It started with a fight. Us, not the story. There's a lot more to that.

I looked in the mirror and smiled. I felt good. I enjoyed looking into the mirror and watching my smile take over my face. When it was an honest, true smile it lit up my eyes and created small dimples in my cheeks. I've never really thought of myself as beautiful or "sexy", but I heard cute as a popular adjective to describe me. I never liked it, cute was for kittens and squirrels, and I hope I look like neither, or any animal really . But I thought that lately I'd moved up from "cute" to at least "pretty". My acne seemed to be clearing up, and I was hoping it had packed up it's bags and left for good. And with the pool beginning to open my paper white skin had even gone a whole two shades darker! A miracle in my book. Not to mention I had finally figure out how to manage my naturally horrific hair. It wasn't wavy, but not straight either. More just frizzy. I had always liked my hair color though, a dark brown with natural red highlights. All of this put together, and the fact I was starting to be my full on self around everyone - which people actually seemed to like started giving me a bit more attention from some guys. Not that I'd been completely unnoticed before, but close. Okay, fine, I'll be honest. I have a knack for attracting the odd ones, the ones who like to learn, that's putting it in good terms. Ever since I was in elementary school I've been a sort of magnet for them. I remember those girls laughing and shrieking as the coolest boys in the second grade chased them around the playground. Yeah, I got chased too. Only I was running because I didn't have the guts to tell the little squirt that I didn't like him back. It's followed me since then. So sometimes I brought it down on myself. Some of these guys were sweet kids and weren't bad friends. It's not my fault that they don't get much female attention. Therefore any girl who shows any sort of kindness towards them... BOOM. Automatic crush.

An example, Joseph. There was a point when, yeah, I thought he was cute. Maybe even liked him. I had most of my classes with him. And at the beginning of the year a few girls were into him. Then, we all got to know him. Joseph was overly smart, not that there's anything wrong with that. But he was a straight up know-it-all. It was so bad not even his beautiful blue eyes could distract from it. Then around December he began to like me. Someone thought that it'd be smooth to tell him that I used to like him. Well he took that as an invitation to openly fall all over me. We exchanged numbers because he had asked and I couldn't turn it down. Didn't help that I danced at the same studio as his sisters. Giving him the perfect excuse to watch every recital I've had since then. Anyway, that was about a year and a half ago. He's still likes me. My mom called for me from downstairs, "Leanne Margaret, if you don't start walking to school now you're going to be late!". I rolled my eyes. My mom is one of those people who thought that if you weren't early you might as well be late. She also found it was necessary to use both my first and middle name to catch my attention. My mom, Jeanine Marshall, looked a lot like me. A lot of my family said I did anyway. She loved to call me her mini-me. Even though by now I was a good three inches taller than her. She was a good mom. She often annoyed me, either with her necessity to be polite -unless it had to do something where she had to protect either my sister or I, or her obnoxious sense of humor. I loved her anyway though. I turned of the bathroom light and huffed as I walked down the stairs. "Why can't you drive me?" "Some fresh air won't kill you." No, I thought, but the 90% humidity of the day would definitely kill my hair. I have yet to find out how to beat the weather. I grabbed my phone and backpack and walked out the door. The walk to the school wasn't bad. It was pretty short and my friend Richard and I sometimes cross paths. Richard Moran is one of my closest guy friends. I had 3 in total. We went to the same elementary school, but we didn't get close until we were in 7th grade. Which was before I had gotten my braces off and

