'm too scared. You and Graham need to mind your own business," Emily yelled at them. The entire class, including Mrs. Isley, just stared at us. "Sorry," Emily squeaked out.

Trying to change the subject, I said, "The nucleus is maybe a fifth of the entire cell. Just start drawing a circle from the center and I'll say when."

"They're right though. It was like being in a horror movie, except a thousand times worse because I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I just laid there in terror for what seemed like forever. Since then, I even have a hard time washing my eyes. Thank god the surgery was a success though, I wouldn't have been able to stand wearing contacts after that. Glasses and goggles don't seem to bother me, but I didn't want to walk around with glasses for the rest of my life," she said. "Wow, that sounded really shallow, but it's true."

I forgot to say "when" and since neither of us were paying attention, she ended up drawing a gigantic black circle all over the cell walls. "Um... when?"

"Oh my god! Why didn't you say something sooner? I'm not going to be able to erase all of that. I hope that Mrs. Isley forgives the giant black marks all over everything," she said, vigorously erasing the entire drawing.

She grabbed my pencil for a fresh eraser and I said, "Sorry about that. You were talking, I was distracted." Maybe being partnered up with a pretty girl wasn't the best thing for my GPA. I could try and ask Anna after class if she'll switch with me, but... I looked at Emily's cute frownie face as her hair swayed back and forth to the motion of her erasing. Who needs good grades really? I thought. 

"Isn't it weird that we're doing a lab on the second day of school on a topic we've learned nothing about?" Emily asked.

"What do you mean?"

"It seems like there should be an order of operations for a science class. Scientists don't start with field research and then go back to college to figure out what it all means."

"Technically you're right, but before the first people pioneered the field, they had to probably notice stuff in the environment and then try to figure out what it meant by studying," I said.

"Hmm, I don't know. What you're saying makes sense, but it also took various people hundreds of years to discover things we take for granted. I understand that we need labs to experience what being a scientist is like or whatever, but what purpose does it serve to sketch out the structure of plant cells when we don't even know what any of it does," she sighed.

"You're... really passionate about this," I said, surprised. Most of the kids in my last school would have loved to do a lab instead of actually learning.

"Not really, it's just that this is kind of boring and I wanted something to talk about while I finished up the report," she said as she flipped through two pages, checking her work. Sure enough, she'd finished everything by herself with the rest of class to spare. I felt bad for contributing nothing more than looking into a microscope and forgetting to say when. She said, "Now that that's over, tell me about how you're liking Croweton."

"It's honestly way better than I expected. Even though it looks like a time capsule from sixty years ago, it's not as though the city is living in the Stone Age. Everyone our age seems to have a fairly current smart phone, the school's computers are as bad as any school's computers, and the internet in my house is 100Mbps down. I was afraid that I was going to have to give up Netflix for the next four years."

"100Mbps is good?" Emily asked. "There was this big push a couple of years ago to modernize the town a bit. Croweton was selected out of a ballot for some big company to come in and replace all of the cable for pennies. My dad says it made it possible for the hospital to upgrade it's systems, along with things like the bank and whatnot.  I mostly use my phone for everything, so I didn't really notice a difference outside of Youtube not buffering anymore."

"Yeah, it's a solid speed. Unless you've got Google Fiber or something, you're probably not going to get much faster, and that's only available in a few cities right now. You could probably have ten people load Youtube videos at the same time and not notice a dip in loading speed. My dad is binging Gilmore Girls and my mom is on Doctor Who right now. If the internet were too slow, we'd probably have to interact or something," I joked.

Emily didn't laugh out loud, but she gave me a sly smile that let me know the joke didn't go unnoticed. "You're whole family is just a bunch of nerds, huh?" 

I mumbled, "I'm not sure nerdy is the right word, more like tech savvy."

"That's right! We're supposed to take you shopping so you can change up your image! I see you wore another skull shirt, but that's okay, one last time is fine. Do you want to go today?" she asked.

