Baby We're Invincible

Caleb

Caleb was automatically bombarded with what seemed like a million questions once they hit Pizza Shack. He tried to answer as many as he could but his friends--only about five or six came along--were running off their mouths at such a fast speed. Some statements made CJ so befuddled and confused, he really had nothing to say those.

"Who was she? Why were you talking to her? You're going in too deep. I hope you can dig yourself out of this grave. Be careful Caleb; take care." Those came from the other friends besides John and Paige. He was sort of terrified and what John would say and Paige seemed to have tossed him to disdain and looked at his decision with rebuke. All in all, one of his best friends was ignoring him.

He glanced at the small skater girl who shot him a death glare. He cringed in guilt and wondered why Pomona and Paige could hate each other so much. The tension was then broken by John.

"Dude! Why the hell were you over there with a shit load of whores?" John practically shouted the answer. Calling Pomona a whore, well, it enraged Caleb.

"Don't you dare call Pomona a whore you frickin' bastard!" Caleb shouted back.

"Well she's on the dance team and is friends with those snobby cheerleaders! Don't you remember last year during Junior year? Those people kept trying to sabotage our year! Jordan or whatever that guy's name was kept flinging mashed potatoes at Paige. Melanie or something kept trying to trip you in the hall with her gang of friends," John responded; his face going a bit red.

Memories came rushing back into Caleb's mind. How could he forget? A small figure was always with that group of people. He bit his bottom lip for a second as he tried to fathom the situation. It was in the past right? But alas no, there was also Sophomore and Freshman year when they teased him for being freakishly tall. Then again, they picked on anybody that was below them in the school status.

Caleb had been so caught up in his thoughts that John's other yells at him were lost in the moment. "Look man, just be careful okay? For all we know, that girl you were with... Well, you could be digging your own grave at the moment," John concluded.

"Mackney you don't know Pomona okay?" Caleb said, addressing his best friend by his last name. "But whatever, let's just get going," He mumbled as he walked into Pizza Shack.

The rest of the afternoon was spent skating around the Hub doing random tricks. Caleb fell off trying to do a nollie. He would have landed it if it weren't for John throwing a fistful of flowers at him.

"Lovely Mackney. Now I have a giant dirt stain on my shirt," Caleb pouted. He pointed to the muddied up part on the bottom hem of his band tee.

"Dude, it's black. Frickin' idiot," John chuckled, thus earning himself a light punch on the shoulder from Caleb.

"And? Now it looks darker," Caleb argued.

"God, you're both idiots!" Paige exclaimed. Inside, Caleb did a little dance of bliss. Paige was no longer ignoring him, he hoped.

"We're your idiots love," Caleb grinned, wrapping an arm around Paige's small waist.

"I'm still not talking to you Kerse," Paige frowned, stepping away from Caleb's touch. "Let's get back to school. School should be out soon," She said, directing her statement toward John. The trio checked with the other three guys if they were heading back yet. With the other three declining, the trio proceeded back to school.

The 'F' word was running through Caleb's mind as he skated a bit faster toward the school. He had forgotten Paige had a dentist appointment after school. His eyes flickered to Paige who beside him, trying to speed up. Her face flashed with worry and she kept whipping out her phone every ten seconds to check the time. As the school came closer into view, Caleb could be kids clamoring out of the building. A few school buses were parked in the parking lot, a few more coming into sight. A breath of relief passed through his lips. His friend waved good-bye to them and skated over to the parking lot to wait for her mom.

"Caleb, where are going now?" John asked, skating on the left of him.

"Uhm..I don't know. Go home; I'm going to skate around school for a few," Caleb replied. In truth, he wanted to catch Pomona after school.

"Okay..." His friend replied incredulously and sped off in the opposite direction back to the school bus. "See you later tonight. Remember, we have band practice 6-ish."

"Yeah, I remember," He replied before skating onwards. His hands went to a jean pocket searching for his pink iPod. Real manly. He popped the earphones in and Greeley Estates began to play.

Pomona

Advanced Math class was spent either working on logarhythms or scribbling notes to Mallory. It was the teacher’s fault for lining the class in alphabetical order. Gray came right before Hadwin. If the girls weren’t cackling with laughter they were passing notes while Mr. Harrison had his back to the class.

