After Amber threw down the flowers that Gordo gave her, and ran out of the room, Gordo stood by the door to the girl's locker room looking a little like a lost puppy dog. Even though, I couldn't really talk to him, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
"Hey Gordo," I said, initiating the first conversation that we had in the last 24 hours. "How are you?"
He look startled, like he completely was not expecting me to talk to him at all.
"I'm good. Congratulations."
"Thanks," I replied. I'm sure that he could tell as well that the conversation was extremely awkward between us. "Are you going to that big party?"
"Yeah. Amber was going to take me, Colin, and Brynn."
Did he just say Brynn? Was she friends with Amber? I should ask her about it.
"That's cool. Maybe I'll see you there," I replied, but I really could not take this anymore. "Gordo, I really don't think we should talk anymore," I burst out.
His face fell visibly, and he clenched his right hand into a fist. What was that all about?
"Why not?"
He obviously didn't know about what Amber told me.
"I just think that our....relationship is being strained because of Amber, and it would be less....stressful for the both of us if we just remain casual acquaintances."
I couldn't believe that I said that. Here was Gordo, one of my best friends since I was a BABY, and here I was practically dumping him.
"Lizzie," Gordo said, looking down to the ground. "Well, if we're not going to be friends anymore, then I need to give you a hug."
I smiled, but yet I felt guilty at the same time. Gordo hadn't really changed that much, but here I was dumping him because of his girlfriend. A tear ran down my cheek, and I silently wiped it away.
"Gordo," I said, giving him a huge hug. "I'm going to miss you SO much!"
Gordo kind of let go and looked at me, sort of confused.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm going to miss having you all to myself and not having to share you with all of the girls," I quickly clarified. I was above just coming out and saying that Amber was completely using him, because I really didn't have proof of that yet.
"Lizzie...we always knew that our friendship would change in this direction someday," Gordo said. "Did you think I was going to remain a bachelor for the rest of my life?"
I laughed, seeing a mental picture of Gordo in twenty years, the neighborhood cranky old guy that nobody dared kicked balls into his yard because they would never see them again.
"No....I'll see you around Gordo," I replied, and gave Gordo a pat on the back.
It was sad giving up on our friendship but with Amber and everything that was happening, it was probably the best. But, I had this weird feeling in my heart. Like....something was missing.
Amber, after putting on a show for Brynn, quickly ran up to the girl's locker room again, trying to avoid all of Brynn's hopefully soon to be former friends. She grabbed her stuff, and quickly tried to touch up her makeup when she saw two lone figures standing in the dance studio.
She made out one to be Lizzie, but whoever she was standing with was not facing her, and she could not tell. Maybe she could fit in some sabotage before she left.
As she walked closer to the viewing window, she saw that it was Lizzie and Gordo, having a friendly conversation. Lizzie looked like she was about to start crying as she hugged Gordo.
Hmmm, Amber thought to herself. This could just prove something.
She whipped out her cell phone and snapped a couple of pictures of the two hugging, and Lizzie patting Gordo on the back. She would find something to do with it eventually.
Miranda's POV
After the initial excitement that was Lizzie's audition results, the excitement finally died down, and I was able to find my sister. She was sitting at a lunchroom table, thumbing through some book, trying to look like she was bored.
"Maria.....I just met a girl named Maria," I sang into her ear loudly, and she jumped. This was a part from one of the songs in West Side Story, and our mom used to sing it to her before she went to bed as a lullaby. That was before our parents started to fight.
"Gosh...you scared me. Did Lizzie make it?"
"Yep. Of course. She psyched herself out for nothing," I replied, picking up her book. "The Great Gatsby....Josh was reading this yesterday."
"Josh?" my sister said, raising one of her eyebrows while she gathered her stuff into her bag. "Who is this?"
"One of my new friends. He was the one at the bookstore last night."
"Oh," my sister said, appearing disinterested.
Our "conversation" was cut short by our sighting of Shana, who was sitting on the stairway, looking as if she had been crying.
"Shana...what's wrong?" I exclaimed, and I ran up and sat next to her.
She wiped away her tears, and cleared her throat.
"Apparently....I'm jealous of Brynn, and I want to steal Colin away from her. But I have never even said anything like that. I wanted them to get together, and Brynn just came up and went ballistic screaming at me, and she called me a whore and everything, and I didn't know what was happening....and I've lost one of my best friends," Shana said in all one breath.
