He was a Boy, She was a Girl

“That's great,
it starts with an earthquake,
birds and snakes,
an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane,
listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs,
dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,
grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter
with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games,
a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry
with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled,
trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself.
World serves its own needs,
listen to your heart bleed
dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched”

I start to sing along to REM's most famous lyrics as I wake up in the morning.

I toss on the pair of jeans and top I had set out the night before and quickly straightened my already fairly straight hair (what?! It lays differently!). Checking one last time in the hallway mirror, I jog downstairs to eat breakfast. Although, that jog came to a complete halt when I spot aiden standing there in the doorway.

I stare at him confused, crossing my arms over my chest.

“what are you doing here?” I ask half-rudely.

“calvina! You will be polite to him!” my father scolds me. I shoot aiden a glare once I hear him start to giggle. He shutups instantly and stands up straight. “now, you're going to be giving aiden a ride to school until they are able to get his car shipped over here.”

I nod my head and my father leaves the room and then I sigh. “i'm not ready yet, so you're going to have to wait.” I start toward the kitchen.

“i know.”

I turn on my heel to face him, “you know what?”

“that you're not ready. You're alarm only went of twenty minutes ago and girls can't get ready in that amount of time. Plus, I mean, look at what you're wearing. Were you really going to leave the house like that?”

“very funny.” although he didn't have even a smirk on his face. He was dead serious.

“what? I'm not joking callie. Calvina. I'm surprised your dad didn't notice.” aiden says.

“are you going to tell me what's wrong with my outfit, or just let me humiliate myself?” I ask, growing impatient.

“well, even though I would love to watch you get humiliated, I think that this is... too big for even me to mess with. Especially since i'll be showing up at school with you.” he pauses, and then waves a hand at my shirt, “you're shirt, is, first of all, inside out. And second of all says 'i'm pregnant, rub my belly.' I'm not positive, but pretty sure, that you're not pregnant. I've been around pregnant girls and it ain't a pretty picture.”

I could feel blood rush to my cheeks as I dash back up the stairs and to my room.

How the hell could I have missed that???

I laugh softly, remembering when I got it, as a joke of course. And then quickly change into something more...appropriate.

“just so you know.” I say as I reenter the kitchen where aiden now was, “i wasn't finished cause I had to eat breakfast, most days that doesn't happen.”

“you eat breakfast? Well good for you.”

“yes, i'm one of few american teenage girls who eats a full breakfast.” I quickly mix together a smoothie and make a piece of toast. I toss both into to-go containers and grab my bag.

“okay, lets go.” I say, walking out the door with aiden close behind.

I open the garage door and then slide into the drivers side of a 1966 mustang convertible. Aiden sits on the passenger side and I skid out of the driveway.

“nice car.” he says.

“thanks.” I reply, “so, why aren't you just buying a new car here? Why waste the time to get yours shipped from back home.”

he laughs, “it's a personalized italian sports car that I purchased two months before we moved. And then we decided to move, or my parents decided to move, so we had to stop the shipping and give them this address. It'll be another month or two until it comes.”

“a-a personalized italian sports car??” I ask, shocked.

Aiden laughs again, “yes, you know, a sports car from italy.”

“i know what it is! I just didn't think you guys were that rich.”

“well, we are.” he coughs slightly, like he did yesterday when he's mom almost-caught us. “so, uh, why do you have that shirt?”

I smile, keeping my eyes on the road, “joke. Family get together. I did it to freak everybody out. Best. Family. Reunion. EVER.”

“haha, I bet it was.”

we drove the rest of the way in silence, listening to whatever station he had put on (classic rock?)

I find my usual parking spot and stop.

“well, here we are.” I say, unbuckling, “nervous?”

“hell yeah. You guys are like...”

I put my hands on my hips staring at him, “like what?”

“like, not what i'm used to.” he so saved his ass right there.

“not everyone is as mean as me.” I say with an evil smile.

“i'll keep that in mind.” and I roll my eyes.

“come on,” I say, grabbing his arm, “i'll show you-” and then we were interrupted by someone screaming.