discovered the wonder of contacts. Now, in 10th grade we are still extremely close. Richard is a sweetheart. Shy around people he had recently met, and oh so polite. The kind of kid who always pleased the adults, shaking their hands, thanking them for having him over, and so forth. His hazel eyes always showed what he was thinking,he was an open book, but he never had anything to hide. I came to him with all of my problems and he usually had pretty decent advice. Mainly those problems were about my most recent crush, but that's besides the point. He also was pretty serious about his grades, and having good moral. Today was another day that I happened to see him walking. I recognized his old navy blue backpack. The same one he's had since middle school. I asked him once why he didn't just get a new one. "Because if I threw this out it'd be like throwing out all my memories since 7th grade", he answered. I scoffed and said something about the only memories were the ones of forgotten homework lost forever in the bag. He only smiled in response. "Richard!", I called out. He turned around and smiled when he saw it was me. "Leanne, my love!", he yelled back. I laughed and he stopped walking so that I could catch up. "Only 14 more days", I said as I approached him. It had pretty much been a mantra for the whole school. Counting down how many days of school were left. It was shouted in the halls in between classes, written on the whiteboards, and we were reminded everyday at exactly 8:40 by the morning announcements. When I reached Richard I took everything in. He was wearing a dark green polo I'd seen on him countless times. I was almost positive that his mother had to have bought him the shirt, because it complimented his red hair so well. His cargo shorts were beginning to look a little short on him, even though they looked new. He had hit another growth spurt. This one leaving him just shy of 6'0. Meanwhile I was barely 5'3. He put his muscular arm around me and smiled, "And then I'll be sleeping I'm until 3 and partying until dawn". He grinned down at me.

I snorted and shook his arm off my shoulder. "First of all, don't touch me. It's way to hot. Second, I expect to be invited to those "wild" parties. Which for you will probably entail a few good rounds of pin the tail on the donkey followed by some ice cream cake." He looked at me seriously. "Don't diss the donkey. But actually I think I'm going to find next years textbooks online and start going over some of the concepts." I shook my head at him as we entered the school. The school was by no means small. Robinson Secondary was a school for grades 7-12. In total there were about 4,000 students. It was strange that we were such a well disciplined group. We rarely had any issues with trouble makers. Only the occasional graffiti artist. We entered the school through one of the back entrances. We talked about finals we had coming up until we reached the Sophomore section of lockers. As we split up I walked over to talk to my best friends. They were all much prettier than I was. Diana, with her shoulder length blonde hair and tan skin. Parker, short with mahogany hair. I'd always been insanely jealous of he green eyes. Cassie (short for Cassandra), hispanic and curvy, he mass of curly hair was fun and wild like her personality. Then there was Aly, easily the prettiest. She had the smoothest skin out of all of us. Her hair did whatever she wanted it to. Her nose was strong and her cheekbones high. I hated her, but not really. Our personalities all varied. Aly was chill. A go with the flow kind of person. Not the brightest, but she wasn't stupid. Diana was almost bipolar. At one second she could be hyper and crazy the next she'd be quiet or extremely annoyed. You just never knew with her. One thing was constant though, she kept up her grades and never engaged in anything that would be considered morally wrong. Parker went through her phases, but she was sweet and a good friend. Cassie was fun, but also a bit of a hot head. She could get pretty mad pretty quick. Me? I don't know how to describe me. I was neither shy or outgoing. I was sensitive and nice. And even a bit quirky, but if I had to describe myself in a single word, I couldn't. We'd all been friends since the sixth grade. We all sometimes got

on each others nerves, and sometimes I wondered what they thought of me. But I loved them all anyway. "What are we all talking about?", I asked. "Formal.", Cassie said in her standard bored tone that she used in the morning. Formal was a dance for the Freshmen and Sophomores who didn't have anyone older who would take them to prom. It was no where near being equal to prom, or even homecoming. It was held in the cafeteria and was only $5 to get in. But still, it was something we got excited about, it was something to get asked too. "Do you know when it is?", Parker asked me. I thought about it. We ended school in two weeks, on a Friday. And I knew it wasn't today, so it had to be next Friday. "A week from today and I still don't have a dress...or a date." "Well I already have my dress. I just have to get the shoes.", said Cassie. Diana shoved her at the same time that I punched her arm. "Why didn't you show us, or at least tell us!", shouted Diana. She shrugged , "I want to keep it a surprise, it's more fun that way. Diana huffed, but I didn't pay attention, I realized I had 5 minutes to get to class and still hadn't been to my locker. I excused myself and walked over to my locker. I opened my locker and groaned. Locker clean up tike was approaching, and let's just say I wasn't a neat freak. Most people don't even bother using their locker. But I tended to horde stuff. Not because I can't bear to part with it, but because I never knew what I was going to need in the future. I rummaged through random papers and sweaters, grabbing what I needed. I accidentally also pulled out a picture of Austen and I. He was another of my three best guy friends. I smiled remembering the memory. We were at a school fair and there had been a station where you could dress up and take pictures. We decided to switch places. I had put on a pair of basketball shorts over my jean shorts

