Disclaimer: The Shaking Up of the It, is not mine. If I were to be a position where I was able to legally own the It of the Shaking Up, then very mild yet graphic nudity would occur.


I'm pretty sure I have pneumonia.

I think it's why I faint and sweat all the time.

Or it's maybe because CeCe is sleeping across my lap.

Either way I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die.

"You guys wanna drive downtown for a little bit? Today is Friday, all the celebrities are here for that big movie premiere. Maybe I might snag me some Rihannas' over here and some Beyonces' over there. I might even get me some Kardashian tonight." Dina rolls her eyes and interjects,"Ty, it's late. CeCe is crushing Rocky to death and Rocky looks... Rocky looks high."

Is that what my anxiety looks like? Like I do drugs?

"Fine. I guess you're right, we can all chill tomorrow, anyway."

"Drop me off at my house first, I'm not spending anotha' night in your gross room."

Ty ducks his head momentarily. "My room is only a little bit messy, man..."

Dina cocks her head to my brother and makes a face of revulsion. "Ty, there were molded Twinkies stuck to your wall."

After fourteen minutes of banter, Ty's car pulls up to the large house and Dina rolls her eyes at Ty before stepping out of the Prius and lazing into her house. Ty sighs and starts the ignition, grinning. "I just might steal her from Deuce one day."

"I don't think Deuce would really mind, he's really concerned more about selling things than Dina most of the time," I muse as I look down at CeCe. She continues her slumber on my lap, her left index finger hanging from her lip in the cutest way. God, I just want her. I know I repeat this everyday, but what else can I say? She's the only thing I truly want in the world.

"Well, have fun carrying CeCe to her room." What?

I step out the car and stare at the large apartment building, then at Ty who's started his way to our house. "What? Ty, no! Help me!"

"Here's her purse, the keys are in there." He tosses CeCe's twenty-ton purse at me, which slaps me in the face, mind you. I groan,"You are the worst brother ever."

He's too far away to hear me, and all I can do at this point is turn at stare at the sleeping beauty.

I sigh.

Two minutes into my stroll, this is an easier task than I presumed it to be; CeCe literally might be the weight of two feathers. I take another step and place her on the bed, her arms drooping above her head as she slumbers in her jean shorts and loose tank top, and I place her purse on the bedside table. My eyes follow her twitching arm up to her face.

Wow; I never realized how pretty she is when she sleeps. Then again, CeCe is always pretty, regardless of the setting. I softly sit on the edge of her bed, and stare at the flicking moon light shining through her window. The starting rain created dim, flashing light that fell on CeCe's skin, making her sparkle like some sort of goddess.

I've slowly and painfully come to accept through the past month now, that CeCe and I might never be. And that's okay with me. Soon enough, Principle Walloch will call off the studying duo that we've formed, and with time, CeCe will forget me. How I stumble and fumble over my words and my feet for her. How she hugged me close and then ran out. Or how the first time she came to my house and shredded my pajamas to pieces.

Or when she kissed me. Soft, the smell of alcohol surrounding my nose. Almost two weeks ago and she still doesn't remember a glint of that night. But I remember every single moment since the day she moved below me.

Ugh, stupid emotions. Always making my glasses fog up. I take them off my face and try to smear the fog away with the hem of my ruff cotton sweater, when I feel a soft hand on my left arm. "Rocky." As I hear that voice, the same sparks go creeping up my arm and into my chest. My head slowly turns until I faced with CeCe, visibly still tired yet staring puzzled at me. I glance down at my glasses and reach to put them back on, when she pushes my hand back down. "Leave them off, you look pretty."

That throws another pang at my chest, only to be replaced with flutters. CeCe gave me an actual compliment, and she's not drunk. I look away from her and lightly shake my head. "No, I don't." She gently tugs on my arm until I'm laying down, hands crossing over my stomach and my body very tense and taut around her. I guess she can feel too, because she squeezes my arm and murmurs,"Chill out, you're so tense." I silently breathe, in and out, before I can feel my body start to get looser and lazier.

"You look nice without your glasses. How come you never take them off?"

I breathe again,"Because without them I'd most likely run to a dozen of walls." I watch CeCe lean up on her elbow and gaze at me. "Can you see me?" I don't move, because she's so close and I can only barely resist my urges to kiss her. I instead look out the side of my eyes and nod. "Mhm, I can see you." She lays back down and this time scoots a bit closer to me as the rain outside begins to harden and disorient the moon light.