Only, writing notes was a challenge for Poms. After trying to hold the pen with her broken hand and failing, she had to give in to writing with her right hand. Her handwriting was quite similar to what it had been back when she was in first and second grade; her letters were huge and some-what deformed. Still, Mallory had deciphered the code.

Though, what Pomona told Mallory in her notes was nothing more than what her best friend already knew. She kept insisting that Caleb was just some skater that she had met that morning. That was the truth; Poms wasn’t lying. Still, Mallory figured there was something more than what Poms wasn’t saying. Pomona’s only reply was that she’d tell her later.

Later came when the bell rang. It was the start of dance class. The girls had an hour to just sit about and gossip. Sure, they should practice; but Pomona couldn’t. It helped that she was captain this year, and she could excuse Mal from practice as well. Still, they both changed into their practice outfits, and joined the other girls for stretching.

As soon as the warm-up song had ended, Mal drug Pomona off to one side of the gym; it was quite clear what she wanted. The rest of the girls were on the far side of the gym, and the boys’ basketball team was running laps around them, so there was no worry of being overheard.

“What did sky scraper really want to know?” Of course, Pomona knew her cover-up story wouldn’t have fooled Mallory.

“The Skaters ditched; went to the Hub. Wanted to know if I wanted to tag along.” Here, she paused. Mallory could only handle information in tiny bits. “Paige was with them.”

Mallory’s response to that was better than Pomona could have wished for. Somehow, her best friend had managed to choke on air. Funniest thing ever.

Physics class had passed a little faster than Pomona would of liked. The whole class had been split into groups; their objective was to create a hover board. Their supplies were a round piece of wooden board, wax paper, tape, a Frisbee, and a leaf blower.

Poms group had just finished covering the board with wax paper and bolting it down in the center with the Frisbee. They were about to start to poke holes in the wax paper to create an air escape when the final bell rang. School was over.

That meant Pomona had to spend the next two hours watching her line dance while she sat on the sidelines. Her situation worsened when she found out that both the gyms-boys and girls-were both occupied. That pushed the danceline practice outside to the courtyard. Ugh.

After changing into their skimpy practice uniforms, the line moved outside. Nothing better than performing for cars as they passed by. The majority of the traffic passing in front of the school was teenage boys on their way home; that should bring in quite a few honks.

"Line up," Pomona command as she took a seat on the nearest bench. As soon as the girls had falling in line, her finger pressed the play button on the tiny iPod; the attached speakers blared with a recording of the school's marching band a second later. It was their piece for the halftime performance at this week's football game.

In the few minutes that the line had been practicing, Pomona had already grown bored. Sitting still was a challenge for her; Poms was used to always moving. It was worse when she was having to sit through her own dance practice. If there wasn't a game this Friday she would of canceled.

As she restarted the song, and ignored the moans and groans that came from the girls, Pomona shifted into a lying position. This was torture. She'd been demoted from captain to play-presser. Ugh.

"Again."

Her eyes had been shut, trying to keep the sun from blinding her, and the only thing she heard was the sound of trumpets blasting from the speakers of her iPod; Pomona was completely unaware that someone was approaching. It was the sudden weight on her stomach that gave it away that she was no longer alone.

"Uphm." Eyes popped open, and Pomona squirmed under the weight of someone's ass. "What are you doing, Justin?"

"Stealing you away from practice." There was a small smirk playing on the boy's lips. He was up to something, but before Pomona had a chance to say anything, Justin had stood and hoisted her over his shoulder.

"See you later, ladies."

A bit off, Caleb had been half conscious--if that was possible. His mind was totally off somewhere but subconsciously, he was skating. There was the Paige problem as well as hanging with Pomona on Saturday...or Sunday. He'd have to get her number to arrange a date. Then he remembered.

He, Paige, John, and Kyle were going to a show on Saturday and skating the next day. Crap.

Then he fell over a rock, right in front of the dance squad; the bright pink iPod slipping through his fingers landing on a soft patch of grass. The skateboard flew over a few feet away near the bench where a few girls shrieked. Lovely. Great move Caleb, just great. Flushing, he hoisted himself up and scrambled for his iPod and board. Although desperate to not look even more like an idiot, he had to trip over his long legs again; his iPod slipping out of his fingers once more.

Mumbling a few more curses as well as turning more pink, Caleb maneuvered to grab his board and iPod. He ignored the stares and glares. He just hoped nobody he actually cared about was around to see it.