and had a jersey on. He, on the other hand, was wearing a skirt and held a purse. Each of us were wearing wigs. His being a short brunette bobcut, that barely covered his shaggy blonde hair. Mine being almost a replica of his natural hair, that I had to tuck my hair into. I slipped the photo into a pocket in my backpack where I knew it wouldn't get bent. I checked the time. Two minutes to get to class and Algebra 2 wasn't close to my locker. So I gathered my stuff and jogged through the people who are late on a regular basis. I slipped through the door to find that no one in their usual seats. Mrs. Rey used to teach at one of the local elementary schools, some of the kids in the grade used to have. In her eyes we must still look like 3 and 1/2 foot kids. It was cool because she didn't work us as hard as some of the other teachers. It sucked when she still ran the classroom like a fourth grade classroom. Like sending us around the school in buddies, behavior cards, and assigned seating. The sheet of paper with the new seating arrangement was posted at the front of the room, where everyone was crowded. I waited as the mob found their seats and I stepped forward to get a closer look. I found my name next to David's. I turned around to locate my desk in the room. I found it and my eyes slid over to the seat next to it. I guess I never looked at him before... Hellooooo, David.

School ended on a good note. Besides my usual embarrassing moment. I usually had one a day. Today I slipped on a puddle of water caused by a leaking water fountain. I wasn't hurt but my shorts got wet and it looked a bit suspicious. Luckily, never cleaning out your locker had it's advantages. So I quickly changed and that was that. Algebra 2 wasn't bad. Wasn't bad at all. David and I talked a bit and I think we hit it off. I began too consider him possibly asking me to formal. I looked up at the sky, it was getting dark. I recognized the storm clouds. I began walking faster. I heard the thunder and then I felt the droplets on my forehead and nose. "Screw my life!", I yelled to the sky. It was down pouring now, and I felt my tank top that I had on

underneath my shirt start to get wet. I grunted and cursed under my breath, hitching the bag higher onto my shoulder. "Teenage angst, huh?", Chase -my 3rd best guy friend- rolled up in his car. I gave him the stink eye. He laughed at me. His white, straight teeth seemed even nicer against his tan skin. "Want a ride?" He stopped his slow roll so that I could open the door. "Crazy storm, huh?" I grunted in response as I pulled off my now soaking T-shirt and pulled my hair back. He looked at me in my slightly damp tank. "You're welcome to continue removing your clothing, I'm not opposed." He winked at me. I smiled. "Shut up and drive", I retorted. "Ooooh, quoting Rihanna, are we?" Mt grimace deepened when I realized he was right. "So where am I taking you anyway? Home?" "Any place but home." He took a moment to think. "You're thinking of the best place to take me so you can rape me, aren't you? I knew I shouldn't have accepted the ride." "It's not rape if you like it" I slapped his arm. "But no I was thinking that I could take you home so you can put on some dry clothes, and then I'll take you out for some frozen yogurt." "I like the way you think.... But wait... I thought you didn't like fro yo?" "Some one clearly doesn't listen to me. I have never said I don't like frozen yogurt. What I said was that ice cream is far superior.", he said with smile. "Same difference.", I huffed. We pulled up to my house. "Bring an umbrella. The rain doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon." I saluted him, "Yes Mr. Weatherman, sir.", I teased. "Just go, loser." So I ran up to the door, trying my best to cover my head on the

way there. Not that it did much. I pulled the chain that held the house key from off my neck. The door stuck a little as a pushed it open. "Hello?" No answer, no was home. Taking the steps two at a time trying to hurry so I wouldn't keep Chase waiting. I hummed as I pulled a new bra from my dresser. I started busting out some dance moves while looking for a new T-shirt. Tripping over some books I had left on the floor, I landed face first. I got up rubbing my forehead, grumbling. And then sighed, because I remembered that I didn't listen to my mom and never brought up my clean laundry. I ran downstairs. At a pace that someone as uncoordinated as me shouldn't be going at. I almost didn't see Chase standing there. It would have made the situation a whole lot less awkward if I hadn't, but I did. "Y-y-you were... Uhhh... Taking a while... And you... Err... Left the door unlocked. I'll just uh turn around for now" I looked down at my chest, hey, at least it wasn't one of my grandma bras. The kind that made it seem like they were a little on the saggy side. I tried to crack a joke, you know, lighten the mood. "So you were trying to rape me!" "Jesus, just go put on a shirt already Leanne ." "Umm, I mean I would, but I need to get through that door", I said. He turned around so that he could see me pointing to the heavy oak door in front of him, he turned crazy red when he had to look at me again. "You're just jealous...", I mumbled as I opened the door to the laundry room. I pulled a shirt over my head and walked over to Chase to tap him on his shoulder. He still had a slight blush underneath his tan, freckled cheeks. "Nice singing by the way..." Had my humming really become full fledged singing? "Err, thanks..." There was an awkward silence and the room started to feel very stuffy. "Should we go?"

