Near Misses
For every girl who serendipitously runs into Nick or ends up touring with Joe or randomly exchanges witty remarks with Kevin and subsequently falls in love, there are a thousand near-misses. It seems that the fanfiction realm has this ratio backwards. This is my trivial attempt to even the numbers a little.
Vignettes about the "almost was" girls.
one;adriana
Adriana Lillian DeSilva was the type of girl who always wanted to go against the grain.
At first glance, you wouldn't think she is, what with her collection of Hollister tees, AE frequent customer card, and her artificially stick-straight hair (still its natural color). But ask any of her close friends or family and they will tell you: Adriana has an almost-maddening desire to be unpredictable. Tell her that she "would" do something, and watch her promptly spin on the heels of her cheap plastic flip-flops to go and do the opposite.
She isn't rebellious about the big things like school or behavior or the law. She is perfectly pleasant to talk to and does her best in school, which is what you would expect from a girl like her. She likes to surprise people with the music she listens to, ("This playlist has Metallica, John Lennon and The O'Jays?"), who she finds attractive ("What? Bill O'Reilly? Seriously?"), and other menial details of her tedious suburban existence. Her most common complaint about a book or movie is "That was so cliché and predictable."
Brandon, in particular, liked this about her. Well, this was to be expected since everyone knew how enamored he was with the "kind, smart, funny, pretty, witty, and driven" Adriana DeSilva. When we say "everyone," we mean "everyone who wants to see it," which is basically another way of saying "everyone but Adriana." However even he admits, but only when pressed, that every once in a while, Adriana's compulsive need to be enigmatic and unpredictable can be a little annoying... sometimes.
It was spring of their Senior year. Brandon secretly celebrated the fifth anniversary of meeting Adriana. If you asked her about it, she could recall the incident with reasonable detail but couldn't tell you the specific date. So April 28 was just another day in the calendar for her.
Lately Brandon had been deliberately and methodically sending signals her way. Reluctantly, she picked up on them, although she still feigned ignorance. She had always assumed they would end up together at some point. Being best friends with someone from the opposite gender tends to lead to a romantic relationship, however short-lived or boring it may be. While the idea of dating Brandon was certainly not vomit-inducing, the idea was less than spectacular and, to be blunt, rather disappointing. She was eighteen. Much too young to settle down. With the level of comfort and familiarity she and Brandon share, any romantic undertaking would inevitably lead to a courtship spanning years and years, eventually ending with a modestly-sized, princess cut on her left hand.
This prospect, accompanied by news that her dream school Dartmouth was financially unattainable, had put her compulsive need into hyperdrive. Suddenly she was just another girl who would attend the large state school and date her best friend. Just another girl.
So when the last bell rung, she told her friends at her locker she was busy this afternoon and hopped into her car intending to drive into the nearest metropolis to just walk around and feel excited about something, anything.
However with $4.34 in her bank account and the needle on the dashboard dangerously close to the letter "E," she settled for the local mall instead. How fitting, she muttered to herself. Her sparse monetary resources once again confining her.
Meanwhile, Joseph Adam Jonas was in a spontaneous mood. After asking his parents (he hated that he still needed to do that), he was cleared to take his father's Grand Cherokee (by himself! whee!) to nearest mall, which he located with the handy GPS system. He constantly bugged his parents about going out, but they never let him. This time, they figured, Joe could find out the hard way why he shouldn't go out by himself.
The mall was small. He wasn't expecting much, given that he was currently in a town called Hackeysack or something like that. He had been to two of the three largest American malls. Seeing as the King of Prussia Mall (the sole top-three mall uncharted by Joseph) was probably a seven hour drive away, he happily walked across the food court, eager to add to his ever-expanding wardrobe.
He could go for some new shoes...
Before he could locate the nearest footwear retailer, four girls materialized before him from out of nowhere, forming a wall between him and the rest of the mall. The tallest one said, breathlessly, holding out a Jonas Brothers CD case.
"Wow... do you carry this with you everywhere?" he joked, graciously taking the CD and pulling a Sharpie from the inside of his jacket.
"Yeah. Everywhere." The fourteen year old answered all-too-earnestly.
Stifling the urge to laugh, he signed the front cover of his own CD, purposely trying to scribble over his own face.
"Here you go..."
"Couldwetakeapicturewithyoutoo!" one of the others said, rather than asked.
"Sure!" Joe answered, suddenly understanding why girls carrying around purses the size of suitcases. They carry their entire CD collection, cameras, cell phones, and probably a week's supply of clothes in there. You know, just in case.
One picture became two. Four girls became sixteen. One autograph became thirty.
Passing adults and clumps of middle- and high-school goths looked upon the cluster of undulating and chattering young girls and shook their head. Poor kid, whoever that is.
One of the passersby was Adriana.
Curious about the commotion in the usually quiet court of the mall, Adriana positioned herself to see the face of the reason for the conglomeration of brightly colored Limited Too clothing that was clogging the path of many-a-shopper. Poor guy, Adriana thought. He looks like he needs a SWAT team or something.
Joseph looked up from his last autograph, which was on the sleeve of a t-shirt. There was girl standing a few yards away, with an amused smile upon her lips. Was she laughing at him? His attention on the girl ended abruptly when two mall security officers somehow permeated the dense field of pre-teen idol veneration. While each grabbed one of Joe's arms, an ancillary security man tried futilely to hold back the tide of angered fans.
"Hey, guys, I think I can walk without your help. Thanks." The two security officers let go of his arms, but remained glued to his side.
Adriana watched the action unfold from the same position. She hadn't seen this much excitement since Bobby Rosenberger threw Jim Krumholtz into the lockers for harassing Jenny Evans, Bobby's then-girlfriend.
Her feet were planted. She merely watched the only ticket out of the suffocating mediocrity that is her life brush by her, his eyes burning holes into her head.
Joe was mildly intrigued by the girl who remained so stoic throughout the whole ordeal. In fact, during the twenty minute high-speed chase involving half a dozen minivans and mid-sized SUVs driven by frantic mothers who were under the direction of their maniacal daughters, her face appeared in his mind. He smiled, but the moment of relaxation was interrupted by a vehicle cutting him off and abruptly braking in an attempt to get him to pull over.
Eventually, he learned that using turn signals is not the best way to shake stalkers from your tail.
He returned to the hotel, emotionally scarred and coming down from an adrenaline rush. He curled up in the freshly made queen-sized bed under the down comforter and took a short nap. When his brothers and parents came to tell him its time to go, Joe relayed the mall fiasco, leaving out extraneous details like the presence of an intriguing girl.
"I learned my lesson, mom."
"Good," his parents responded in unison.
Everyone laughed and quickly forgot about the incident. By the next morning, they were two states away.
The next day, Brandon came over in the morning and sat in on the DeSilva family's Saturday brunch.
When all the orange juice and waffles were consumed, Brandon took Adriana to the back porch and asked her to be his girlfriend. Adriana replied yes.
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