Adolescence

The morning came sooner than I expected. Great. Amber came back from the bathroom and talked about plans she had for the day. "So I was thinking we-"

"I kinda want to go to school today," I said absent-mindedly.

"What? What's gotten into you? You want to go to school?"

"Yeah I guess. I don't want to get killed by my parents."

"Oh yeah....Yeah okay."

She threw me some clean clothes from her drawer and she pulled into a long sleeve shirt, lifting her hair out of the shirt. We got ready and headed out into the cold towards hell. I went to first period and the usual paper airplanes flew across the room and no one noticed that I walked in. I took my seat at the back of the class and someone sat down next to me. Of course. The most gorgeoud guy in the whole school. Someone else to make fun of me. But man, oh man was he beautiful! Insanely beautiful! He had medium brown hair and oh my, that perfect sculpted face. It was almost unsettling to even describe him in my head. Every man envied him in the school. And he was sitting next to boring, stupid, retarded me. "Hey," he said. Ignore or talk? Ignore or talk?

"Hi," I said quietly, doodling on the cover of my notebook.

"How are you?" Is he seriously trying to talk to me?

"Alright Buster. What's the trick?" He stared at me with confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh come on," I said disbelieving. "Do you know how everyone treats me?"

"Yeah," he said carefully. "I just thought you could use a friend." A friend? That would be good for the worst years of my life. "As I said before," he said smiling as he read the expression on my face. "How are you?"

I crooked my eyebrows and decided to go along with it. "Fabulous."

He smiled and stuck out his hand. "I'm Ed. And you are..." I smiled because no one was ever this nice to me and stuck out my hand.

"Jessica." His continuous smile was abnormally gorgeous as well as any other part of him. The teacher called the class to order and Ed turned to face him. I continued to draw when Mr. Brae passed a quiz back. My favorite: Shakespear. I looked in peripheral vision to Ed and he wasn't writing anything. Hah. He must be having ia hard time.

"Mr. Winters, are you finished?" Mr. Brae asked him.

"Yes sir." He smiled that unmistakable smile and handed his paper to him. I looked back down to my paper and continued the quiz. The bell rang and I gathered my things and headed to the door. Oh, I should have seen this coming. Ed was in front of me and turned towards me. "What are you doing after school?" he asked me as I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Nothing I know of...why?"

"You wanna grab a burger or something?" I was speechless and I felt my face go hot with embarrassment as I knew everyone was watching us; he was blocking the door.

"Uh yeah sure," I tried to shake it off, but the red came in a brighter shade.

"Kay cool," he said then stalked off in perfect motion. Dude what the fuck is wrong with me? Me? Going to eat with a hottie? I'm a disgrace to myself.

****

Unfortunately, the day didn't last as long as I'd hoped it would. It went by too fast. I procrastinated every second I could by using the bathroom, getting multiple drinks of water, using my locker I'd long since forgotten, but I only wasted about 3 minutes. Oh damn. Slowly, ever so slowly, I walked out of the front doors to see his beautiful face. He was talking to his scene friends and suddenly smiled as he realized I was here. "Hey, you ready to go?" Ed asked, ignoring his friends as they stomped away to the bus.

"Ready when you are."

"Well I'm ready." He walked beside me, matching my every step to his. Girls on the bus gawked and scoffed when they saw me standing next to Ed. That's right bitches. Envy me. I could see him smile from the side and he grabbed my hand to make it worse. "Don't worry, it's just for show," he whispered. I nodded and a few minutes later, we were at Burger King. "Two burgers and two medium sodas, please," he said to the lady at the counter who was apparantly dazzled. It took her a minute to respond.

"Oh, that'll be $5.69," she said and smiled to Ed. We sat down at a table far from anyone.

"Doesn't that bother you?" I asked.

"Does what bother me?"

"Being stared at everywhere you go."

"Oh," he paused. "Not really. It's flattering in some sort."

"I see. People don't even notice I'm in the same room as them." He shook his head in disappointment.

"No one should be treated like that," he prompted.

"Yeah well I am so I have to deal with it. It's no big deal, really. I'd rather not be noticed."

"Why is that?" he asked confused.

"I don't know. I guess I just don't like attention," I shrugged.

"Hmm. Not to be nosy, but how many friends do you have?"

"One for sure. Then there's this guy Billie." Ed's eyes dropped.

"Oh. You have a boyfriend."

"No, he's just a friend. Actually, I wouldn't even call him that. An acquaintace." He nodded, mildly horrified of something. "What's wrong?" I asked. Man, being nice was hard work. I guess it's from not having a cigarette in a white. What has it been? A day now? He shook his head as if he weren't to answer. "Come on. Tell me," I pleaded.

He sighed. "I'm kind of embarrassed..." I stiffled a laugh.

"Why is that?"

"You already know what I was going to do," he looked innocent. But I looked puzzled.

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"Earlier, I said you had something," he paused and put emphasis on something. "And you said no that something wasn't...You get where I'm going with this?"

"Not a clue," I said blankly. He smiled and shook his head as if to tell me I'm dumb, and I should know what he's talking about.

"Well, I've never done this before, but I wanted to ask you...if you wanted to be...my girlfriend."