Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters in this story does not belong to me. This is just purely a story. All fictional.
Summary: The hardest thing Gordo have to do, was fall for Miranda.
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(Gordo POV)
Okay here is the dreaded moment where all of you get to get a sneak peek of what is going on in my clouded brain.
Do you have any idea how things change when you're 14 in junior high, than being a 17 year old angst filled teenager in high school? Well I think saying a "lot" of change happens in those three years would be a heavy understatement. You wouldn't think that a lot of things changed in such a short time, but I guess saying three years is a short time would be an understatement in itself.
In junior high I was Gordo, just one of the girls. The one that listened about Ethan Craft and all the other boys Lizzie and Miranda always talked about. I was Gordo who you could trust more than anyone else. I was Gordo who no one besides Lizzie and Miranda really saw. The one they always overlooked. Well, I guess a lot hasn't changed over the past three years. I'm still that same Gordo. Still best friends with Miranda and Lizzie who still can't stop talking about guys to me, acting like I'm just one of the girls. Some things never change. Oh, you didn't think that there would be a story full of woe and angst that tore me apart from Lizzie and Miranda? I hope you didn't, because I really don't have one. I'm still best friends with the girls I have been best friends with since way back when. And we still do the three way conversations, and we still hang out together after school every single day.
Like I said, some things never change.
So, I guess you're asking yourself, then what has changed Gordo? Good question. Very good question.
What's changed is the simple fact that I have settled for being one of the girls. Frankly, I grew tired of that title a long time ago. I mean, yeah I love Lizzie and Miranda, but how long can I stand hearing about Ethan Craft? A guy who has no brain? Oh, would that count for being snappy? If so, good, that was my intention. I mean seriously, how can Lizzie and Miranda talk about one guy who doesn't have one single brain cell in his body for so long? I've grown so sick of hearing about Ethan Craft.
So contrary to popular belief I do not want to spend all my life listening about how pouty Ethan's lips are.
So, now being a senior in high school, I've tried to create a "new" Gordo.
I surrounded myself by one constant new friend in my life, Taylor Cummings. I met him when I was first started senior year, we bumped into each other, he saw that I had the new Avril Lavigne CD, he thought it was cool, I liked the doodlings drawn on his notepad and that was how we clicked. He taught me that there is more outside my world of Lizzie and Miranda. Again, I say, don't get me wrong I love them, but you know the saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder"? Yeah, okay, let's go with that one.
So this past year I've been learning the lessons that Taylor has to teach me. Which are examine your life and try to make an example out of it by taking everyone that thinks they know you completely and take them by surprise. Okay, tried that, didn't exactly work. Miranda and Lizzie just looked at me weird and told me "to get a clue" - oh how I love my best friends.
So much for being a unexpectable sort of person. Obviously I'm not going to make my mark in that category.
And unfortunately "heartbreaker" was all taken out, and sadly I found out that I wasn't that fitting for the job. Oh well.
I even tried the dating thing.
Her name was Caitie Parker. Beautiful, stunning, smart and one of the most amazing girls I ever knew in my life. I really got along with her and the most shocking thing was that she liked me back. We kept "accidentally" bumping into one another at The Digital Bean, okay more like I stalked her in the nice and un-scary sort of way and kept "bumping" into her. It went on like that for weeks until she finally called me on my un-scary stalking tendencies and asked me out on a date. Oh yes you heard right, someone asked David Gordon on a real life date. We actually went on a lot of dates and had fun, and ... yeah, there's a but coming into this all.
BUT, it didn't quite work out.
You ever have someone so incredible in your life and not feel what you know you should feel? I know I should have been madly in love with Caitie. Even Taylor said I should have been madly in love with her. But I wasn't. I couldn't be, I couldn't fake emotions. And I didn't have those sort of emotions for Caitie. I came close though. I could look into Caitie's eyes and know that if I tried hard enough I could love her with all of my heart. But in the end it just wasn't enough, because we didn't work out. We broke up.
