School Will Never Be the Same

“Well when you took so long I thought you’d fell in and I left my phone up here.” I said, hoping to make him feel a little less guilty for intruding. “I see you’ve been eyeing up my prized collection of CD’s. I unplugged my phone and looked through the missed calls. I shouldn’t leave it on silent. “Keep looking, I’ve got to call one of my friends.” I ran down the stairs, so he couldn’t over hear my conversation. All the while my phone was ringing as I waited for Becky to answer.

“Nat?”

“Yeah, what's up? Why you up so early?” I asked. She’s like me, prefers to lie in on weekends. Getting a phone call at this time in the morning isn’t always a good thing. Lucky for everyone she let out a laugh before she continued.

“My sisters taking me out to the zoo, today so I thought I would invite you too. I know you have that uni thing today but watching Elephants poop is going to be way much more fun.” She sounded excited and I know she wants me to go. And I know I didn’t tell her who I was going with and that I do have a crush on that guy and I could go with her but. I can’t. I couldn’t make Gerard give up his Sunday to then ditch him for animals pooping and plus this is about my future.

“Sorry, Beck, I gotta go, learn and stuff. But I'm sure Sarah will go, you’ll have to wait for her to get ready but she loves fluffy animals and all that fun stuff.” I went into my kitchen so I could gather a couple of snacks and drinks for the trip.

“Ok, but you’re missing out on a good day. And I'm gunna bug you tomorrow as it why you didn’t come. And the real reason. Both you and I know you don’t have to attend this thing. So you have to have a good reason to turn down the zoo.” She hung up after that, trust her to want to know my deep dark secret. That could have been Annie on the phone, but she knows who I'm with today so she, unlike Becky, knew there's no point in inviting me anywhere today.

I walked into my front room, I thought it would be empty, that Gerard was still in my room or something. I hadn’t heard any movement. But he was sitting on my sofa holding one of my CD’s in his hands. I popped my phone into my bag and grabbed my jacket.

“Ready?” He asked standing up.

“Yup,” he saw me looking at my CD in his hands.

“Oh, I thought we could listen to this on the way, I forgot to bring anything decent with me. Sorry I was in your room, I walked past and got intrigued. So I thought I would take a quick look and then I saw your awesome CD collection and I wanted to look. I guess I took too long looking.” Gerard must have known that I would ask him about that, him being in my room makes me feel weird. “Is it ok if we could use this today?” He held up the album so I could see the cover. He was holding Taking Back Sundays new album, New Again. I had no problem with listening to the lovely sounds of Taking Back Sunday.

“Yeah, it’s fine, Gee.” I said standing ready to go. I thought he would question the nickname I just gave him. He could go in my room I could call him Gee, like I said earlier the walls between him and I are coming down, brick by brick. “Let’s get going then.” He was standing in the middle of the room, contemplating his new nickname.

“Follow me than, Nat,” I had gained a sort of nickname for Gerard. I get called Nat a lot by everyone. It’s quicker than having to say Natalie. But if I argued, I feared he would just cook up something worse. I opened the car door to ride shot gun, his car was nice. His sound system looked like it was worth a small house. At first it was quiet apart from Taking Back Sunday.

The university wasn’t the biggest or the best in the country, but it was nice and it has a good reputation and the course and location look great. It’s close enough that I can stay at home if I want, but far enough to be able to move with good reason if I want. Gerard also said he thought it looked good, he also said, last week that he would recommend the uni he went to but he studied in America and I don’t have the means to study abroad. And my life if in England, its bad enough that the chances of me ever seeing Gerard again after this year are about the same as the chances of me winning the lottery, possible but doubtful. Me moving to a different country will mean I will never see him or Annie or Becky or Sarah or Kayla again. But I would get away from James and Max. So there would be some pros as well as cons.

The first time Gerard spoke was when we were less than half way there. My stomach was complaining about me not eating and I wasn’t sure of Gerard’s eating-in-the-car policies. Or should I be calling him Mr. Way in my head, he’d given me permission to call him Gerard out of school but should I keep things professional in my head. Nah, no one else can hear what I'm saying.

But I wasn’t sure how to bring up the food topic. We’ve had no conversation in this car so far so how am I even supposed to slip it into conversation? But if I don’t eat I tend to have a very loud complaining stomach.

“Um, Gee?” Create a minimal awkward atmosphere for possibly awkward question.

“Yes, Nat.”

“I don’t eat breakfast that much but I sort of do on weekends but I skipped today, because you know us teenagers, we’re bonkers, so would it be ok if I eat in your car?” I looked down at my bag, placed in my lap so I wouldn’t have to both see and hear his reaction, in case he blew up about me spooling his car or something. Some people go crazy about their cars.

“Sure, go ahead.” I looked through my hair and his smile. I promptly started to munch on a cereal bar.