Hey, another story from me! I really like this one, though, so I'll really stick with it. Present day, focusing around Two-Bits and her ring of friends.
Slightly: And now for that damned Review Jingle...
To the tune of Smooth Criminal. I love that song.
Slightly: Well, was it okay? Was it okay? Was it okay? Review. Well, was it okay? Was it okay? Was it okay? Review. You've been hit by, you've been struck by a smooth fangirl.
Sitting on her bed, absentmindedly reviewing her chords while crunching on a box of Wheat Thins, was a small girl with dark red hair pulled back in a pony-tail, and dark blue eyes that contained a mysterious glimmer, which was caused by iridescent contacts, though she told no one this. She wore low slung, stretchy jeans, and a cream-colored button-down sleeveless top that used to be her mother's riding shirt.
Her name was Tory Wilkins, but her friends called her Two-Bits, because she played baseball, as her team's pitcher, but she also stole bases. Unfortunately, she was always two bits off the base.
She was very bright; she had taught herself to read and loved it. She was reading at college-level when she was in the fifth grade, quite a feat for a ten-year-old. She was now seventeen, working at the local Firehouse Subs. She went to the high school on Manhattan Island, and was taking AP classes in all her studies, except for math. She was positively horrible with Science and Math, but she had a particular talent for language, especially English.
Two-Bits spent her time writing, so she was very knowledgeable in grammar. She also had a knack for foreign languages. During Junior High, Two-Bits had gone to a small private school in Virginia, where she took three years of Latin. They had moved to New York, and she was now taking French and Italian.
She also loved art and music. She was fairly good at drawing and painting, but she took mostly to calligraphy, particularly in the oriental languages. She loved music, branching into classical, jazz, Broadway, country, punk, rock, and some pop rock.
When she was fourteen, after a year's worth of begging and pleading and vows and oaths, Two-Bits had received her own guitar. She had toyed with her father's old acoustic, but had never taken lessons. However, that Christmas, she received a dark teal-blue Dean Cadillac X with a basswood body, maple neck, and a rosewood finger board. It was her most prized possession, and she had worked steadily for three years, practicing for hours on end, until she was quite good at playing it.
Now she was messing around with it every half an hour or so, just to give herself a break. Her most recent book was Watchers, by Dean Koontz. It was quite intense, thrilling, and suspenseful, to the point that she had to draw herself back into the real world with a few of her favorite songs.
Strumming out a favorite, Green Day's American Idiot, she hummed to herself between munching on a few more Wheat Thins, and downing a couple of gulps of Dr. Pepper.
She had been in a mellow mood all week. "Tom-Boy Two-Bits" as they called her was experiencing something she rarely had to worry about: crushes.
A month ago last Monday had marked the start of school, and there was a new student. Well, that wasn't such a huge surprise; it was a public school. There were loads of new students coming in every year. But this one was in her AP English class, and he was fluent in Italian. His name was Michael Phillips, a tall, quiet boy with curly, golden brown hair and warm brown eyes. He was very pessimistic, but when he smiled, it was an endearing smile. He was definitely classified as 'hot.' Most of the girls thought of him as 'tall, dark, and handsome,' and it was an accurate description. He was very nicely tanned from years of surfing, a surprising fact Two-Bits had learned from him.
Two-Bits, fluent in French and Italian, was also fluent in sarcasm, which was, in her opinion, absolutely The Universal Language, though not many were capable of using it correctly. Her favorite tee shirt was a black shirt that said on the back, 'Tact is for people who cannot correctly use sarcasm.' Michael, along with being pessimistic, was sarcastic, which made him even more attractive to her.
Michael, who had been dubbed 'Skittery' because her was incredibly paranoid, had immediately fit into Two-Bits's group of friends, having been friends with Kid Blink before he was enrolled.
Despite his pessimism, when Skittery did talk, it was usually funny, though at some prep's expense. He was welcomed, as he was a likable person, and the Mush, Snitch, and Kid Blink were secretly eager to see who would outwit whom.
But for the past week, Two-Bits began to face her demon—one of them, at least—and came to realize that she had developed a crush on the smart-aleck boy. This had depressed her quite a bit, as she had prided herself on viewing boys as only friends. She was much too busy with her music and writing; she had no time for boys.
But here she was, mulling over a boy.
She had realized it last Monday, when she was at the mall with Kid Blink, Snitch, and Mush. Unbeknownst to her, Kid had called up Skittery and invited him to meet them for pizza in the food court. When Two-Bits was passing a slice to Skittery, he had placed his hand over hers, under the pizza slice, loosely, so as to achieve taking the slice, and allowing her to slip her hand out. When she had done so, her hand still tingled from where skin had made contact with foreign skin, and she silently thanked God that she didn't blush.
The entire day, she had subtly studied Skittery, and realized that she liked him. At once, she retaliated, shooting more sarcastic comments in the boy's direction, but he had countered them as usual, and did not seem to notice the strange increase.
Not one to deal well with her emotions, Two-Bits had taken to her room more often than usual. She practiced her guitar, wrote, read, and drew, while pondering what to do about her predicament.
The last time she had had a crush, it had been in the eighth grade. Emotionally unstable from a year's worth of subtle, sneaky cat-fights with the ever-popular Emily "Starr" Davies, named for her inability not to be the center of attention, Two-Bits had been caught off-guard when her crush, Sean "Spot" Conlon, began to like her, too. Unfortunately, after two bad relationships, he was unwilling to actually "date" her, and she had become angry. Extremely angry. Their relationship had crashed and burned, including the friendship she had had with him before. They hadn't been friends since then, and released an insulting banter every time they saw each other.
So now she was hesitant on what to do. She could act on her feelings and subtly flirt for a while, or she could ignore them. She decided on the latter. The thought of flirting with Skittery until he became positively smitten with her was quite appealing, but her history with boys had made her quite the pessimist when it came to relationships. She decided that she would push it aside and just be friends with Skittery.
Unfortunately, Kid Blink, Mush, and Snitch had a different plan.