"Definitely wish you'd stop hating on the skulls, but whatever, I'm not doing anything else. I mean, I could be doing something else, I just happen not to be. It's not like I'm always boring, there's just not a lot to do in this town," I bluffed. I really was that boring, but I wasn't going to let her know that. Every movie ever says that the number one rule of romance is to not be too available.

"Oooo, a date, can I come along?" Graham asked.

"Me too! Will told me they just got a new shipment of phone cases," Anna said. She then explained, "Will is my boyfriend. He's a Junior and he works at the T-Mobile in the mall."

I was baffled. "There's a mall in Croweton?"

"No, we don't. The next city over does though. It's an hour away," Emily informed me. "We were just going to go to Rebecca's Respectable Robes. It's not like we need anything fancy, just not so 2007 emo."

"Rebecca's is laaaaaame. The mall is only forty minutes away, and even less when I drive. Come on, don't be such a sourpuss Emily."

Graham was the baffled one now. He asked, "Wait, you can drive? Aren't you only fourteen?"

"No, I had an illness when I was younger and missed so many classes that they held me back a year." Anna punched Graham when he started to laugh. "It's not funny, I almost died! Anyways, I took Driver's Ed over the summer and I have a permit now. If I can convince my older sister to ride with us, it'll be fine - she's a Senior. She's been wanting to go to the mall for a few weeks anyways and she owes me one for not ratting her out when she came home past curfew. So what do you say Kyle, ready to party Croweton style?" she asked excitedly.

Even though she was really enthusiastic, partying "Croweton style" still seemed kind of lame. I said, "If Emily is cool with it, I guess it doesn't matter." Maybe with more people, there'd be less pressure.

Emily just rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever. We're not giving you any gas money though. Every cent needs to go towards replacing Kyle's wardrobe."

Graham said, "You seem to care an awful lot about Kyle, Emily, considering you've known him for barely forty-eight hours. Anything you want to share with us? You got a crush on the new kid?"

She said flatly and soul crushingly, "No, but I want him to feel welcome. Besides, it's not like any of the boys here are worth anything anyways. Maybe I wouldn't mind picking up some new blood." She winked at me, and I wasn't sure if it was a flirty wink or an "I'm messing with him so play along wink."

"Oh, that hurts Emily. I'll remember that when I go home to polish my three 'State Soccer - MVP' trophies tonight," Graham bragged.

Anna spoke up, "You tried to make yourself sound cool, but you only made it worse. Anyways, let's all meet up at the Arcade an hour after school and we'll go."

I leaned over to Emily and whispered, "You guys have an arcade? That's awesome!"

She whispered back, "Not really. It's like a Chuck-E-Cheese's but even more kiddy. There's a Dave & Busters next to the mall we're going to. I'll have to take you sometime, it's really cool."

In two days I had made friends in Croweton and we were already going to a mall in another city. During the months leading up to the move, I expected that these four years were going to be the worst of my life. I'd left behind the only friends I had ever had, Tori, who was my childhood friend and the girl I'd had a crush on since I was six, and the path I'd planned out leading to an top tier college. I'd be lucky to get into a state school with the curriculum here, but I didn't care right now. These three people right here somehow felt like best friends, and we'd only just meant.

And I had Emily to thank for all of it. I'm so glad I looked up her skirt.

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Entry #3

"So, where are you from Kyle?" Anna's sister, Kayla asked from the front seat. She turned around and looked me in the eyes behind black rimmed glasses while she was driving, which gave her a kind of scary-hot vibe. The bright red "Punch-Buggy" had already started drifting into the next lane. Currently more scary than hot.

"EYES ON THE ROAD!" I screamed and she flipped around and swerved back into our lane. I thanked all of the gods out there that there was virtually no traffic on the four-lane highway as the force of the turn threw me into Emily's lap on my left. I over corrected into Graham's lap and he shoved me back into Emily's lap. It was awkward. I hate the middle seat, I thought.

"This wouldn't have happened if you let me drive," Anna said while filing her nails in the passenger seat.

"You must be on drugs if you think that I'd let you drive my baby more than a mile. It took me a year to save up enough to buy her, and three months after that to get her reupholstered and dressed up in a shiny new coat of paint." Kayla fake laughed as if it were a really bad joke.