"You're so quiet," CeCe murmurs again. It's not the fact that I'm so quiet, but it's if I open my mouth for extended period of time, I sound like a confused, little girl. "You can talk to me, Rocky. I know I've been a real bitch to you before, but it's okay. I won't bite." Her soft words give a calm atmosphere to the room, and I wanna say something, but I don't know what. Then she fires a question that comes from out of nowhere.

"Do you ever think about kissing girls?" Blunt questions that are completely out of my category, CeCe seems to love asking them. I swallow.

"Uh..." I don't know how to respond to that. I could tell her that I think about kissing her, but that would ultimately fail. "No," I force out. It's bad enough CeCe thinks I'm a geek, I don't need her thinking I might prey on her while she's undressing. I can hear CeCe lightly chuckle, and she says,"I have. Well, I almost did. I almost kissed Riley Walloch one day, at a party at Dina's house. Principle Walloch would have lost her shit if she found out I almost kissed her daughter. She would've been the first girl ever..."

Is that implying that I was CeCe's first kiss with a girl? Me? Raquel Blue? My excitement is short-lived as I remember that CeCe doesn't even remember coming to my house that night, and the kiss doesn't even exist outside of my mind. I ignore the lump in my throat and swallow it.

There's a long silence again until CeCe breaks it.

"Rocky, look at me." I don't object to her simple request, turning my head so that I can shyly stare into her eyes. She stares back and I can almost feel her trying to search me for something, and she reaches out touches the very tip of my nose, a tickled feeling racing up my arms. "You know, Ian was talking about you the other day." Because Ian is definitely important now... "He asked why I hang with you all the time, and I told him it's just the tutoring and stuff." That makes me turn my head in the opposite direction again, drawing her index finger away from my nose and hoping that she doesn't since my ever-protruding jealousy.

"But really... the only reason I ever come to your house anymore is to see you." What?

"Yeah." I guess she hears my thoughts, because I repeat, what? "When I first moved here, my mom and dad had just got divorced, and we had to come live in this apartment because the houses were too much for my mom to afford alone. I thought everything was really shitty here, I kinda still do actually, and I just wanted to be home as a happy family again. So, my mom's a cop, she barely sees me and my brother is always with his best nerdy blonde friend, so I'm basically alone most of the time." I unconsciously turn my head back to her, so I can watch her gaze out the window.

CeCe has lay down at this point, and she stares with me out through the window, listening to the the ongoing storm. "And I hate school so fucking much. You probably know that, though. But that's when I met your brother, and then we dated for a little while. He's kind of a jerk."

"Lucky me, I'm related to him," I mutter, and she gives one short laugh.

... Is it just me, or is CeCe scooting closer to me? "And then I started doing really bad in school, with the detention, and the failing grades, but then that's where you," she pokes me in the side, her finger acting as a gun and shooting off several tingles in my abdomen,"came in... And some things got better."

"I thought you were a lame at first. Like that one day you tripped in the cafe and you spilled at your food. Or that time you fainted in gym right before everyone left. Or that time you threw up on me in front on the football team." All these horrible moments, brought back to light, why? "So, you obviously know I wasn't happy when Jennifer stuck me with you to study everyday for a month. But I got used to you."

I continue to listen to CeCe softly decipher the past few months, her hand reaching back to play with my hair. "You're really smart, and awkward... and pretty. You're different." The third times she says I'm pretty, I'm having a panic inside; It's unlike her to tell me something nice, let alone tell me something not insulting. "I feel weird talking to someone like this... but I know you won't tell anyone." God, I'm like an open book to her, I feel so exposed; I feel naked. I feel naked in front of CeCe. A hot, red tint starts creeping up my neck. "You won't tell anyone, right?"

She leans over to look at me, and I give a quick,"Mhm." A small smile starts forming on her face, and she tilts her head, studying my face. "Are you blushing?" Her coffee-colored, twinkling eyes stare down on my small, helpless form and I strangle out an excuse.

"It's hot." She and I both know it's almost twenty degrees in her room, and I just told a full on lie, but she leaves it alone.

