Don't Change For Anyone

May ran out of her house after 10 minutes of me honking, stumbling across the lawn as she attempted to put on her boots. When the passenger door closed, I floored out of the driveway and off to school.

“I was running late anyways, what took you ten minutes?” I took a left turn and May pulled down the mirror.

“I woke up about 15 minutes ago. My alarm didn’t go off and no one woke me up.” She started doing her makeup, only half paying attention. “Why were you late?”

“Luke couldn’t find his baseball stuff. I had to stay behind to help look for it. Rory didn’t wake you up?” Rory was May’s 13-year-old sister. You didn’t really see her much; she was always out doing something with her friends of the month.

“Like hell she would wake me up. She probably turned off my alarm. All she even cares about is herself and fitting in. She’s only in eighth grade! She shouldn’t even care.”

We pulled into school just as the first bell rang. I practically sprinted to my locker to get all my things out. I was buried in my locker looking for my calculus notebook when a voice replaced the clinking noise of book-to-locker.

“Hey, stranger.” I jumped up and rammed my head into the top of the locker, a stream of curses leaving my mouth. I turned around to see Matt smirking at me.

“You think that was funny?”

“I don’t think it was, I know it was.”

“Ha ha.” I replied dryly, taking out my biology book.

“Hey, who’s your partner for the bio project?”

I mumbled out “Garrett”, not sounding happy in the slightest. Matt, who found me hilarious today, couldn’t hold in his laughter.

“Gare? Oh this is just perfection!”

I looked at Matt and gave him the meanest glare I could muster. “Aw, don’t be so mad! I’m just joking around.” He leaned down and kissed my scrunched up nose and turned around, walking away just as the first period bell rang.

- - -

“A zombie? Really Garrett? A zombie doesn’t even have the vital body systems! It can’t be considered an alien either. No, we’re not doing that.”

“My god Talia, it’s the best idea we’ve come up with!”

“I can come up with so much better!”

“Really now? Try then!” Garrett crossed his arms and gave me a cold look.

“We could, uhh… maybe… the minions from Despicable Me?”

“No.” He answered immediately. I frowned and threw down my notebook. “We can’t do zombies.”

“Why not?!”

“Because I said so! It’s a stupid idea!”

“Oh and your ideas aren’t stupid? They’re pretty friggin’ lame!”

“ENOUGH! Garrett and Talia will you please shut up! If you’re going to yell at each other do the project at someone’s house, not here.” Mr. Louis stood up from his desk and walked over to us. “Just do all the questions on pages 327 and 339.”

“But, Mr. Louis I can’t-“

“You CAN and you WILL, Talia!” With that, he stomped back to his desk and busied himself with grading papers.

“Just come over at five, okay?” Garrett turned his seat to face forward and started on the questions, leaving me in a daze of what happened the past few minutes.

- - -

At 5:03, I knocked on the door to what I hoped was Garrett’s house. It was homey. The house was painted pastel yellow, with a light gray roof pointing up to the sky. Bushes surrounded the house with little flowers underneath, the Arizona sun making the colors ten times brighter.

The door opened to reveal Garrett, a not so happy look on his face. He moved out of the way to let me inside, and closed the door.

“You’re late.”

I rolled my eyes and continued to the living room. “By three minutes,” I whispered, looking around the room. There was a flat screen TV on the wall with a shelf underneath, holding a DVR and books. A curved couch sat up against the wall with a glass coffee table in front, coasters and magazines neatly placed at the corners surrounding a vase full of bright purple daisies. I felt someone tug at my arm and looked at Garrett, who was pulling me up the stairs. He led me into the last room in the hallway, the one with a sign on it saying “DANGER” in bold red letters with a skull and crossbones over it. I shut the door behind me and dropped my bag on the floor. His room was surprisingly clean, only a pair of sweatpants was on the floor and a pile of videogame boxes around an XBOX 360.

“You can sit on the bed or something,” Garrett mumbled, grabbing his biology book from a small bookcase. I sat on the bed and opened my notebook to the partially blank page from class earlier. All that was on it was our names.

“So we need to come up with an alien or character or something. And Garrett I swear if you say zombie I will light a match and stick it down your throat.”

“For your information I was not going to say zombie, no need to get butthurt.”

“Shut the fuck up Garrett.”

Two hours later and almost nothing done on our project, we were on the floor, me kicking ass in Call Of Duty. Garrett screamed when I shot him from behind causing me to break out in a fit of giggles.

“This isn’t fair, you didn’t tell me you were good at this game!”

“It’s completely fair, you didn’t ask!”

Garrett huffed and threw his controller on the carpet, getting up and putting in a different game. The TV illuminated the words “Left 4 Dead” in big letters and my eyes widened. I absolutely HATED zombies with every fiber of my being; after watching Dawn Of The Dead I couldn’t sleep for days.

“Oh fuck no, I’m not playing this.” Garrett smiled and pushed my shoulder down when I started to get up. “You’re not leaving, Baker. We’re playing Left 4 Dead.” I put the controller in front of me and crossed my arms as he set up a two-player game. When it began, I still refused to pick up my controller and play. Garrett was slashing zombies like it was his job while my character was being eaten alive.

My character’s health bar was on its last bit of life while Garrett’s was on full. I looked from his game to my game and grabbed the controller, shooting the zombies around me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Garrett wear a triumphant smirk.

“Decided to play after all, huh?”

I responded, never letting my eyes off the screen. “I hate losing. It’s even worse when it’s to someone like you.”

He smiled even wider, his eyes narrowing as he concentrated hard on killing zombies. “Bring it on.”