“aiden?!??” I heard that horrifying voice screech. I knew her all too well. The question is, how did she know aiden?

We turn around and spot none other than the famous mollie.

“oh.my.god. It really is you! I haven't seen you in ages!!!” she pulls him away from me into a tight hug and I couldn't help but feel the littlest bit of jealousy. Just yesterday those arms were wrapped around me...

he backs away and looks at me terrified.

“hi mollie!” I say sweetly.

She stares at me blankly before talking, “was I speaking to you bitch?” aiden stares shocked as I just accepted it.

“actually. I was subtly giving aiden here your name. Thought it'd be less embarrassing for both of you. Guess you just had to backfire it though.”

“who do you think you are callie?” she asks taking a step closer to me like aiden did yesterday. But this time, aiden takes a step back.

I roll my eyes. “mollie, we've been over this, we've even had the school vote on it. Everyone knows I could beat you at a fight, so why even try?”

“cause I like proving people wrong.”

“whatever. I've gotta go.” I turn towards aiden, “have fun catching up.” I say sarcastically and walk into the school.

It didn't even take a second for aiden to be back at my side.

“who is she?”

“you honestly don't remember?”

he shakes his head no frantically. And I couldn't help but laugh a little.

“her name is mollie rinefield. She moved here in seventh grade...i think. We were great friends for the first two years of her being here. But once high school started....” I trail off, “things change.” I whisper.

Aiden just nods, understanding.

“anyways!” I speak up, cheerfully, “we'll check your old yearbooks. She obviously remembers you.”

“which is fairly scary.” we both laugh as we walk up to the front desk. Aiden tells the secretary his name and get's his papers and then turns back to me.

“okay, lets see your schedule,” I say, grabbing it from him before he gets a chance to look at it.

I quickly scan it and give it back to him, “not to shabby. We've got art, english, science, and study hall together. Your math class has a lot of the skaters in it, so you'll be able to make friends there, and then your french class...well, I know jamie and logan. You wouldn't get along with logan, but jamies pretty nice. Oh, and if I recall correctly, samantha's in that class.” I shiver at the thought of them together.

“is logan-”

“yes” I cut him off, not wanting to here that word anytime soon.

“oh”

“jamie's alright. I think a seat is open by him, so if I were you i'd take it. He'll be nice to you even if logan isn't.”

“okay then...”

“and, well, this is a very weird coincidence. But in art, english, and science, you'll be sitting next to me, it's the only seat left in the classes. Study hall most kids are either in the cafeteria or the library.”

I gave him a quick tour of the school since we had the time, and then we went back to the beginning to art.

Personally, I loved having art in the morning, it was a nice, slowly waking up, type of class. The class was fairly easy and very independent. We got to choose from a list, what art(s) we wanted to focus on for the year. I chose sketching. Aiden decided photography so I showed him the dark room and all that. mr.raskle had us all go outside because of it being sunny, which no one seemed to mind.

I follow the class outside, taking a grassy spot under a maple and start sketching some climbing roses across from me. Whenever I start sketching, I always feel as if i'm in my own little world. Just sitting there, listening to my music, no one else is around me.

And then I hear a click sound and look up from my sketch, annoyed. I spot aiden standing there with his camera, aiming it at me.

“aiden!”

“what!?”

“ugh. Take a picture of someone else. Please. I'm trying to focus.”

“you're the one who started talking to me. Pretend I'm not here, you've been doing that for the past ten minutes anyways.” ten what? Argh! I so hate getting my picture taken.

“go take a picture of emily. She's already all over you, she'd love it.” I say, waving my hand in emily's direction.

“hence the reason i'm not taking a picture of her.” he says back, turning and taking a picture of the roses I just drew.

“what? She's your type. Perfect little rebel punk girl. You guys were like, made for each other.” I say, half-sarcastically.

“did you ever think that maybe I don't want someone who's exactly like me?” he's still turned around as he says this.

“so you don't date punk girls?”

“i did. But it never worked out. They try to be too much like me. As in, like all the same bands, wear all the same clothes. Punk girls are really clingy it turns out.”