I looked at Maria.
"What?" I mouthed.
"No clue," she mouthed back.
"Okay," I said to Shana. "Brynn yelled at you?"
Shana nodded her head slowly.
I was shocked. Brynn was usually the most sane one of our entire group. I had actually never even seen her phased one bit, not even after she had broken up with somebody.
"Why?" I asked.
"She said that I was jealous of Colin and her, and that I wanted them to break up," she said quietly. "I wanted them to get together."
Maria patted Shana on the back.
"I'm sure there is an explanation to all of this that you don't know yet," Maria said sweetly. "It's just a misunderstanding."
"I knew this would happen," Shana said. She always had those typical drama queen moments where she made bold statements, but this statement was a little too true.
"I knew that when our group went to high school, we would eventually fall apart. Middle and high school are two different things altogether," Shana went on to explain. "Lizzie and Gordo used to be best friends, and now their just....nothing, Brynn has a new boyfriend and a new crowd, and I don't even know what's going on with Madison anymore."
It all made sense to me now. There was a reason for all of this. We were growing apart, and we just weren't going to be friends in high school. Everything was making sense.
"That is so true," both Maria and I agreed in unison. This caused us to shoot each other looks. We were not really comforting Shana anymore.
"And then there is this whole thing with the popular crowd wanting to be our friends again. What is that all about?"
This scenario that Shana described rang true in my mind. Did I really believe that our group would survive for that long? Did I really think that we would grow up and have each other as bridesmaids, and live in the same neighborhood with our kids? Did I really think that our kids would be friends?
This realization was almost too much for me. Everything that I had thought about in the last three years was coming to a head-bitterness over Kate leaving us, my jealousy of Lizzie, my belief that Brynn was just a skank in a good girl's clothes, annoyance of Shana's attitude. All of these feelings had grown immensely over the past month. Did I really want to be friends with these people?
After getting her stuff out of her locker, Amber ventured out into the parking lot to find her mom waiting for her.
"Did you make it?" her mom asked impatiently.
"No," Amber said, extremely annoyed that she had to explain everything to her mother. "A girl named Lizzie Mcguire did."
Amber's mother flipped her hair, rolled her eyes, and sighed all at the same time.
"You didn't really want to do that anyways, did you?" her mother rationalized.
Amber looked at her mother, and sighed as well. The truth was that her home life was extremely unhappy. In fact, it seemed as though it was pulled straight from a Desperate Housewives storyline, with her mom playing the Gabrielle part. Except their storyline was a little different.
Her mom was extremely beautiful, and was a supermodel in New York when she met Amber's dad. Amber's mom fell in love with his money, and they had a one-night stand together. A couple weeks later, she found out that she was pregnant, and she assumed that he was the father. She forced him to marry her, believing that with his money, this was a blessing in disguise.
After the birth of Amber, the couple moved out to Hilridge to live a quiet life together. However, Amber's dad was often immersed in his work, so Amber's mom was almost famous for her wandering eye. She had had a numerous amount of affairs, all different ages, and different types of men. Amber did not know if her dad knew, but it was possible he just didn't care.
She was currently involved with a married man by the name of Carlos Sanchez, but Amber was so disgusted with her mother, she refused to even look at the guy.
"I don't know. I kind of did."
"You know....I think I know Lizzie Mcguire's mother. There is a woman named Jo Mcguire in my book club, and she said that she has a daughter that goes to HHS," Amber's mom said. "And there is another woman with the last name of Williams, who has two daughters that go there. The one that is your age is named Shana, I think."
Amber thought back onto Shana, and did not feel a wave of remorse as she thought about what she had done to her. Shana was no longer friends with Brynn, as far as Amber was concerned.
Later that same night, Gavin sat in the tree house, trying to finish writing a song he had started for Brynn's birthday. But, he had lost his inspiration once she had started to date Colin.
He looked down at his lyrics, and they seemed silly and childish. Back when he actually thought that they had a chance.
His grand, master, romantic plan was to sing this song to Brynn on her birthday, and to sweep her off her feet. It was just this last year that he started having these feelings about her, but he was not sure what she saw them as. He considered himself in the same boat as Gordo, but Gavin was almost blind to any other girls.
