Life on Banana Street

Tre and I were constantly fighting. Over the littlest things like not making the bed. I was pretty sure we were destined to break up. Every little squabble got us in deeper than we already were.

“Adeline! Get in here and get my shirt out of the bathtub where you left it!”

“I didn’t leave it there!”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know, maybe someone along the lines of your little brother!”

“Oh just blame it on him!”

“Well you blame everything on me!”

He came in the bedroom and kissed me. “I can’t stand us fighting, Addie.”

“Me either.” With that, we kissed again and got ready for school.

-Graduation-

We stood in the line and I was more nervous than ever. The music started playing and they started announcing names.

“Billie Joe Armstrong.”

I screamed a joyful scream (wtf?)

Earlier this year, I talked him out of dropping out of school. He was really close to. He wanted to get more involved in his music. Which reminds me, he got a record deal with Lookout! Records with his band mates Mike and John.

“Nicholas E. David.”

There was a slight disturbance. The small stage shook like an earthquake hit. No worries, only Nicky. He got to the end of the stage with his diploma and screamed, “FOOD FOR LIFE!”

“Michael Ryan Dirnt.”

You could hear Canada’s joyful screams from the back.

She said a few more names. I got butterflies in my stomach.

“Adeline Brittany Hersh.”

Everyone was hooting and hollering after me. I didn’t know how much people liked me. I got off the stage and felt more accomplished than anything else.

“Christopher Hyerman.”

Under my breath, I coughed, “Gay.” Luckily he didn’t hear it.

“Jeffrey Jelenchick.”

I stood up and gave a round of applause. “Yeah!”

He came over to sit down and spoke to Chris.

“Get up.”

“No.”

“Get up or I’ll tell you Nicky hates you and he wants to break up.”

“Ok I’ll move!”

He scooted down one seat and Jeff sat by me.

“So…How do you feel?”

“Good.”

“Good? Is that all you have to say about that?”

“Well Macho Man, how do you feel?”

“I’m not Chris here. But yeah I feel EMPOWERED!”

“I can see that. Getting a bit too excited there.”

“Yeah…”

Finally, they got to the end of the line.

“Frank Edwin Wright.”

I stood up, gave a round of applause and blew him a kiss. “I love you!”

He smiled back at me and took his chair a few behind me.

“Katherine Evette Wright.”

I once again stood up, along with Jeff and Tre. “Go Canada!”

After all the people had gone through, my dad announced, “Please stand and bow. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your class of ‘89!”

He stood up, bowed, and threw our hats in the air. Tre came over to me and kissed me like it was the last time we were to see each other.

“I think you already know this, Addie, but I love you to death.”

“I love you to pieces. I never want to lose you.”

We kissed again. He picked me up and I rode around on his back.

My life was perfect. I was living with my brother, I had the most wonderful boyfriend except for the fights, everyone liked me, it was just an incredible feeling. But something caught my eye. A boy I had never seen before. He was cute! I decided to go talk to him.

“Addie, I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Ok.” Now was the perfect chance. I walked over to him.

“Hi, I’m Addie.”

“Hi, I’m Pete.”

“It’s nice to meet you Pete. I couldn’t help but notice, but did you graduate today?”

“No. I was here for my brother. He told me he stood in front of this obnoxious jerk. Tre something or other.”

I was immediately appalled.

“He’s…my boyfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. But he kept pantsing him through his gown.”

“He’ll here about this.”

“I didn’t mean to get you in a fight.”

“It’s ok. It really won’t be a fight. We’re used to this kind of stuff.”

“Anyway, I had my eye on you anyway. I thought you were really pretty.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I thought the same about you.”

“Hey, maybe if you’re not to busy, we could go out for coffee sometime. You know, as friends. Nothing more. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble with Frank.”

“I’d like that.” He found a piece a paper and wrote his number on it.

“Well, I’ll call you sometime.”

“Ok.”

Was I doing something wrong? I mean, I only liked his as a friend right? Or did I like him more…

I got in Tre’s car and we drove all the way home.

“Addie, wanna go out and ‘celebrate’ tonight?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said smiling.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Pete. He was so cute. What would happen if we were more than friends?
My thoughts were interrupted.

“Want some food?”

“Trying to get me fat?”

“No, how about we just go home and take gay pictures with the family that’s at my house.”

“Sounds gay. I’m in.”

He laughed. I could hardly resist when he laughed.

We got to his house and took the gay pictures with his family. My favorite one was with Tre kissing my head and my head tilted towards him.

“Addie, I’m gonna go get some dinner for tonight ok?”

“Ok. Can I come with you?”

“Of course you can. As a matter of fact, we can just go out to eat at Smokey’s with Jeff, Mike, Billie, and Canada.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We got in Tre’s Super Van and loaded up the gang.

When we all arrived at Smokey’s, we got this big table and ordered our food.

“Cheese!” I shrieked.

“Get the cheese, Addie.” We all laughed and talked while waiting for our food to arrive. The waiter came out.

“I’m terribly sorry, but we left the food in reach and a large boy attacked the trays of food leaving this.” He held up a dented and bitten metal tray.

“Nicky.”

“We’ll have another batch of your order out as soon as possible.”

“Ok. Thank you.”

We waited a bit longer and finally got our food.

“Canada, you are my species,” Mike said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, at the beginning of 8th grade, Addie told me to go pick on someone my own species which is you apparently.”

“Oh. Addie! That was mean!”

“He was trying to pick me up! What would you have done. Wait that’s a stupid question. Well, I didn’t like him…”

“And now he’s your friend?”

“Who said he was my friend?” I joked about that too. “Just kidding Mike.”

“Answer my question.”

“Geez, what crawled up your ass and died?”

“That’s not funny. Why would you pick on poor, poor Mikey then turn around and be his friend?”

“I’m sorry ok? I just didn’t like him back then.”

After a long talk catching up with our lives, we got back in Super Van and Tre dropped them off at their houses. We, however, went to a motel after that.

And so on…not going into detail.

-A Few Weeks Later-

“Addie, you look sick. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing Tre.”

Could I tell him?