All at once the danceline roared with laughter. With the sudden kidnapping of their captain, they had been momentarily distracted from practice. In that moment, Caleb happened to be rolling by, then falling by, before finally tripping by. The poor boy should of known better than to skate anywhere near the populars. If he wouldn't have fallen on his own, one of the dancers would of been more than happy to throw a pompom into his path.

"What was that?" Pomona questioned, trying to squirm out of her captor's grip.

There was a snort of laughter from Justin, as he continued to walk on. "Nothing, just some stupid skater."

The word 'skater' caught Pomona's attention. Somehow she mustered the strength to break Justin's grip--or she bit him. Either way, he put her back on her own two feet.

Pomona had turned back around just in time to see Caleb tumble over his own feet. Graceful. "Are you alright?"

The look of disdain that crossed Justin's face was proof that Pomona should not be talking to the skater. "What do you care, Poms? He's just some uncoordinated skater." A pure hatred was radiating from ever pore of Justin's body as he snaked his arm around Pomona's waist.

It wasn't anger that surged through his body, no way; it was more like embarrassment. Why oh why didn't he go with John? Everybody was sure to be talking about Caleb and his little stunt. Why? He was the school's best skater, that's why he cared. Any trick, you name it, he could nail it perfectly. However, considering this was the dance squad, they were most likely going to be twisting the story around. Oh gosh, Caleb did not want to be the center of attention the rest of the week.

You know, nobody ever wants to be ridiculed; even over something as asinine as this.

Scrambling around for his iPod and board, he hurried to get away from here. Until he was stopped by a very short person. "Uhm...er...yeah," Caleb responded in a shaky voice. His face was still flushed red and it didn't help that Pomona was there. Mumbling, he added, "I told you, stuff like this always happens."

Why couldn't the short-cut back to his house be in a different direction, who knew? All he knew was that he needed to skate in front of this bench and go around the back of the school. With the red alert dying down in his head, Caleb attempted to keep his cool once more. The flush from his face--still quite visible--fading away little by little.

In the background, the dance girls were already squealing over what had happened. All of them at once were talking ninety miles an hour. It was amazing that they could understand what any of the other girls were saying, but they did. Pomona had only caught a bit, but what she did catch didn’t sound good. One of the girls had managed to catch Caleb’s little tumble on her video phone. Oh dear.

“Justin, I left my bag in the girls’ locker room. Run and go get it for me?” At the mention of girls’ locker room, Justin was gone. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t of fetched her bag anywhere else, but Pomona figured he’d take his time in the locker room.

As soon as Justin was out of sight, Pomona’s attention turned back to Caleb. He seemed to be alright. No broken bones and no visible blood (which was a good thing. Blood made Pomona faint). “Are you sure you’re alright? I think you’d better let me walk you home—just in case. Wouldn’t want you taking a wrong turn and walking off the side of the earth. Paige would never forgive me for losing her boy toy.”

Caleb looked up just in time to see that one of those snobby dance kids had video taped the entire thing. Great, those ladies would probably be saying crap like, "You know that Caylee kid? Yeah, he sucks so much he fell over and broke his face and was like, sent to the E.R. with totally big amounts of blood splattered everywhere!". Okay, well, his name wasn't Caylee but still. Kids who deemed themselves popular or some shit usually exaggerated shit.

Other then that, Pomona was talking to him and Jordan or whatever his name was had gone off in some random direction. Although his exterior had given the sign that he didn't give a crap about the uproar of laughter and the video, his insides were melting in embarrassment and wishing to leave this place.

Caleb hoisted himself up before dusting off his body. No bruises and only light scratches that were barely visible on his elbows and bit on his arms. It wasn't anything too serious; to Mr. Kerse, light scratches were nothing. With his board in one hand and pink iPod sticking out of his jean pocket, he turned to face Pomona.

"Yep; like I said, stuff like this happens all the time," Caleb said, smiling for reassurance. The statement was mostly true. Sure he didn't fall off while skating but tripping over large rocks and spacing out? Yeah, that was a hobby of his. The boy then began choking on his own breath as he heard, 'boy toy'. Clearing his throat, he replied, "Me? Paige's boy toy? You're joking right? Me and her are like...best friends man. Sure we used to go out but I broke it off a few days later. It was kinda weird."