He broke into a nervous laugh"Yeah, let's go." I wasn't sure why he was making a huge deal out of it. It's not like I was naked. My bra covered the same amount of my body as any bikini top, if not more. As we entered the car another silence engulfed us, this time it was more natural and easy. I didn't feel the need to say anything. Instead I thought of when I had first met Chase. It was the first day of 8th grade and I had just walked into science. I didn't really know anyone yet. In a school as big as mine you could never meet some kids in your grade. I walked in and took a seat at a random lab table. Chase walked in about a minute late. Not that the teacher noticed. That was the last year before she retired, and she was taking as much leave as she could. Chase took the only seat still available the one next to me. He had an easy smile. Even when his teeth were behind his braces it was charming. I remember how blue his navy colored shirt made his eyes. And how tan his skin was, and how is freckles still managed to showed . He'd always been tall. Around 5'8 then, and easily 6'2 now. His lanky body bulked up, thanks to making the high school cross-country and football team. Chase is a carefree kind of person. He was trouble though, and he enjoyed the title. He liked to tease me a lot. Always make me the butt of jokes. He still does, only now I've gotten used to it. I won't deny it. Of course I've had a crush on him before. How could I not? I've had a crush on all of my guy friends before. They're all great guys, but I didn't want to ruin our friendships, so I kept it to myself. I leaned over to turn on the radio. Rap came blasting out of the speakers. I laughed, "Rap?" "Yeah, so?" "You just don't seem like the kind of person who would like rap." "There's a lot you don't know about me." , he said. I thought about every thing I knew about him. It was a pretty big collection of facts. "Oh really? Like what?" "Like if I had to go gay for anyone it'd be for Ryan Reynolds"

"Everyone knows that already. You tell us every time we go to the movies." I messed with the air conditioning. "He's a good looking guy!" I looked at him, "Johnny Depp all the way." I saw his arms almost jerk the steering wheel to the right. A threat to pull the car over. "Get out of the car right now!" I stuck my tongue out at him. "You'd miss me too much." "Meh. I'm just not sure if I could get this peice'o'junk rolling again if I stopped it while we were going uphill." He was right. I wasn't sure how it was managing now. The outside of the car was a burnt orange-ish color, the paint was chipping in some places, especially around the back silver bumper. The interior, on the other hand, was a light tan leather. The interior itself was obviously well taken care off, no stains or scratches. But on top was a pile of crap. Everything from magazines - I assumed were either about cars or naked women, to empty pizza boxes. You would have thought with all the trash, the car would have smelled a little off. But actually it smelled like a mix between coffee (which was strange because I had never seen him drink coffee before) and chocolate. The rest of the short ride was full of me singing to the radio, and Chase laughing at me when I screwed up the lyrics. The minute I put a foot out of the car I stepped into a puddle. The rain had stopped but it had left massive puddles everywhere. "Well aren't you just a little unlucky.", he stated, as he observed my wet feet. I nodded. "Maybe just a tad...", I agreed. I made sure to look at where I was walking, keeping my head down on the black pavement. With my attention toward the ground, I didn't bother to look up every once in a while. Ping. That was the noise made when my head hit the metal light pole. I stumbled backwards and I felt hands set me straight on my feet again. I rubbed my forehead in the exact same spot I had earlier. I thought it might bruise. "Thanks", I said to Chase. He nodded at me and led me into Josies Self-Serve Frozen Yogurt.

