7September. September marks the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. For me, September 2008 marked the beginning of eleventh grade at Mountain Vista High School, a year I expected to be wonderful.
Boy was I off the mark.
First off, I had almost no classes with any of my friends. This is the main reason my year was horrible. Sure, I had one friend in three classes, and a few in orchestra and the same period PE. However, my friends were bound to sit on the other side of the room in orchestra, and my PE buddies had different teachers than me. So technically I was alone anyway.
And it also must be noted, I'm not good at making friends. Therefore, that is not a valid option.
I can also confidently say that this year was the most confusing year of my life. It was nothing to do with academics – my grades were fine. Let's just say that life is perplexing.
"Jess!" I flicked my head around in response to my name, and spotted Andrea running my way. In a second I was stumbling backwards from her tackle, but I caught myself.
"Hey…" I grinned, "How's life?"
She began to complain about PE and the heat as we both walked towards the front of the school where my friends and I usually met. Once the lot of us were together, we hung around for a few minutes to wait for my friends' parents to pick them up.
That left Andrea, Kayla and I to walk home. Our neighborhoods really weren't that far away; it was a two minute's drive with regular stop sign traffic, but still a half hour walk to my house. We also lived in the nice suburbs of Southern California, so it was always a nice day to walk to and from home. The three of us had walked home from school for three years, and planned on continuing to.
"Can you believe it's almost October already?" I asked as I rolled my head and stuck out my tongue to acknowledge the heat. We had been outside for ten minutes and already we were all sweating.
"Time goes by quickly only when it's past," Andrea mused.
"True. But soon it's going to be our senior year and then we have to apply for college and write two million essays and we'll all go crazy!" Kayla blurted out.
I let out a groan.
"Jessica, your hair is glowing red again," Andrea pointed out randomly.
"Yes, Andrea, it always does, as you have reminded me year after year. Black hair always turns red in the sun."
"But, but, but… your hair always glows way more red than ours does," she continued.
"Uh huh… you've said that too," I smiled as I shoved her playfully. That threw us all into a shoving contest, which was common among people like us. Crazy people, that is. We're insane.
When we finally stopped pushing each other into the grass and bushes, two voices yelled from behind in unison, "ANDREA! JESSICA! KAYLA! WAIT UP!"
It was Brandon and a new friend of his. Brandon broke into a run to catch up to us, and his friend followed suit.
The three of us took a peek over our shoulders and slowed down but didn't turn around, even if Brandon's efforts were still strangely amusing, after all these years.
Did I mention that Brandon was sort of known for being one of the biggest flirts in school? But that really didn't matter – he could actually be considered one of our friends. Almost every day for the last three years, he joined us for our walk home, and almost every day we would have a nice little chat about the events of the day. However, this was the very first time he ever brought someone along to introduce us to.
I brushed my hand against the soft bushes along the sidewalk. It was a beautiful day – clear blue skies and gorgeous green trees underneath. Suburbs were such magnificent places to live.
"Hey," Brandon panted as he slowed down to walk behind us.
As we heard another pair of footsteps slowed down to match our pace, Andrea, Kayla and I turned around and walked backwards in order to face the two boys.
"Hey, what's up?" Andrea, Kayla and I chorused, mainly directing our voices towards Brandon's friend.
This supposedly friendly and inviting remark only earned us a small "Hi" that we could barely hear.
"Jason, meet Jessica, Kayla, and Andrea. These are probably the only girls I make an effort not to flirt with," Brandon introduced with a great flourish of his arms.
My trio let out a laugh, and Jason smiled. His eyes finally lifted from the sidewalk to meet ours but his hands were left in his pockets.
As we walked along, we learned that Jason was not entirely new to the state or anything, but had merely transferred from a nearby high school a town away. His parents had decided that Mountain Vista was a better school to learn at than his old school, and moved into Andrea's neighborhood.
"Dudes, Jason is also like this crazy psycho maniac genius thing…" Brandon began bragging about his newfound friend.
"So what?" Kayla retorted, "So is Jessica!"
"ARE NOT," I immediately yelled.
"Pshhhhhh…" Brandon hissed, "Jason's smarter."
"Duh he is. I'm not a genius – I'm not even smart." I proclaimed confidently.
"Jess…" Andrea sighed, "Don't lie."
"I'm not lying!" I defended, putting my hands up.
"What'd you get on your Calculus test?" Kayla laughed, looking me in the eye knowingly.
"Oy vey…" I slapped my hand to my head.
"Well?"
"…Hundred," I mumbled.
"What'd you say?" Brandon raised his eyebrows.
"Hundred," I repeated, louder.
"HA, my friend's smarter than yours," Kayla grinned, pointing a finger at Brandon.
"NO I'm not, Kayla. I suck at essays and stuff. Anyway, what'd you guys get on the test?"
"92," Kayla responded.
"Same," chuckled Andrea.
All this while, Jason was walking along, biting his lip nervously. I'm sure he felt quite out of place. So, I talked to him.
"Hey, Jason… miss any of your friends? Scared by Brandon?"
"Dude, I'm not scary… I'm AWESOME!" Brandon cackled.
"Gosh, let him respond."
"I'm fine, I guess… Brandon's cool." Jason sounded so timid, I felt bad for him. Here we were, going insane as we usually did, and there was Jason, walking along completely ignored.
At this point we had reached the point where Kayla had to turn off into her neighborhood. We sent her a chorus of goodbyes and continued on our way. Ten more minutes, and we would reach my own neighborhood.
During a few moments of silence, Brandon started to look like he was about to burst. His eyes became wide and his puffed cheeks were red. Finally, he threw his hands out in the air and yelled, "IT'S FRIDAY!"
The rest of us chuckled a bit before Jason spoke. "I think we realized that, Brandon."
"Yeah but I'm just saying, anyway."
"Thanks for reminding me. I have a violin lesson today," I moaned.
Brandon only pointed at me and laughed, "Your face looks funny, Jessica."
"BRANDON, you meanie butt," Andrea frowned. Of course, she knew he was joking. We just pretend to be mad at each other. It's what friends do, right?
We all laughed and Brandon explained, "Jessica just makes funny faces, which I'm sure you know, Andrea. You probably laugh at her all the time."
"Yes, actually, I do," Andrea admitted. I smiled.
A wonderfully typical day.
A/N: Review please! Constructive criticism appreciated. Sorry this chapter is sorta short, and.. weird, I guess. And the ending is probably horrible. If anyone got yet another chapter alert for this, it's because I added about.. three sentences somewhere in the middle, although they probably don't do anything to the story. I just had to put it in there... sorry... Anyway, review please. :) Thanks!