"You can take your sweater off if you're hot, you know. We're both girls, Rocky. I won't care." God, I hate how much my heart starts hopping out of control when she says my name. And the day I take off my shirt in front of CeCe is far beyond infinity itself, so much that visualizing it is giving me chills.

"Rocky... I remember," CeCe ushers, and immediately, the chills on my body are replaced with a numbing feeling. She can't remember.

She couldn't be talking about what I think she was. "That night, like three weeks ago." She does. She does remember. I can feel sweat start to form on the back of my neck, but I try to remain calm; she could be talking about another night. Not the night where... "I was super wasted, and I showed up at your house at like, twelve in the morning."

Fuck. She remembers. "And you helped me get cleaned up, and I started crying like a dumb bitch, and then..." I feel my heart stop for a minute as CeCe pauses, and like a bomb, it's like it drops into the bottom of my chest. "I kissed you."

The words echo in my mind, and it's like all my nerves are glass, simultaneously cracking and shattering and as the sound of fear shoots them in. Oh God, I can't breathe. She remembers the kiss. She remembers our first kiss. My first kiss. She hates me, I know she hates me now. I know that she never wants to see my face again. My fingers clutch onto the sheets of her blanket and my body starts trembling violently, all while I can feel her watching me, waiting for a response. I croak,"I'm sorry, CeCe. I- I'm so, so sorry." My body stiffens even tighter as I recall that this will probably be the last time she'll talk to me, and all I'll carry in my memory for the rest of my life is the feeling of he lips on mine; once, but never again.

I sit up, and I just have to get out of here now, because I can't bear to look at her anymore. I can't deal with knowing that she hates me. "Woah, woah, Rocky, calm down, it's okay." She grabs me by both my arms and pulls me back down, pressing her palm to my shoulder as her red locks capture my blurry vision. "Rocky, breathe," she murmurs.

I turn my head up, and don't even realize I'm crying until I feel a drop stream over my ear, and I hurriedly wipe them away. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have shown up to your house like a shit-show in the middle of the night, and I shouldn't have kissed you. I just wasn't thinking, which I don't do most of the time anyways, so it's not your fault." That only makes me turn my head and try to resist sobbing even more. She doesn't get it. She'll never get it, because I can never tell her.

I love you, CeCe Jones. I love you so much; so, so much. And on the day you kissed me, you made it possible for me to have something that I'd never thought I'd ever possess; you're love, a kiss from you. And the fact that you remember, and care to bring it up makes me love you ten-million times more. Everyday, I dream of laughing with you, and hugging you, and holding you and just being with you, and everyday, I'm quietly reminded by your boyfriend that I can't have it. By your kisses, and your hugs, and your laughs with him; so I stay in the dark. I love you so much, it physically hurts me. The only thing I can keep at least, now, is that kiss. That meaningless, drunken kiss. At least I'll have that.

"It was just a dumb, little kiss, it didn't mean anything."

And at that moment, I actually endure the true feeling of death. Like I'm drowning; water is filling my lungs and I'm rapidly trying to gasp for more air, but I end up just swallowing more wholes of water. My first kiss with CeCe Jones didn't mean anything.

"We're still friends, Rocky. It was dumb, it... didn't mean anything." I guess I'm still shaking and crying, even harder, because she pulls me closer and now she's laying with her back to my front, and her leg has slid under mine, she's not helping any of my body get under control. "It's okay, Rocky, I promise." No, it's not okay, it's not fucking okay at all. My body is shuddering because it's cold and I'm sniffling and breathing so hard, and CeCe is pressed against me, with her arm crossed over my stomach, holding me in serenity. I'm still drowning in my own melancholy and it's more difficult to breathe as I feel CeCe getting deeper against my back.

"You're still my best friend, Rocky." She pulls me closer and the welcoming scent of vanilla greets me again.

The last thing I can remember is CeCe breathing on my neck, so softly, and I don't know if I fall asleep or blackout. Either way, I'm still in pain, I still can't breathe, I've still kissed CeCe Jones, and it didn't mean anything.


Well, that was quite depressing. Frankly, it was too depressing, and you guys are gonna hate me for what comes next. You're gonna hate my guts and use them as slingshots when you rip them out of my stomach. I promise though, it won't take as long (High school is a real bitch, 'ya know.) You should also leave a review so I don't mysteriously come into your house at night and threaten to eat all your fruit an vegetables.

STAY HEALTHY MY FRIENDS