ALLY:

I was Ally Dawson. Ever since I was five years old and in kindergarten, I had had a dream of being a successful singer-songwriter. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to sing at Carnegie Hall, sing in Los Angeles, sing on Broadway or stay in here in my hometown Miami, where I was born and raised, with my friends and all, well, some of, my family. Like I mentioned before, my dream of music started in kindergarten.

We were having the annual spring pageant. That year, the concept was insects. I wrote a butterfly song, and my worst enemy, Tilly Thompson, wrote a ladybug song. I'll admit, Tilly's ladybug song was sort of cute, but most of the lyrics were irrelevant to ladybugs, because she mentioned that they ate pizza and rode bicycles. In what world would that even make the slightest bit of sense?

I hadn't done anything to hurt her, but that didn't matter. She clearly never forgave me because, not to lack modesty, but she was obviously jealous of me. Tilly and I went to the same elementary school and middle school and had quite a few classes together, and even though we didn't even go to school together, she still tried to make my life hell. I didn't know a lot of people who liked her- she was mean, obnoxious, egotistical, shallow, judgemental, short-tempered, stuck-up and self-centered. The only good thing about her was as long as you didn't provoke her, she'd leave you alone.

She would call me every name in the book- slut, skank, ho, bitch and whore to even the ones I preferred not to repeat due to them being off the charts in my standards of offensive. I didn't like that she couldn't just take five minutes of her life to be nice to someone, but I wasn't too upset by it because I was so used to it. As for school, Marino had the way overused, clichéd high school stereotypes. You know, the classics- geeks, nerds, jocks, goths, skaters, populars, gay kids, emos, rebels, divas, sluts and religious fanatics (just a nicer term for "jesus freak" or other slang used to describe people who were obsessed with their religious upbringing). Admittedly, there were some normals. Only four of them.

The normals were me, and my three best friends- Trish De La Rosa, and our other best friends, Piper Lainfield and her twin sister, Carrie. I had known Trish since I was five years old. She wasn't exactly the most responsible person I had ever met (she got fired from jobs continuously and she was a C and D student), she was a little snarky and as tough as nails and it was never a good idea to piss her off because she could get kind of aggressive when you did, she was a bit on the ratchet side and she uttered curse words like Gordon Ramsay in a Seth Rogen comedy, but the good parts of her were that she was optimistic, confident, persevering, and she did have a kinder, more heartwarming and gentle side to the people that mattered most to her, and thank Jesus Christ that Carrie, Piper and I were a few examples of those people. We first became best friends when at lunch-recess, she told me that she really liked my butterfly song and told me she thought I was a good singer. From that point on, we were besties.

We met Piper and Carrie in seventh grade. They had transferred to our middle school, Elwood Middle School, from a very prestigious catholic kindergarten to eighth grade school called Pennington Hall, or as they called it "The Jesus freak school from hell". They hated it. Much of the girls who went there were snobby, mean and classist, and they had only some friends, there were uniforms at that school, and they had way too many strict rules. Carrie was very sweet, friendly, childlike, bubbly, energetic, adorable, a little absent-minded and not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but like I said, she was the sweetest and most adorable thing I had ever met.

Piper was just like her sister, only smarter, firmer and more adult-like. The four of us did everything together- trips to the mall, the movies, slumber parties, concerts, spa days, movie nights, birthdays, parties, eating out- you name it. They all even helped me face my stage fright at the school talent show in freshman year- we sang a mashup of Katy Perry songs. I developed stage fright in seventh grade when I was selected to sing the national anthem at the eighth graders' graduation and I terribly botched the lyrics. It was my most embarrassing moment ever.

But it had been five years since that happened, and I was a much more confident person then I was back then. Anyway, my bitches (we all called each other bitch) and I were all in the school glee club all four years. My dad, besides owning a kickass music store in the mall called Sonic Boom, was the sponsor of the Marino High glee club. When I was a baby, he and my mother Penny opened it up together. My parents sadly split up when I was nine years old, and I spent every other three weeks at my mom's house.

They fought a lot when they were married, and got along better in separate houses. Even if they did split up, they were good friends and still loved and supported me unconditionally. So right now, I was eating dinner with my dad at The Cheesecake Factory. We had ordered a cheese pizza with two caesar salads and he had ordered a beer and I had ordered a strawberry fruit smoothie.

I grabbed a slice of pizza and cut it with my knife and fork and ate it off the fork. He sipped his beer and asked,

"Hey, Ally? What kind of songs do you think we should sing for glee club this year?"

I finished chewing my bite of pizza and said,

"Well, Dad, you know how we do a lot of classic songs by say Madonna and Bruce Springsteen?"

My dad looked kind of upset.

"Hey, don't you talk shit about The Boss and The Material Girl!"

I said,

"I'm not. I have nothing against them. I love them."

My dad's upset face faded into a smile.

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry about it. I'm just joking."

I said,

"I thought we could do some songs that are a little more current."

He said,

"That's a good idea, honey. What were you thinking?"

I said,

"How about Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus?"

"That's good. But please don't strip on top of wrecking balls."

"Dad! We're not going to do something that inappropriate!"

He laughed.

"I know. I was joking."

He took out his iPhone to write, or in this case, text my song ideas. We agreed on Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball, Pharrell's Happy, Sara Bareilles's Love Song, Christina Perri's A Thousand Years, Ariana Grande's The Way, Flo Rida's I cry, Bruno Mars's Just the way you are and I could go on, but I don't want to bore you to tears. After we had finished our dinner, we were deciding what we wanted for dessert. Before my dad could ask me what I wanted for dessert, we were interrupted by a man who looked a lot like Alan Harper on Two and a half men. He was wearing a red plaid button down shirt, khaki slacks and black loafers.

He tapped my dad on the shoulder. He seemed polite enough, because he said,

"Excuse me, is this seat-?"

He then realized that it was my dad and he turned from polite to ill-mannered in exactly three seconds.

"Lester Dawson!"

"Scott Moon!"

"How long has it been?"

"More than long enough. Life has been great without you."

Scott laughed condescendingly.

"What are you doing nowadays, working as a male prostitute outside of a bar for gay people? Oh hey look at me, I'm Lester Dawson! I want to be your baby daddy!"

My dad seemed so angry. He smacked the table.

"Scott, I'll have you know that I have two very successful careers."

"Successful? We kick your ass everytime at the glee club competition. You call that successful?"

"I also own a cool music store! And our school will kick your school's ass, you condescending son of a bitch!"

"Not really. We win every year."

Scott walked off. He was kind of a jerk.

I asked,

"Dad, who was that guy?"

My dad said,

"My worst enemy since my freshman year of high school. His parents were billionares. He's the snobbiest, most obnoxious son of a bitch I've ever met."

"Well, it was very mean-spirited of him to make fun of you like that. And to be honest, I really don't care if we win. I just care about fun."

My dad said,

"I like your spirit, Ally."

He then ordered a chocolate tuxedo cream cheesecake that we split. That was my favorite flavor of cheesecake.

I said,

"Although,"

I finished chewing my piece of cake and wiped my mouth with my napkin.

"Scott should understand that losing is a part of life, just like winning, and it's very immature that he's like in, what his forties?, and he shows off when he wins."

"I agree with you, but I also want to kick that douche bag's ass!"