Young Love Was Such Dumb Love

Benny placed a stray hair back into place, the brown waves straightened to a near perfection. She smiled, content with the result of many hours of grooming. Today was the first day of high school, more importantly, the first day of her mature life as a high school student. There were more changes she wanted to make to her life, desperate to a cliche degree to become the perfect girl. She sighed, noting her flaws and with a dented ego ran down the stairs towards the kitchen.

"Hey Benny Buns," Max teased, with a mouth full of Coco Puffs, as Benny came down for her first day of high school, dressed up in a new denim skirt, a white cami and a red cardigan over it. She had on her feet a pair of plain brown flip flops, she looked good and she knew it. She ignored John's presence in her kitchen next to her brother as she grabbed a banana and flipped her brown hair.

"Shut up, I'm going by Bennett now," Benny smiled her eyes coated with eyeliner and mascara. It wasn't a lot, but enough to make her eyes pop. It was obvious she was growing up, the way John saw the most was her body. She began to develop curves and John wasn't the only boy to notice, half the guys in her grade lusted after her and after today, it was most likely half the school would be.

"Whatevs Benny Boo," Max said ignoring her demand/request. She sighed loudly and grabbed her two notebooks and her brown Coach bag she had gotten for the sole purpose of school. She scoffed and muttered something about him being an asshole. "Where you going Benny Boo? Don't eat that banana on the bus, you'll give the boys the wrong idea!" Now he was doing it to be cruel, he knew how much she longed to go by a 'grown up' name in her mind.

"Outside, you know that place that's not inside? I'm getting a ride with Megan and her brother," She sighed loudly, acting as if it was burden to take the thirty-seconds to explain it to him. Max and John exchanged looks and walked out onto the porch with her, she looked confused. "Where are y'all going?" She said hesitantly as if she didn't really want to know the answer.

"Jared's our friend, we're catching a ride with him too, duh," Max explained with a mocking tone. Benny, obviously done with arguing, crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one leg and stood silently. John stole a look at her and she looked sad as she looked off into the distance waiting for the Monacos to come.

When the silver SUV pulled up to the front of the house Benny silently started off for the car, not mentioning a word to John and Max. They followed after realizing where she was going and called shotgun only to see that Megan was already sitting there.

"Hey Bennett," Megan chirped and Benny simply smiled and waved. Maybe she was just going for the silent allure thing, it certainly seemed to be working as Jared checked her out in the rearview mirror and when Megan caught sight of this there was no way she was going to let it go. "Are you checking out my best friend? Jared that's gross!" Megan instigated.

"Shut up Megan! I wasn't and even if I was, you check out my friends and hit on them all the time, so you really can't say anything," Jared combatted, the two Monaco siblings kept arguing the whole way to Corona Del Sol High School, Benny sighed loudly before resting her head back.

"Could y'all possibly shut the fuck up?" Benny said harshly, obviously tired as she let her head move with the movements of the car. Her brown hair had relaxed since childhood in simple waves now. Her eyes were shut, and her neck exposed with her head angled back resting on the seat. John took this opportunity to study her carefully, her freckles scattered across her cheeks and her pert nose.

"Oh she speaks!" Max mocked yet again. There was never an off button with Benny and Max's sibling arguing. They simply went back and forth constantly and if they were ever being friendly they'd still jokingly make fun of each other. I suppose old habits die hard.

"You were included in the y'all, dickwad," she said, her voice oddly relaxed and soothing for the words she was saying. She didn't even bother to open her eyes, she just wanted to get through the first day of high school without puking. She was nervous as fuck, but she'd never let anyone see it. Especially her brother, it'd probably just give him something else to rip on.

"We're here!" Jared chirped breaking the silence, Benny opened her eyes and then after confirming it for herself she opened the door sliding out. "So meet here right after school alright? Goddamn I feel like a fucking bus driver," Jared said ruffling his hair stealing one more look at Benny before she and Megan locked elbows and wondered off to freshman orientation, taking the place of their homeroom for the first day.

