The Kids Don't Stand A Chance

“Man, I hate my life,” my best friend Kylie muttered as she sat down across from me in the cafeteria. She dropped her bag with a thud next to mine and immediately reached over to snag a bite of my sandwich. “I have a test in AP chemistry and AP statistics tomorrow, and I have track practice after school.”

“Maybe you should skip practice,” I advised, taking a sip of my iced tea.

Kylie shook her head immediately. “If I want to make states, I’ll have to get my time down at least a second or two.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes – Kylie knew just as well as I did that she would make it into states. She did last year, and the year before. So why would senior year be any different?

I loved Kylie, I really did. She had been my best friend since I moved to Baltimore in sixth grade, and pretty much my only friend until grade eight. To someone who didn’t know her very well, Kylie came off as a rather quiet girl. She was a honor student and a track star, an only child in a wealthy family. But once you got to know her, one thing became clear: it always had to be about her.

Did I mind? No, not really. I was just Ava Lysander, the girl who liked to cook. I wasn’t popular, per se, but I certainly wasn’t a loser. I was just one of the many students that hovered in the grey middle, never to leave the reputation of “average” and “nice girl” that I had branded for myself.

“Don’t you think AP Spanish got a lot harder?” I asked, changing the subject to something that we both could talk about. AP Spanish was the only advanced placement class I was in, and I struggled daily to keep up with the material.

“Eh,” Kylie muttered, taking out her notebook and beginning to look over her notes from chemistry. “It’s probably the easiest AP class I’m taking.”

I sighed, picking the lettuce out of my sandwich. Trying to have a conversation with Kylie that wasn’t incredibly one-sided was growing more and more difficult each time I tried. Whenever I tried to steer the conversation in a direction that I could enjoy, I was constantly reminded about how Kylie was smarter than I was, that she was more athletic than me, and that she had more experience with guys than I could ever dream of having.

“We should do something fun,” I blurted out all of a sudden, and Kylie looked up at me with an intrigued expression. “Like… go on a weekend road trip or something,” I suggested.

“A weekend road trip?” My friend repeated, and I nodded.

“We’re in the last semester of our senior year in high school, and we’re spending it by sitting on our asses doing nothing. Lets go on a road trip or to a club or something.” I could feel myself growing more excited as I thought about it in fuller detail. We were both eighteen already, although neither of us had bothered to cash in our new found status ‘jailbait.’

“You just want to meet boys, don’t you?” She teased, and I could feel myself blush.

“That would definitely be a plus.” Was it my fault that I was always the ‘wing-girl’ for Kylie whenever we went out? Was it my fault that I hadn’t hooked up with a guy since freshman year?

“I think we can work something out,” she said with a sly smile, and I felt my stomach flop. That wasn’t the kind of smile I was looking for – there was something devious behind that grin, something that I couldn’t put my finger on.

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“Hey Zack,” I said as last period began, taking my seat next to him in English.

“Oh, hey Ava,” he returned with a small smile. Though Zack hung out with the kids that could only be described as ‘incredibly popular’ and ‘completely and utterly in charge of the school,’ he didn’t necessarily act like it. In English, he rarely spoke and only talked when he was forced to. Sometimes I liked having a partner like that; other times it was like being seated next to a medical cadaver.

Still, everything I knew about Zack, I knew from the gossip that Kylie shared with me. Like how all he did was go to parties and get drunk, high, or just spend the night hooking up with random girls. Sure, he was good looking and all, but I wasn’t sure if that was the kind of person I wanted to be around. Nevertheless, he was perfectly nice to me in English, so I wasn’t going to hold something that might not have even been true against him.

“Hey,” someone whispered behind me about three quarters of the way through the class. I turned around slightly, worried that our teacher would look back and see that I was no longer paying attention. “Give this to Zack,” she said, shoving towards me a piece of folded up paper. “Thanks.”

With a sigh, I turned back so I was facing forward. The paper was in my hands, folded over twice yet I could still make out a couple black words on the inside. “Here,” I muttered, placing the paper on the edge of Zack’s desk. He glanced down at it, picked it up and scanned it under the desk.

“Oh,” Zack mumbled a few minutes later, his eyes still looking down at the note that had been passed to me. “I already got this invitation.” He looked over at me, and in one swift movement put the unfolded invitation in my hand. “I never see you at any parties. Why don’t you come along?” I opened my mouth to respond, but closed it soon after. “I know the invitation says that it only admits one, but if you come maybe forty minutes after it says to come, Julia – she’s the one throwing the party – will be too drunk to kick you and whoever you bring out.” I had never heard him speak that much to me, and the kindness and sincerity in his voice made it seem like I had judged him far too early.

“Yeah,” I responded, pocketing the paper. “I’ll be there.”

Zack smiled before turning back towards the lecture being given. There was no way in hell I was going to miss this party – it was everything I had been hoping would happen to me before the school year ended. I wanted something exciting, something fun, and something that all normal teenagers did. I didn’t just want to be known as “the nice girl” anymore; I wanted a different kind of reputation that people would remember me by, even after we were all gone from this place.

Now if only I could convince Kylie to do something that I wanted to do.