“like all others aren't.”

he turns and looks me straight in the eyes, and for some reason, I wasn't able to look away. “i wouldn't know.” he picks up the camera and takes a picture of one of the school signs, “so, you're name's calvina?”

“shh!” I say loudly, “no one knows that.”

“why not? It's like the most unique, beautiful name ever.”

“ew. No it's not.”

“yeah callie, it is.”

“it's really not. Do you want to know who I was named after?”

“Calvin. From calvin and hobbes?” he guesses.

I pause, “yeah.”

“which makes it that much more awesome.”

“calvina is NOT an awesome name.” I state.

“aiden is not an awesome name. Too...preppy. Ick. Calvina though, sounds like a princess name. Princess Calvina. See? It works.”

without warning tears were itching there way out of eyes. No one had ever called me that since I was a little girl. Since when my family was an actual family and my parents somewhat cared about me. No one had ever called me that since october 9th, 1996. that was the day my dad got his big promotion, the day my family fell apart.

Aiden spots my tears and slowly walks over to my side, sliding down the tree and sitting next to me.

“i'm sorry, I didn't mean to-”

I cut him off, wiping my tears away with the back of my hand, “no. no, it's not your fault. That just brings back memories.”

“good or bad?”

I think for a moment. Was that good or bad? “both.” I whisper.

“well, it's still a beautiful name.” he says.

“no, it's not.” I fight back.

He puts his left hand over my right one, which was now laying on the grass next to me, and once again looks me straight in the eyes. “callie, when a guy compliments you, just take it.” he whispers and then stands up and walks over to emily.

My heart was beating faster, my hand tingled all the way up my arm, and my eyes were still glued to where he once was. What the hell was going on with me???! this only happens when I REALLY like someone, and I can tell you right now, I don't REALLY like Aiden Baker.

I turn toward aiden, watching him take pictures of emily who was all smiley and giggly just like any other teenage girl is when they need attention. I admit, I have done that a few times in the past. Not saying I was proud about doing it, but I did it. Jealousy slightly started to rise in me as I watched them but I push it aside and start sketching.

The bell rings and I flea for my spanish class, not taking a second glance at aiden. I'd see enough of him throughout the day.

“i heard you and logan broke up, that's so sad. It's like, if you can't keep a boyfriend, then who can?” rachel, who sits next to me, says.

She's not sorry, and I knew it. She'd been one of hundreds of girls after logan since day one. I guess I forgot to mention the details, huh? Well, logan and I met in preschool, been close friends for ages, the whole deal. In seventh grade we started dating and made it official the end of that year. We're both juniors now, so it'd been four years. Four freaking years. Five if you count a year of just dating. Maybe that's how I knew he was cheating, because honestly, what guy sticks around for five years without even touching another woman? Right, no straight ones, that's for sure.

Even though he was taken, girls still wanted him to be theirs. After making quarterback of varsity and all that, he was your ideal guy. And girls like rachel gave it their all, making sure I knew that someday he'd be hers.

Right now, I wouldn't mind if rachel had him. Why should I?

“thanks.”

“hola!” my teacher yells and we all shush up to listen to her.

Spanish class went by slowly and I just took notes, trying to focus my mind on anything but aiden. Once class was over that, that focusing disappeared because right there in the hallways, aiden appeared. Aiden appeared standing there with jamie, who just so happened to have logan and samantha standing behind him waiting.

Although I knew jamie was talking with aiden and aiden wasn't paying any attention to the others. It still pained me to see what looked like a group standing around talking. Aiden catches my eye and then says something, that I assume to be bye, to jamie before walking over to me.

“hey!” he says all cheerful.

“someone had fun in french class.” I say in my bored out of my mind tone.

“some one didn't have fun in spanish class.”

“no one has fun in my class.”

“okay. You win.” he says, giving up. We start toward the english classroom.

“so, what were you and jamie talking about?” I ask.

“he invited us to his party friday night.”

“us?”

“you and me.”

“i know what you meant by us..i just, didn't know he knew I knew you.”

aiden rolled his eyes. “you drove me to school today callie, a lot of people saw us.”

“oh. So, um, why didn't he just ask me himself? I mean, we're not strangers or anything, far from it actually.”