"Just think of it as practice for when you get old and actually are a bus driver," Megan grinned over her shoulder as they walked further and further away. John followed Jared's lead and stole one last look of Benny before they all went to meet up for basketball first period. John was now aware of how painfully quiet he had been around her.

"Hey, dude, is Bennett single?" Jared asked while they changed into their practice uniform, checking precociously to see if Max could hear. He was busy being held in a headlock by an upperclassman for doing something or other. John was taken back by this and curious to know why and if she actually was.

"Why?" He asked, slipping off his shirt and replacing it with a practice jersey. Jared shifted his eyes back to Max to double check and he shrugged.

"Homecoming's coming up, she got like seriously hot this summer," Jared said honestly, John bit his lip from saying anything. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask Benny to Homecoming or do anything about this semi-crush he'd been harboring for a while now.

The boys walked into the gymnasium surprised to see the freshman class letters A-M sitting in the bleachers, all of them talking over their grade-level principal who even had a megaphone. John chuckled seeing Benny capturing the attention of a whole group of people in a story, she turned seeing John in the corner of her eye and gave him the same half-smile she'd given him two years ago. John quickly turned away embarrassed and she returned to her story, little did he know that she had just felt her stomach twist, completely unfamiliar to her.

The principal had managed to quiet down the freshman and began droning on dress code and code of conducts and so many codes that just seemed like common sense to Benny. She decided to steal a look at the boys running drills right behind the principal, her eyes quickly landed on John. He had grown quite a bit almost to a lankiness, but his muscles still showed as he contracted his muscles to do everyday things. Benny bit her lip trying to stop thinking about her brother's best friend. Her brother that she hated. She watched him run up and down the court, his longish hair flopping slightly contradicting the serious look he had on his face making her smile.

"John's gotten pretty hot," Megan said blatantly, turning her head to follow where Benny's eyes were. She simply nodded in agreement, not in the mood to strike up a conversation with Megan. "I heard he's quite the lady's man," Megan said, switching to her gossip voice.

"Who told you that?" Benny asked curious as to when the boy who had formerly been a level-33 warlock had managed to be a lady's man. Not that Megan was entirely reliable, but she did know more about most people that any one person should know.

"Jared did, speaking of, what was with him checking you out. I mean like yeah you got boobs now, so freaking what?" Megan said raising her eyebrow acting like she was pissed at Jared, but really Benny could detect a hint of jealousy in her voice, unwilling to carry on the conversation Benny turned back to the principal who was now passing out schedules and calling names out. This was the perfect way out, Benny patiently waited for the 'F' names to start.

"Bennett Fallon," Mr. Kawowski called out, Benny stood up and made her way down the bleachers suddenly aware of everyone's eyes on here. This was more stress than she needed so she simply looked down at her feet careful to hit the next step. When someone wolf-whistled she looked up her eyes darting around for whoever did it, a group of guys started whispering and laughing, all of their eyes set on her, but she surprised with she saw Max's face turn red with anger. He had stopped drilling and the coach blew the whistle interrupting the principal as he was trying to explain why that was inappropriate.

"Fallon, get your ass moving!" The coach yelled, at this point the majority of the basketball team was looking between Benny and Max and the half of the incoming freshmen.

"Yo fish! If I hear any of y'all are fucking with my sister, I will personally deliver an ass-kicking courtesy of yours truly," Max yelled out causing Benny to die of embarrassment, she snatched her schedule from Mr. Kawowski and bolted for the door. On her way out she noticed the empathetic stare of a certain boy, that only made her blush more and rush for the door.

"Fallon, start running," The coach yelled and Max started running, he looked the group of guys dead in the eye and shot the meanest look he could muster up. It was obvious to Max he was going to have to start keeping an eye on Benny, with all these boys everywhere. Meanwhile, Benny was half dead solely due to embarrassment at the hands of her older brother, so much for maturity.