Pomona’s followed the path she’d caught Caleb looking down. The video? Really? She’d figured he’d care less about his image at the school. After all, he didn’t really go out of his way to try to fit in with the populars like the rest of the school did. But, if it was the video that he was worried about. . .

“Phone at practice, Miss Montez. Thank you.” With that, Pomona stretched out her good arm. Phones were a huge no-no at practice, and every girl knew that. There were moans of complaint that escaped from the mentioned girl, but Pomona wasn’t giving in. The girl, wanting to stay on the line, hesitantly walked out and placed her phone in the palm of her captain. Once she had the phone, she stuck it in the waistband of her shorts—she had nowhere else to put it.

“Really?” The fact that Paige and Caleb had dated was no surprise. There were only so many skaters; no doubt they had all been with one another at some point. It was the news that they were no longer together than shocked Poms. “I don’t think Paigey got the message.”

"Nothing!" For the first time since she'd met Caleb, Pomona almost looked like a popular when she spoke to him. Her voice had raised, becoming defensive, and she'd square around on him. Now, she knew she couldn't take him, but she'd sure as hell try if he asked about her past with Paige again. After all, Paige was his best friend; he could get her side of the story and make his own assumptions.

By now, Caleb had lost his chance at having Pomona accompany him home. Justin was coming back with her Coach bag in hand like a good little boy. Now, her cover for leaving was completely blown. Maybe it was better that way. No doubt his place would be infested with skaters. The last thing she needed was to run into a large group of them. Yikes.

"I'll go get my bike," Justin said, offering Pom her purse. He was dead set on kidnapping Pomona from her practice; and now, his invitation was now a welcomed escape. Though, before he left Caleb and Pomona alone again, he was sure to place a sweet kiss on the girl's cheek. Marking his territory--even if Poms wasn't his.

Caleb frowned and couldn't even begin to fathom why the two could have such malice between them. He decided that when Paige would be off her PMS he would ask. Until then, he would just have to wait. "Well..okay...whatever you say." Of course, he was still a bit incredulous. Pomona and Paige were his friends, he didn't want any bumps between their friendship.

Then he silently watched as 'Jordan' placed a swift kiss on the dancer's cheek. He couldn't help but laugh loudly. "Bike? Dude. Get a. Car," Caleb said between laughs. Caleb had his own car--a beat up Honda civic--but he would much rather skate on nice looking days. Also, his car was in the shop. "Nice boy toy Pom Pom," Caleb grinned, his eyes flickering to Pomona.

Their past wouldn't be bumps in a friendship; these blemishes were more the size of mountains. Still, that was in the past. What had happened had happened. There was no changing it now; and Pomona had her doubts that it could even be fixed.

"Hmm. You work with what you're given." Pomona hadn't corrected him; Justin wasn't her boy toy. He'd like to be, but he wasn't getting there anytime soon. Still, she'd let Caleb believe he was--for now.

About then, the soft purr of Justin's Kawasaki sounded. It was only a second later that Justin rounded the side of the school, completely ignoring the grass in his path to Pomona. "You didn't think I was riding on his handlebars, did you?"

Caleb gaped a bit at the Kawasaki. He was a bit jealous--coming from a lower middle class family. If he couldn't skate, he would have biked such as BMXing and the like. Motorcycles were third on that list. Though his mother would have disapproved him getting on a death-filled, two-wheeled, motor vehicle.

"Uhm..er...well, yeah; I kind of figured," Caleb smiled weakly. "So...see you later then I guess?"

What was it with mothers and motorcycles? Pomona was sure that her mom would freak if she ever saw her little girl clinging to some guy on a bike. Well, what mommy didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Pom's mom was never home; she came in for work hours after Pomona passed out from exhaustion and she left before Poms was up in the morning. It was a rare occasion that she even saw her mom.

"Yeah, see you," Pomona replied with the slightest of shrugs of her shoulders. Would she see him again? She didn't know. She was trying to convince herself that his bounding up to her that morning had been some freak accident--that he didn't mean to become friends with a popular. Life would be so much easier if things went back to the way they were. She'd go back to hanging with her snobs, and Caleb could go back to ditch class to go skating.

"Do me a favor and watch out for large rocks? I can only take so many phones." With that, Pomona slid Justin's offered helmet over her mess of wild curls and a moment later she was straddling the back of the bike.

Zoooom!

Gone.