I still wonder if I actually loved her. I mean, I actually felt like crying when we first broke up. I was broken up inside and I didn't know what to do, I felt like I was lost, and I hardly ever feel that way. The night we broke up, I felt like everything wrong that should have never happened in my life, actually happened. I felt so alone. Then Lizzie McGuire showed up at my doorstep with ice cream.
A lot of things have changed and a lot of things haven't, and then there are some things that are always in the middle. That have changed a little and haven't changed a little and one of those things that are in the middle is Lizzie McGuire. When we were 14 years old she was kind of, uh well, selfish. I admit it, Lizzie was a tad bit selfish. But she's grown up. And when I needed her the most, she was there with a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and I love her for that.
I remember a certain time in my life, I was about 10 years old and being the weird 10 year old I was, I thought that if I tried hard enough I could fly. Of course this was was after watching "Peter Pan". You know the part of the movie when Tinkerbell tells them that if you think happy thoughts that you can fly? Well, I actually believed that was true. So, I climbed the tree in my backyard and went up to my roof, I stood on my roof and started thinking happy thoughts. But for some reason I couldn't think of any. Then Lizzie's voice yelled "What in the world are you doing Gordo!?", I opened my eyes and saw her standing in front of my house, looking upwards at the roof, her eyebrows crinkled together in frustration and odd fascination. And what did I do? I simply told her, "Lizzie, I'm thinking happy thoughts so I can fly". She of course looked at me like I was crazy and told me "Gordo, you can't fly."
I guess that was the most hurtful moment in my life, remember I was only 10 years old. I thought I could fly if I tried heard enough. And Lizzie straight out told me that I couldn't. She had that determined 10 year old voice and it crushed me.
Then she said, "not without me at least" and that had given me the hope. I also recognized (yes even as a 10 year old) that the sort of flight I was trying to do, didn't have to be the one like in "Peter Pan", it was the sort of flight where you're flying without your feet ever leaving the ground. The sort of flight that you never do alone. And as I climbed down from my roof to meet Lizzie down on the ground, I was flying. Flying because someone believed in me, and I knew as long as I had Lizzie, I was never alone.
You know, I also remember a time when I was 14 and I realized I was in love with Lizzie. It was one of those realizations that just hit you so hard that it left your head spinning. She had gotten her first boyfriend and I had seen them kissing and something clicked inside of me. I didn't like it. I didn't like seeing someone else kiss Lizzie. Then it hit me, I wanted to kiss Lizzie. When this said guy had broke up with her and she had been crying in the library at school tearing up pieces of papers that she had written his name on, I had been there for her. And she said I was the best friend she could get. And I came so close to telling her how I felt. Telling her that somewhere along the line she had become my dream girl and that I was in love with her and I wanted to kiss her.
But I didn't.
I couldn't.
Another loss for Gordo. What is the score now?
I also remember a time at Lizzie's sweet 16th birthday party. We had been cleaning up the mess we had all made, and me and Lizzie went to grab the same thing and our hands touched. We both withdrew our hands and laughed nervously, you know the deal. She had turned to look at me, her eyes shining and she asked me "Gordo, you ever wonder what sort of a couple we would be like?", it had been a question I was not ready for but I answered it anyway, "no, because I just don't think of us like that". Okay it had been a lie, but I couldn't tell her the truth. No, I couldn't. You ask why? Because simple fact is that I ever let all my defenses down and actually tell Lizzie I was in love with her, then every bit of sense in my life, would go down the drain within a second.
You ever watch "Dawson's Creek"? There's the perfect example on what happens when two best friends fall in love. Joey and Dawson are the classic "don't" relationship. Sure they love each other more than anything, but where has it gotten them? They've been down the road of heartache way too many times. And their friendship of course lacks the strength it had in the beginning.
I don't want that happening to me and Lizzie. Ever.
So I made a choice at Lizzie's 16th birthday party, I was going to cut off any romantic emotions I felt for Lizzie McGuire.
And I did.
So in the beginning of this long rant, I said a lot of things have changed.
I list a few... but the biggest change is the one thing I promised never to do.
I fell for one of my best friends. Fell hard.
Two words.
Miranda Sanchez.