“he didn't know if you guys were still friends after what logan did to you...” aiden trails off, not going into to details.

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “i'll talk to him later about it. We should hurry if we want to make it in time to english.”

“why? I'm new here, so you have the excuse of 'running into me and helping me find the way to the classroom' deal”

“but we already-”

“but they don't know that.” aiden gives his evilish smile. We slowed down a little. “so...what was the good/bad memory?”

I look at him for a second before opening up my mouth to speak, but he interrupts, “you don't have-”

“no. no, I want to.” I say, “my family wasn't always this dysfunctional. We used to be close. Talk about our day, have dinner together, go on trips. We were living what people would say was 'the american dream'. In october of 1996, my dad got a promotion. That's when things started going down hill. He was never home, which just made our family disperse. I went my way, my parents went their way. He used to call me princess calvina, but that day, october 9th, when he came home with the good news, was the last day he's ever called me that. It was the last day anyone has have called me that. So for you-for you to just show up here, not knowing me for even a day, and to randomly think of that.” I pause, “it just brought back memories. That's all.”

Aiden doesn't say anything as we approach the english classroom.

We walk through the door and all heads turn toward us.

“you must be mr. baker.” mrs. blument says.

Aiden nods

“well, callie can show you to your seat.” and then she goes back to speaking. I Step ahead of aiden and he follows to our table.

English went by quickly, like it always does, which really sucked cause I had math next and I hated that class.

“Callie!” I hear paige scream in excitement once I exit the classroom.

“hey paige.” I reply, and we start off to math together.

“how are you this beautiful monday?”

“pretty crappy. What about yourself?” paige and I had become friends freshman year once we both made it on the cheer squad.

“i'm in a really good mood actually.”

“that's great? What happened?”

“matt asked me out.” I huge smile grows on my face. She'd been crushing on matt for about a year or so now. And they'd been seriously flirting for like the past two months.

“finally.”

“i know.”

“so what are you guys doing?”

“we're gonna go see hot tub time machine.”

“of course you are.” I say, laughing.

We enter the math classroom and fall silent. That's one of the rules. NO talking unless called upon. It was a very strict rule too. Mr. Coleman was crazy like that. Somehow, I still kept up an A though.

Unlike english, math went by VERY slowly. And once we were out, everyone bursted out talking.

“oh. My. God. If I have to go to that class one more time-” paige starts.

“paige, there's three more months of school, you can live through it.” I say. We enter the cafeteria and take our seats at the center table. I pull out my container of salad and start to eat it as people flood in around us.

“so, you're coming to the party, right callie?” jamie asks, sitting down across from me.

“yeah.” I reply, “about that, you can talk to me jamie, you don't have to send everything through aiden.”

“alright, I just didn't know.”

“it's okay, but for future reference, unless for some reason you don't want to be, I still consider us friends.”

“that's good to know.”

“what's good to know?” logan asks, sitting down next to jamie. Samantha sits on the other side of him and he wraps his arm around her waist. I gulp and take another bite of my salad.

“callie's coming to the party on friday.”

“oh, sweet.” logan says. Yeah, I doubt he actually meant that. But whatever.

Paige goes to get food and samantha takes the opportunity to stand up from her seat and walk over to next to me.

“so, I know you're the only other person I can talk to about this,” she starts, and i'm already worried about what the topic is, “did logan make kind of weird noises when you guys were doing it?” I look up at logan and toss my container back into my bag, standing up.

I held onto logans eyes as I answered her, “no, no he didn't” I say and start to walk away.

“you mean you and logan never did it?” she asks, after me, “maybe that's why he always came to me.” I don't turn around. I don't respond. But everyone else does. It's like the world froze to watch us. Actually, that's exactly what happened. The loud cafeteria went silent and everyone stopped moving. Everyone but me, I continued walking through the crowds, leaving. After it was known that there wasn't going to be any fight, they went back to talking, this time talking about me. I speed up my steps as I push through the crowd. Once I break through to the empty hallways, I slow back down. Tears stream down my cheeks and I slump against the wall, sliding down it. This time, I don't try to hid the sobs, and just let them run freely.