I took a deep breath of the cool air. "Hi! Welcome to Josies. Have you been here before?", asked a perky bleach blonde worker in an a bright orange apron. I nodded. "Great! Just let me know if you'd like to sample anything." I nodded again. I scanned around the store. Most of it was window, which if it hadn't been cloudy would have let a lot of sunlight in. The walls were painted white. With the same repeated orange painted into silhouettes of children playing. Orange lamps hung low to the ground. The tables were round and line up across the wall with a long, large window. Three orange seats for each table. The seats always made me wonder. They were shaped like eggs with a large scoop taken out of it. I focused in on the people. It was packed, as usually. A huge range of ages were all there. From toddlers to elderly couples. I was looking from table to table when... "Leanne!" I looked for the voice... "Austen!" He walked up to Chase and I. I realized that their looks were almost polar opposites. Austen was practically a midget compared to Chase. Still taller than me but not tall. He was approximately 5'6. His shaggy blonde hair reached his eyebrows. He never let anyone see his forehead, he said it was to big and pale. He had bright green eyes that brightened when he laughed. The only similarity between them was their skin. Both of them were tan and had freckled faces. Except Austens covered his entire face, Chases merely were sprinkled across his cheeks and nose. Austen was someone who didn't care what people thought of him. He loved life. He had been like that ever since I first met him in middle school. We had an endless list of inside jokes, but we acted like the rest of the world knew exactly what we were talking about too. Especially with one of our most recent ones that involved a dance move. Which we started doing right at that moment. As usual, people began to stare and then look away uncomfortably. We didn't care. We just kept dancing. Chase smiled down at us. We kept going until Chase dragged us to the get our cups. I grabbed the smallest, and they grabbed the largest. "Not watching the weight, are you?", I joked.

"Not at all. Why? Should I be?", Austen asked, patting his stomach. "Not at all.", I laughed. We found seats and sat down. The table and chairs -like the lamps- were low and close to the ground. Austen and I had no issue sitting down. But Chase had a farther way down. Austen laughed as we watched Chase squat and then have to use the table to ease himself into the chair. We made small talk. Talking about summer and final exams. Austen complained endlessly about how his history teacher had thought him nothing, yet had threatened to give them a two hundred question test. I nudged Austen. "So who are you going to formal with?" "Juliet." I pictured the blonde in my head. "But isn't she taller than you?" "Who cares? She's hot." I rolled my eyes. "That's real deep. And what about you?" I slid my eyes over to Chase. He shrugged his shoulders, "Maybe Veronica. As friends though, she has a boyfriend who goes to a different school. What about you?" I sighed and pushed away the half full -or I suppose half emptyyogurt cup. "I dunno, Joseph has tried to ask me a few times... But I think I'd like to go with David." "Who?", questioned Austen. I opened my mouth to speak, but Chase beat me to it. "David Croff, he's kind of quiet, but he's a pretty cool kid." He turned to me, "Good luck. I don't think he's into girls yet." I sighed again and rose to throw away the cup with melted frozen yogurt inside. My strides to the trash can were long, I looked around the shop again. My stomach did a little flip and I ran back to the table. "Guess who's here?! Guess!", I asked a little breathlessly.

"How are you out of breath? You ran like four feet...", I could see Austen eyeing the distance I had just sprinted. I decided to ignore him and just repeat the question. "Guess! Guess who's here!" Chase looked up at me. ".... Santa Claus?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "No, it's David.", I hissed. "How do I look?" "Besides the frozen yogurt you have around your mouth... Great!", Chase said, smiling at me. "Where?" He pointed at various places on his face, which I mirrored by wiping at my face with the back of my hand. "Did I get it?" Chase and Austen both nodded. "Is he alone?", Chase wondered out loud. "Looks like it... You should invite him to sit with us Leanne.", Austen tried to push me out of my chair. "Maybe...Well... I dunno..." "Just go!", Austen said, giving me a final push. "You know what, I'll just do it.", Chase said. "Hey, David!", he yelled out across the room, lifting his hand up in a half wave. David gave a small smile, obviously embarrassed that he was called out in front of all the other customers. He walked over and Chase spoke to him again,"We saw that you didn't come in with anyone and we wanted to know if you'd like to join us." David gave a nervous smile and shrugged, taking the seat across from me.