There was once a girl named Chrissy. She moved to South California from a rich town in New England, where she was born and raised in a small town filled with well-off white people and lots of lovely weather. She loved the storms and grew up an intelligent young woman, always eccentric and never very normal: She had a handful of close friends who understood her and an endless supply of look-alike peers who jeered at her for being different, special, and unfamiliar to them. She left all her friends and her home the summer before her starting high school and moved to southern California, to a town that was categorized as rich and well-off also, but due to California's significant budget issues, wasn't nearly so much as her previous town. When she got to this town, she continued her theatrical ways (she was an actress) and became a member of the theatre program at the high school she now attended. She made friends with many people, but her two best friends were the polar opposites, Crelen and Molly. Molly was a popular, boy-chasing, giggly girl who could always be found in the company of people who echoed back to the peers of Chrissy's old hometown, the ones who estranged her for her treasured abnormality. Crelen was the opposite: She dressed in gothic-influenced clothes, her conversations could make her come across as an anarchist, and she scorned all who followed mainstream ways. She was a dirt-biker chick, Polynesian, and worshipped Green Day. Molly memorized the casts of modern-day musicals and followed Boy Bands. Obviously, they clashed. Chrissy would often, therefore, play the diplomat and try to mediate between the two. Regardless of their differences, they all had fun together. Chrissy was nothing like either: For example, instead of black and green plaid (Crelen) or v-neck shirts and converse (Molly) Chrissy would look in her closet and pick out whatever she wanted to feel that day. This explains how one day, she would wear a highlighter yellow tennis skirt with rainbow beads, a black graphic t-shirt, and magenta tights. Whereas the next, she'd calm down a bit, donning a pair of skinny jeans, a knit-knee-length sweater and a camisole. She constantly went through phases of dress, and would go for weeks at a time in sweatshirts and jeans if she got tired. And she did. Get tired, that is. But she also was loud,, sing-songy, and bubbly. She entertained people by her witty commentary, obscure culture references, and sometimes her clowning about for others' amusement. If others laughed at her, she would laugh too because – even if some people couldn't see it – she had been planning and choreographing her actions carefully the whole time, hoping to make them laugh: She was glad to play the clown so that others could be happy – she knew herself to be strong enough to take laughter, even if others weren't, so she would gladly use her strengths to make other people happier. It made her happy.

But Crelen had some other friends too. And Chrissy didn't like Molly's friends – their similarities to her New England peers of old made Chrissy uncomfortable – so Chrissy started to migrate over to Crelen's friends. And Chrissy found that Crelen's friends were fun and amusing. She determined that these people were the sorts of people that Chrissy would enjoy spending time with. So she did. And in her first year of high school, she noticed someone. Someone who was noticed by LOTS of people.

His name was Guillermo. But everyone called him Will.

He was noticed by every freshmen girl who laid eyes on him because he was beautiful. He was gorgeous. And he didn't know it. (Well, he didn't believe it, anyways. When you have a fan club, it's a bit hard to be oblivious to your own handsomeness.) But anyways, in her first year, Chrissy was friends with everyone, including Will – Crelen's best guy friend (she'd gotten over the initial attraction very quickly after getting to know him and determining that he's not her type) – and Chrissy was a quietly appreciative fan girl in her first year. Will did not notice her, and she was content: Chrissy knew that any gigglings that she shared with Crelen about how much she admired Will were insubstancial and could not come of anything. Chrissy knew well enough that Will and she could not – and would not – come to anything of importance and that he could do a lot better than her. So she contented herself with the occasional lustful giggle and just being his friend. That was enough for her.

Then summer came and Chrissy left California to return to her beloved hometown for the summer: For seven weeks she had fun and loved her childhood friends, the ones that she loved more than any friend she'd made in California, enjoying weather and familiar surroundings. During this time period, she occasionally thought of her California friends, and even rarer than that did she think about Will, except once to show her best friend his picture to brag about how attractive her new friend was. But she didn't think about him except as a friend – an attractive, could-never-be-with-him-so-I'll-just-be-his-friend kind of friend – and began to wish him happiness, in the same way as any friend would desire to bring happiness to a friend. This was a subtle, important change; Chrissy didn't notice any change in herself, but she had stopped giggling about fantastical plots to win some fantasy man and began honestly hoping that this real person would achieve happiness somehow.