This was obvious with his song, which he had started after a joint family campout that their families shared over the summer, before she met Chris and her family went to Florida. He and Brynn stayed up one night by the fire, and just talked about everything. Gavin was almost that they would get together within the next week, but his hopes were dashed when he saw Chris for the first time.
Suddenly he heard footsteps climbing up the stairs. He assumed it was his mother telling him to come down for dinner, but then he heard some voices. Realizing that it was Brynn and Colin, he grabbed his notebook, and jumped out of the window.
He landed on their little, "sort-of balcony" (as Brynn called it). It was right under the window, and the only way down out of it was this system of ropes and pulleys, that acted as an elevator. However, Gavin did not want to be heard, and he knew how much noise it made. So he sat patiently, waiting for the two of them to leave. But, as their conversation started, he realized that he could hear everything.
"Thanks for calling me to come over," Colin said. "What is this place?"
"This is my tree house that my dad and Gavin's dad made for us," Brynn replied. "It's my special place. My parents never come up here."
"Who's Gavin?" Colin asked.
"Gavin Burns? I guess you wouldn't know him. He's that blonde, tan kid....he's like a brother to me."
"Oh, good....so no..."
His voice trailed off, but I knew what he would have said. Unfortunately, Brynn's next statement confirmed his suspicions.
"No, I have NEVER felt anything for him. We're too close."
"Good."
The next thing that followed was a very strange sound, that only meant to Gavin that they were making out. He tried to block out the sound, but it was killing him to hear Brynn making out with another guy. He knew that she did do other things with guys, but he almost never thought about it.
"Are you sure that your parents never come up here?" Colin asked, out of breath.
"I'm sure," Brynn replied.
Gavin raised his eyebrows, as it sounded like they were fooling around. He didn't want to look, but by the sounds, he was almost sure of what they were doing.
His uneasiness increased, as he heard Colin lifting his shirt up over his head, and unzipping his pants.
They are not going to, Gavin thought to himself.
"Colin, we only met yesterday," Brynn said. "Are you sure about this?"
"Brynn...when I first saw you, it was love at first sight...."
Gavin plugged his ears with his fingers, and tried to shut out the sound of his love-I want sex-speech. But, curiosity got the best of him, and he tried to listen to what was happening.
"I love you too....okay, I want to do this."
"Is this your first time?" he heard Colin ask her.
"No...no it isn't."
Gavin definately could not handle listening anymore, but he knew he couldn't get down the safe way. He had to find another way.
Looking at the ground, he thought that he would never jump, but hearing the sounds from the tree house, it wasn't looking that bad.
At the Matthews house, Brynn's mother was blissfully unaware of what was happening in the tree house. She was putting her tofu casserole into the oven, when she heard the doorbell ring.
Gavin was standing in the doorstep as she opened the door.
"Hi, Gavin! Looking for Brynn?"
"Yeah, actually....I was in the tree house about an hour ago, and I think I accidently locked it, with my key in there. I was just going to borrow Brynn's, because I left something in there," he said, totally convincing.
Brynn's mother smiled.
"I actually just got home a couple of minutes ago from my doctor, so I don't know where Brynn is....I haven't seen her. I actually wanted to talk to her myself about the whole baby thing.....did she seem okay last night?" Brynn's mother rambled on.
"She was perfectly fine about all of it, actually," Gavin answered. "She's really happy to have a little brother or sister."
"Hmmm, well...it looks like she is home," Brynn's mother said, gesturing towards her bookbag laying on the floor. "She must be in the tree house."
Brynn's mother looked at the new pick-up truck parked in front of their house.
"I wonder if she has guests?" she asked Gavin.
"I think that is our neighbor's relative's car, actually," Gavin replied, knowing perfectly well whose car it was. "Actually, now that I think of it, I don't really need to go up there."
"Oh, okay. I think I'm going to go up there anyways, and get your key. She and I need to talk for awhile about this whole situation."
Gavin smiled, but he still felt guilty as he waved goodbye and retreated back to his house. This was the second time in a day that he got Brynn in trouble. Even though he knew that best friends did not rat each other out, sometimes his feelings got the best of him.
When he got back to his house, the feeling of curiosity got the best of him yet again, as he pulled back the curtains in the window facing the backyard. As Brynn's mother opened the door, she immediately started to yell and scream. Soon Colin ran out, sans shirt, and Brynn came out not too long after, with her mother on her tail.