Kayla was like an older Anna, but less make up, a few inches taller, and dyed, jet-black hair. She was naturally pretty, to where make up would only ruin her good looks. Her green eyes seemed to be permanently fixed in a "deer in headlights" position and they were so dark they were almost black. Everything together gave her a very wild and unpredictable look. She was some mixture of crazy and scary, and beautiful - and she was older than us. There was something super alluring about that and if not for thinking of dead puppies, my lower half would have had a very embarrassing reaction. Thank god for dead puppies... I'm a horrible person, I realized. I promise, I didn't want to sexualize every girl I came into contact with, it just happened. Much like my lower half.

"I'm sure mom and dad will like to hear about that time you snuck out for you date with Mohammad and didn't come back until 6 am," Anna threatened as she stuck her tongue out. She turned around and whispered to Graham, Emily, and I, "I had to go the the bathroom early and caught her climbing in the living room window downstairs. I almost called the cops on her."

"That is not how it happened," Kayla interjected. "You had a nightmare that you were six years old and dying, and you started screaming. I ran in you room to wake you up. Tears were running down your face and everything. For some reason you memorized my outfit from the day before and figured it out. Quite a feat for a cry baby. Now, don't try to black mail me again, or I'll tell mom and dad about that time you did shrooms. We'll see who gets it worse."

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO BOUGHT THE PIZZA FROM A STRANGER AND GAVE IT TO ME!" Anna yelled, voice trembling in fear. "I... I didn't do it on purpose. You know how dad is about drugs. Ever since Aunt Becky died from an overdose, he's been super scary whenever the subject comes up. He yells every time he sees a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl."

"You bought pizza from a random guy and gave it to your sister?" Graham asked.

"We were at the mall right before closing and she was going on and on about not eating anything all day. So when I saw a dude walking around with a pizza slice, I offered him five bucks for it to shut her up. In retrospect, he was totally stoned. Anna hasn't eaten mushroom pizza since. It was hilarious, but really in effective at shutting her up. Funniest yet most annoying ride home of my life."

"That's kind of messed up," I said.

"That's really messed up," Emily said.

"I don't know if I feel comfortable with her driving now, if we're being honest," Graham admitted.

"I promise I won't drug you guys. Probably. No promises," Kayla said. "Let me know any time you want to get out of town though. I'll take almost any excuse to leave Croweton, if only for a few hours. Plus, it makes me feel good giving back to a bunch of Freshman."

"It's nice to have a personal chauffeur," Anna said.

"Don't push it," Kayla responded.

"Sooo," Graham said, changing the subject, "Where are you from, Kyle?"

"Orlando, Florida," Emily answered for me.

"DISNEY WORLD?" Graham screamed.

"Been to Disney World, not from Disney World. Actually a bit north of Orlando," I corrected.

"Laame," Anna sighed.

"I know, right?" Emily asked.

"Hey, what about the thing with the beach?" I asked her.

"We have beaches in California," Emily responded.

"You have Disney in California," I insisted.

"Tiny Disney," Graham muttered.

"Oh don't mind him," Anna said. "He's a Disney freak and we went there for the first time on our 8th grade field trip. It was a lot smaller than he imagined. Lots of lines. It really wasn't that great of a trip."

"Remember Small World?" Emily asked.

"Most disappointing ride of my life," I said.

"Oh, you understand. Now imagine that being your first ride at Disney as a teenager. Mrs. Darling is the History teacher at Croweton Middle School and she organizes the trip ever year. She makes everyone ride Small World first because it's her favorite ride," Kayla explained.

"Space mountain was cool," Anna insisted.

"Isn't it supposed to be HyperSpace Mountain now? Like, all Star Wars themed up?" I asked.

Graham sighed and said, "Not when we went there."

"Eh, I don't really like roller coasters anyways," I said.

They all four groaned at once and said in unison, "BORING."

Outside of the random bickering by Kayla and Anna, it was mostly quite for the rest of the trip. Emily and Graham whipped out moderately sized smart phones and opened up games I didn't recognize. I pulled mine out and checked to see what games I had, but then I remembered I had zero, because I was too good to game on a phone instead of a computer. This was the second time in a week that I realized how dumb that seemed.