So Chrissy comes back to school come September, and, after some soul-searching in which she discovers that she enjoys Molly's friendship but it's not as valuable as all the friendships she find in Crelen and her friends, she begins to spend all her time with Crelen, Crelen's friends, and – by extension – Will. Now comes the tricky part; Chrissy still enjoys Will's company as something slightly more than platonic, but after all – it shouldn't be a crime to giggle in private over an attractive friend. Chrissy continues to giggle a little, privately with Crelen, but ensures that she is simply being herself around Crelen's friends – and Will – so that when she makes all these new friends, they are befriending Chrissy, not some façade that Chrissy projects to be herself. She has to be careful that she is purely herself because, you see, Will at this time has a girlfriend. It's their second time trying to be together, and they're fighting about the same things as last time. This girlfriend – her name is Aubrey – is constantly getting jealous of Will's various friends, who happen to be female. This is a problem with Will, who deserves to remain friends with his friends, regardless of who he's in a relationship with. So obviously, they fight about this. Now, Chrissy is a newer friend of Will's, and so when Aubrey and Will's second go at a relationship begins coming to an end, Aubrey looks around for a scapegoat and sees Chrissy, who is becoming a closer and closer friend to Will. Now, Chrissy has been trying to bring happiness and lighthearted laughter to Will whenever she can – lighthearted fun is somewhat of a specialty of hers – especially during his stressful dealings with the painful if somewhat climactic end to his and Aubrey's relationship. But the issue here is, whenever Chrissy talks and laughs with Will, she is trying very hard to remain platonic by all appearances, because inside she is giggling and feeling butterflies and all that whenever Will and her interact. Chrissy knows that Will is involved, and respects that entirely, but she can't stop feeling happy whenever Will talks to her. She also can't help but see that Will is unhappy with his relationship, and she wants to see him happy. So when Aubrey begins to blatantly blame her for the demise of Will and Aubrey's relationship, calling Chrissy a 'man-stealer' and such for talking, laughing, and interacting with Will, Chrissy doesn't back down. As far as Chrissy can tell, Chrissy never flirted with Will beyond the natural flow of conversation. But the problem is, Aubrey is right in that Chrissy does like Will, beyond the affections that a friend should feel for Will. But she never acts on them, she just tries to use her affection for him to steer herself away from him, using the logic "He'd be happier with her… or someone else, anyways, because you, Chrissy, you are not the right girl for him. So just get over him and suck it up, try to be happy for him when he escapes this toxic relationship and guide him towards someone that will make him happier."

Now, Will begins to fall for Chrissy during the whole escapade of him and Aubrey's relationship collapsing. But he did not act on these feelings, just pined over them a bit before breaking up with Aubrey officially, as per Crelen's and just about every other one of his friends' advice. After Will ended him and Aubrey's relationship, she had to leave school for a remedial school to boost her suffering grades, and Will's friends all told Chrissy that Will liked her and wanted to be with her. This wasn't entirely a shock to Chrissy, who had been plotting with Crelen the whole time, reading online conversations with her, analyzing, and just general-meaningless-giggling about every word. But Chrissy was very happy that Will would be single for a few weeks, a month or two, however long he needed before asking her out because she wanted to make sure that Will was happy: If Will had only "liked" her out of a semi-forbidden fruit syndrome kind of thing, she'd rather he discover that now rather than weeks into a shameful relationship with her – the "other woman" by all appearances and social constructions. The issue is, she also didn't distance herself from Will because she knew that Will would need some support from his friends after the breakup. So Will and she began hanging out more, and more, until by all appearances they were a couple. So by one week after the breakup, Will and Chrissy are constantly walking together places, hugging, cuddling in the privacy of friends' and their own homes, and kissing each other on the cheek. They're sickeningly sweet to their friends and perfectly content with each other. But of course, they irritate everyone they're around because – despite being together in almost every way – they're not official because it's too soon for Chrissy's liking for Will to be with someone after so short a recovery time after Aubrey, and it would be disrespectful to Aubrey, even though they kind of already disrespected her by their spending so much time together so quickly after Will's breakup and all that.

So, some interesting events that transpired during the post-Aubrey time period was:

An evening Chrissy spent at Will's friend's house, Casey, while Will, Casey, and Michael (Will's slightly perverted, but in a lovable and funny way, best friend) were sleeping over there to film and whatnot. During this evening, Chrissy and Will for the first time ever cuddled/spooned while nuzzling each other and kissing each other's cheek/forehead (they hadn't even kissed on the lips after four or more weeks of this semi-together sweetness) on the only available comfortable surface, a mattress. Later in this memorable evening, Chrissy was lying on her stomach on the mattress, dozing a bit, when Will decided to be very sweet and rubbed her back a bit. Chrissy proceeded to be devious and pretend to fall asleep, masterfully keeping her face slack and expression peaceful through Michael's various amusing tests of her "slumbering state" and through some interesting moments when Will's chivalry was put to the test.

An evening where Will broke the law and biked over to Chrissy's house at 11:45 pm where Chrissy, after having snuck out of the house in her pajamas, met him and they talked for two and a half hours on her porch, under the moon and stars, watching the waves of the bay. This was the first time Will kissed her cheek, after which she thanked him sweetly. She reciprocated his sentiment a few minutes later after he said something sweet.

An evening where Chrissy attempted to co-host a star-gazing party on the beach with Michael, but nobody came but Will (in a much less pathetic way than it sounds) so they wound up spending about three highly memorable hours cuddling, talking, and laughing together in some sandy blankets, watching the clouds dissipate so they could watch some stars. When Chrissy was distracted (staring at Will's face) Will said that he saw a shooting star, behind her. It was a lovely night.

They became each other's unofficial dates to the Homecoming Dance, sharing some more highly memorable moments that include fun at the chocolate fountain, dancing together on the dance floor, (and teaching each other how to dance,) and a photobooth where Chrissy thought that – like most booths – the camera would take four pictures, when it only took three. So she sat posed with her lips on his cheek for about six seconds before he gently said "Um, I think that it only takes three" after which she laughed and said "Oops!" before flouncing out of the booth to retrieve their photos, which she currently treasures. She was blushing.

Every time they hang out, he will bike her home and they spend every last minute before her curfew embracing in the way that they do in her darkened driveway. Lots of laughs and funny moments from misspoken words and teasing comments amongst the flurry of kisses and hugs.