“callie.” someone says in a sympathetic voice. I look up and see aiden sitting down next to me. Without hesitation I fall into his arms and he just sits there holding me. After what seemed like an eternity I pull away and dry my eyes. “you okay?”

“what does it look like?” I ask, and this time he could physically hear my sarcasm. We both burst out laughing. His cellphone vibrating interrupts that laughter though.

He holds up one finger and answers the phone.

“hey mom.” He says, I couldn’t help but smile. That, and wish my mom would call me at school. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking.

“mhmm. I’ll do that.-okay, so that’s it?” he rolls his eyes, “yeah, see ya later. Love you too. Okay, bye mom.”

Love you too. I wonder when the last time I told that to my parents was. Quite awhile, that’s for sure.

“what was that all about?” I ask.

“she wanted to know if you and your family would like to come over for dinner tonight. She couldn’t get ahold of either of your parents.”

“that’s because my dad is on a business trip and my mom tags along on them.”

“why would she tag along, “

“so that, ya know, she can keep him in line…” that started another round of laughing. “you didn’t tell me. Did you make any friends yet?”

“yeah. A few, but I have to show them my ‘tricks’ before I’ll be allowed to hang out with them. So I dunno.”

“your tricks?” I ask, laughing.

“you perv.” He playfully pushes me, “skating tricks.”

“well, I can tell them right now you can jump over a vw bug.”

“which reminds me, why do you have two cars?”

I sigh, “one of them is for when my parents want me to be seen, like when I’m shopping and all that. The other is the true me.”

“yeah…cause that makes sense. So, are my parents want me to be seen, like when I’m shopping and all that. The other is the true me.”

“yeah…cause that makes sense. So, are you coming to dinner tonight or not, I’m supposed to text my mom the answer.”

“sure, I’ll be there. Nothing better to do.”

“wow, you sound so excited.” he says, sarcastically.

“oh my god! I would like LOVE to have dinner with you guys tonight.” Aiden laughs at this and starts typing on his phone.

“much better.” He finishes typing out the answer, “okay, how does this sound, “her parents are gone on a business trip, but she says ‘oh my god! I would like LOVE to have dinner with you guys tonight.’”

“sounds perfect.” And then he hits send, I stare at him shocked, “I, was, uh, joking aiden.”

“well, you should’ve told me that before I hit send.” The bell rings and aiden stands up, holding out his hand to help me up. I take it and stand next to him.

“library or cafeteria?” he asks, since we had study hall next.

“library.” I answer. And it wasn’t until we entered the empty library that we were still holding hands. We took a seat in the back by the computers and then we let go. Just as we sat down, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pull it out and check the caller id. It flashed ‘mom’.

Remember how I said my mother NEVER called me at school? I guess there’s a first for everything.

I put her on speaker since no one else was in the library.

“hello?”

“hey sweetie!” she answers, all too cheerfully. Aiden and I eye each other.

“mom?”

“yeah. Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know. Some random stranger would make more sense than you.” Yes, that was intended to hurt.

“well, I have some news for you.” Your not coming home?! I think eagerly. “I’m pregnant.”

My eyes bulge out, “you’re-you’re-you’re pregnant?”

“yes. Isn’t that exciting?!”

“um, yeah, exciting.” I respond.

“you don’t sound too excited calvina.”

I sigh, “that’s because I’m not in the mood to be excited. I’m in the mood of logan cheating on me.”

“who’s logan?” I looked over at aiden who was holding back a laugh.

“no one mom, no one. I’m going to get back to homework. I’ll talk to dad and you when you get back.”

“okay, bye!” and then I close my phone and put it back in my pocket.

Aiden and I didn’t say anything for about five minutes.

“that was-“ he starts to say, searching for the word.

In the mean time, I finish the sentence, “the first conversation with my mother when there weren’t guests at the door or some fancy dinner.”

Aiden stares at me like I’m crazy, “yes aiden, a family can be that screwed up.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“but that’s what you were thinking.”

There was another pause and then I spoke up.

“my mom is pregnant” I say out loud, the words finally sinking in. my mom was pregnant and I felt horrible knowing that the baby would be born into a family who didn’t know each other.