The first was on a six hour plane ride, during which I had to watch reruns of Interstellar. That was a great movie... but not "watch-three-times-in-a-row-without-sound-great." So, like the time on the plane, I opened up my calculator app and just typed random numbers for what seemed like an eternity until we arrived at the mall. Yay, PC Master Race, I thought sarcastically.

 

"Alright, so, we meet back here in three hours, okay? I don't want to hear it if one of your parent's gets mad because you broke curfew. Everyone exchange numbers so we'll be able to reach each other in case of emergencies or whatever," Kayla said as we got out of her car.

"We could use the buddy system," Graham suggested, taking a step to Kayla's side. He looked over and gave her a creepy smile.
 

"Or, we could not. I've got some stuff to do, so I'll catch you all later," Kayla said. "Eighteen-year old stuff," she added when Graham made a step to go along with her.

Both he and I watched her hips rock back and forth as she walked away. He said, "Saying that only makes me to go with her more. I'll see you guys later." With that, he stalked away behind her.

"He's so desperate and horny you almost feel bad for him," Anna said, looking over at us and laughing. "Not enough to stop him from doing something stupid though. Alright, I'll give you two some alone time; I've got to go find Will, my boyfriend." She too left us, skipping away from the bright red car into the mall.

"She's really hung up on letting us know that he's her boyfriend, huh?" I mentioned.

"Yeah, I don't think Will is actually her boyfriend," Emily said.

"That's kind of a mean thing to say," I said.

"I saw him and Jake come into the hospital for 'free supplies.' They provide them free for teenagers to prevent STDs."

"Jake... the gay dude?" I asked.

"Yep," she said.

"Oh.... OH. Okay. Why does she think that Will is her boyfriend then?" I asked

"I don't know, he was really nice to her when she bought her phone from him? I don't presume to know the psychology of teenagers, I barely know the psychology of myself."

"Um, what do we do now?" I asked. The others had left a few minutes ago.

"Now that I think about it, I don't really know where to get guy clothes.," Emily admitted. "Let's check out Aeropostale first."

I started walking. "You mean the store that sells shirts that have random years on them?"

"That's the one."

"Awesome, obviously much better than skulls. Who doesn't appreciate a good year?"

"Shut up," she said, her voice way behind me. I turned around to see what was taking her so long.

"Oh my god, you can't walk!" I exclaimed. How did I forget that? I wondered.

"Wow, you really don't pay attention when people are talking. Don't you remember? You looked up my skirt-"

"Oh, yeah, good times," I said.

She continued with a smug grin, "I hit you upside the head with my crutches." Hoping on one foot, she shook them as if to make it completely obvious that she still had them.

"Right, not so good times," I said. I walked back to where she was and slowed down my pace so that she could keep up. "Are you sure you want to walk around the entire mall like that?" I asked.

"This isn't my first day in crutches, I'll be fine," she insisted.

Five minutes later we made it across the parking lot to the front of the mall. Emily leaned against the wall outside, breathing heavily.

"'This isn't my first day in crutches,'" I mimicked, '"I'll be fine.' Alright, come here."

Leaning over, I swooped her up in my arms and carried her "Princess Style". She was a lot heavier than I expected. I groaned out, "Lighter than I excepted." After about five steps, I almost dropped her, trying to put her down as slowly as I could.

"My hero," Emily said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. Apparently she had no qualms with my arms being all over her legs and back, but my trying to insinuate that she wasn't capable and that I had to take care of her because I was a man seemed to offend her. Either that, or she was just making fun of how weak I was. She was in a short pair of khaki shorts and a tight blue shirt. I suddenly became embarrassed not only at my ineptitude, but also at my bold move where my bare skin held her bare skin. Luckily, she probably couldn't see me blush through the blood in my cheeks because I was almost dying.

"I'll. Be. Right. Behind. You," I wheezed out.

It took us thirty minutes to get to the Aeropostle, but we finally made it.

 

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