history.
disclaimer: I don't own the characters of the Clique, I simply manipulate them as I'd like (: Thanks Lisi!
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It's the doom of the optimistic person.
Every time September rolls around, when the leaves turn different shades of colors you wouldn't want to paint your walls and when the apples are at their perfect level of crispness, I find myself sinking into a kind of optimism.
Maybe the classes won't be too bad, I think to myself. Just maybe, it'll get better.
And while I'm at it, maybe McDonald's will shut down, world peace will develop, and we'll all figure out global warming is a hoax.
You see, my problem is wishing for the good to happen, because the plans always fall through. In the fourth grade, when I transferred out of public school and into OCD, I snorted and then managed to trip all over a flight of stairs on my very first day. This of course, led Principal Bird-Face to have a worried conference among teachers and faculty about public safety for an hour and fifty minutes. Needless to say, no one let me live it down.
During the summer before 8th grade, the one where I sat in my room and blasted girlish pop music while trying to figure out ways to conceal my braces as much as possible, I realized I'd be going into high school soon. A new chance.
Of course, with my infinite luck, the most awful people in my entire class also had a group conference to try to make the next four years of my life hell too.
"Massie Block? Please. It's only been five years. No time at all," Olivia Ryan would say, painting her nails a risqué black.
"You're right," her beloved puppy-slave, Claire Lyons, would add, earning herself a treat and a scratch behind the ears.
"We must follow her to high school," the ultimate jackass, Cameron Fisher added.
The ultimate uber-jock, Derrick Harrington, and his beta best friends, Chris Plovert and Danny Robbins, high-fived in agreement.
"Let's do this," Kristen Gregory would grin. "And while we're at it, let's plan to all go to her college too…"Perhaps a small degree of hyperbole found itself into the scenario I dreamed up / fabricated, but I'm positive that at least 60% of that happened in real life.
Well, anyways, that's how I found myself in Briarwood High School, where I was deemed worthy of social suicide by Olivia Ryan ("Sweats on your very first day? I know who's staying single all four years," she sing-songed, grabbing onto Cameron's arm and sashaying off) and was noted as unworthy by the proclaimed royalty of the freshmen class.
And then Regina George's eviler, younger sister was kicked off her throne by the seniors who promptly put her in her face.
Unfortunately, the year I was a freshman, Olivia's sister, Catherine, was head cheerleader and just about the most idolized-senior since Betty White. So of course, that entire clan of whores got invited to all the best parties with all the finest people. And by the time we were sophomores, Olivia and the group had fully defined themselves as walking Abercrombie models that were in charge. Even the seniors bowed down. I, of course, completely ignored them.
Or tried to, at least.
Sure, I made friends, who were also deemed as unworthy, and developed a few good friendships. Nothing worth incorporating into The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but it made freshmen year a little less intimidating.
The first day of sophomore year, we got our schedules {of course, my friends were in third period chemistry while I was doomed to last period chem and seventh period lunch}. The majority of my morning classes, because the school was so large, were filled with people I talked to. This was strange, but understandable because they were either trapped in their world {the girl who was assigned the seat behind me in English sang about a purple bunny named Petunia to the beat of Yankee Doodle} or were complete morons {i.e., Griffin Hastings, who asked the teacher if Abraham Lincoln was dead}.
Then came dooms-period.
I slowly walked into my sixth period world history class, surveyed it, and cursed everything from myself to my guidance counselor to BP and back.
Because the entire class was filled with them.
The pod people.
It smells like cigarettes and Chivas – oh never mind, Olivia Ryan is here. That explains everything.
Josh Hotz, the kid who had just transferred from Massachusetts because he had been kicked out of three schools, was instantly deemed one of them. They probably had inaugurated him with a laurel crown and a trophy pronouncing him the next Mars, to fit their little circle of deities.
Am I exaggerating? Absolutely not.
I slinked down to a seat in the third row closest to the door and in perfect viewing of the clock, waiting for the teacher to arrive.
Praying for the teacher to arrive.
When Mrs. Clarkson arrived, jumbo coffee in hand and a million papers every which way, everyone sat down, the pod people in their respective window seats so that the sun would reflect off their orange skin, everyone else in the darkness.
She started to elaborate on the course syllabus and turned around to write something in squeaky, high school-issued chalk, when Cameron Fisher turned around and said something to Olivia Ryan.
"Problem, Mister Fisher?" She said, quite suspiciously.
I wouldn't be surprised. Cameron's older brother, Harris, had made himself a Briarwood legend by releasing all the frogs in the biology lab.
"No, Mrs. Clarkson," he smirked.
"Well just as a pre-emptive strike, I might as well stop this before it gets out of hand. Why don't you sit over there?" She pointed to the seat in front of me.
Thanks. Just stick a dunce cap on my while you're at it.
Cameron let out a dramatic sigh and swung over to the desk, swiveling around to whisper "Aren't you lucky?" at me.
I stared blankly.
And so began history, where I willed myself to focus on Mrs. Clarkson's Bensonhurst accent and ignore Cam. Cameron. No, I won't call him Cam. They call him Cam. Except his mop of dark hair was dreadfully distracting. And the way he turned his head upside-down almost every class to ask me for a pen, which he never gave back. And then, of course, the eyes.
On the bathroom wall, someone had once written: "Cam Fisher's eyes make my panties drop."
I had once thought it was stupid and foolish and girly, but if I didn't know better, I'd wholeheartedly agree.
One of them was blue and one of them was dark green. Blue like the ocean and green like… well, green as grass. I sort of wished he wore an eye patch so I wouldn't stare, because it wasn't fair. I love blue eyes and green eyes, and having both of them? There's no chance.
They were irritating. Frustrating. Distracting.
Intoxicating.
I reminded myself, as did my closest friend, Dylan Marvil, that he was one of them. Mean. Rude. Awful.
So when he turned around and flashed me a smile in mid-October, why did my heart beat?
Faster and faster, until I felt that I would die of a conniption.
Maybe he'd give mouth-to-OH GOD.
I was horrified with myself.
I decided to punish myself with staring straight down at my textbook for three days straight.
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
Until the second day, when Mrs. Clarkson was no where to be seen for twenty minutes, and the planets had obviously shifted gears and the stars shone weirdly somewhere, and Cam turned around, legitimately, and struck up a conversation.
About something stupid his brother did, and I don't even remember what I said, but I do remember nodding goofily and uttering 'haha's' here and there. Obviously, he was pleased, because the next day, he talked to me again. Despite the stink eye that Olivia and her two blonde best friends gave him. That was October 24th, that I remember. It was the day we started to study Greece, chapter four.
That was the day I started to have daydreams about Cameron Fisher, sitting behind him in world history class.
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Where I'm going with this story is a series of daydreams, then perhaps a few other chapters. (:
R & R?