American Suitehearts

I open my eyes begrudgingly at the alarm clock that woke me. I’ve been dreading this day. My first day in an American school; the very thought had been haunting me since my father had said we would be moving here from London.

I get ready slowly for the day, I only moved here three days ago and the most contact I’ve had with the outside “America” was going to the corner store to buy some milk, it was weird, like everything was same, same....but different. It was like any other store I’d been to except for the killing heat; thank god our house is in a constant English climate due to air conditioners.
I had a cup of hot tea before I got into my bright cherry red car. It was a ten minutes drive when I pulled up outside the revolting brick building I assumed was my new school with flock of kids my age were swarming outside the front gates.

Nobody notices me, the pale weird kid with the funny accent joining the flock...I wouldn’t notice me either I suppose, so I don’t take it too heart when several people bump into me without as much as a backwards glance.

Everyone’s sort of milling around, not really doing anything. There are a few loners like me with their backs pressed against the brick wall and their Ipod’s blaring out indistinguishable music that sounds more like white noise than anything else. The majority of people are finding their friends and hugging, welcoming them back to another year or so of hell...
Suddenly a cold female voce came over the loud speaker

“May all students go to the hall for assembly?”

All the kids around me start moving in the general direction of a particularly ugly brick building, slowly I follow them into a small hall the space seemed even smaller after they managed to jam the whole school in there. I was in between an obese boy and a rather sickly looking girl; don’t even get me started on their clothes, I‘ve seen homeless people clothes in better condition. I held back a cry of disgust when the boy sneezed on his hand before rubbing it onto his clothes, momentary I decided against letting him borrow a handkerchief for I feared where his hands had been.

I turned my attention to the front of the school, the lady whom I supposed was the principal began a speech that would be similar to anything at any school although I couldn’t help but giggle a little at the last part where she made a mention of teen pregnancies. Coming from an all boy’s school I found the whole topic amusing, although I quickly stopped smiling when the sickly girl beside me started glaring at me. I tried keeping a straight face and again looked at the front

“....And may I introduce this year’s School Captain Brendon Urie”

Suddenly everything came into focus, like putting glasses on—like seeing clearly for the first time. The boy that was just introduced on stage was....I couldn’t describe him in words. For a moment I thought it was only my mind playing tricks on me, but that was before he spoke, with a voice like music I could almost feel it touch the very corners of my soul.

I was rudely awoken from my dream by the sound of sighing girls. Girls all across the school seemed to be melting as this boy spoke, including the sickly girl besides me; this must be the schools prima donna, the guy that all the girls like and have pictures of in the back of their lockers. A faint wave of jealousy developed inside of me, prima donna or not, I liked him.....I wanted him, and I would do anything to make him mine.

I tried paying attention to what he was saying....but I only caught the last bit of it
“...And after this assembly anybody that’s interested in this year’s Social justice, please meet me in the Computer rooms to sign up” He smiled slightly as he walked off stage and I felt my heart flutter as he went to join the rest of the seniors

I’m not quite sure what it was but for some reason I suddenly felt like joining Social Justice. I turned the name Brendon Urie over in my head with a slight smile on my face; perhaps this school wasn’t going to be so bad after all. I tried to ignore the fact that he was one year older than me and that I’d just fallen for the guy of every girls dream...which probably meant he didn’t swing in my general direction. It couldn’t hurt to hang out with him at least? Could it?
I asked the sickly girl where the computers were, she gave me a very odd look

“Are you from England?” her accent was so hideous I felt like being very rude and waking off to ask somebody else

“Yes” I replied impatiently

“Follow me, I’m going there myself....too see Brendon” she said the last bit with a look so dreamy I thought she was about to faint

They were an odd bunch down in the computer rooms: a large group of wide eyed giggling girls and a smaller group of guys and girls that looked like they actually wanted to do Social Justice. I tried to subtly stand with the geekier looking kids, one actually looked halfway approachable....even if it he had a beardy stubbly thing going on, he introduced himself as soon as I stood next to him

“Hi, I’m Jon”....he smiled, which made his pretty eyes stand out
“Hi” I said and returned the smile before holding out my hand “I’m Ryan”
It was then that dreamy Brendon came in with a pair of bright cherry red glasses that he hadn’t been wearing when he was talking to the school

“Hello everyone” he said in his musical voice as he entered the room, my hand slowly fell to my side, to be frank I didn’t care if this Jon guy thought I was being rude or something...looking at Brendon was like watching chocolate being made.
He turned to everyone with a soft smile

“Now would everyone be able to sign their name here please? With their year level”

The girls pushed to get to the front to be first, all smiling sweetly when they had to sign their names. I snorted softly at their lack of skill in things like this, I moved to the very back of the line. By the time it was my turn we were alone, it took all my might not to smile smugly at my own genius.
“Hello” I said in a soft whisper
I felt a sick sort of satisfaction when he blushed slightly when he saw me; I signed my name
Ryan Ross
I looked up slowly on purpose to look Brendon in the eyes, before standing up to leave the room

“Ross” he said just as I was leaving

My heart stopped for a few moments as I turned to face him. He was leaning against the desk at the front with a soft smile

“You don’t mind if I call you that do you?”

“No” my voice went a little high, it was my turn to feel nervous

“Are you from England?”

My heart fell into my gut and I tried to keep the smile pasted on my face,

“Yes”

I accidently let a bit of disappointment fall into my answer; he looked like he was going to say something else but my mind went blank...and I panicked. Usually I’m quite calm with things like this, he smiled when I answered...but I saw it slowly fade as I turned to leave in fright. It looked rude, me leaving like that, in fact it made me look incredible retarded, especially as not five seconds before I‘d been trying to seduce him. The key word here being trying, I made a rule to myself there and then, flirting I could do just never ever try that whole seducing thing again!

It takes a lot longer than it probably should have for me to find my way to the roll class: I find it hard to concentrate when I’m feeling grumpy. All I could think about was how I’d made such an idiot of myself with Brendon, so when I did eventually stomp my way into my class the teacher gave me an odd look

“What’s your name?” she said in a sigh, making it clear that she most defiantly didn’t like the whole teaching part of teaching.

“Ryan Ross” I answer

A few girls look up with interest when I spoke, an English accent is seen as exotic here, I try batting my eyelashes a few times so they can see my eyeliner: just to give them the general idea that their not really my type.

I look around the class room and smile in surprise as the boy I’d talked to before: Jon

“Umm” the teacher began

“On the roll we have your name as George Ryan Ross”

I blush in slight embarrassment at her saying my name, I hate it when people call me George. It makes me think of my father

“I prefer Ryan” was all I said before sitting next to the boy Jon

The teacher gave a slight indifferent nod and I turned to the boy

“Hello.....um, Jon is it?”

“Yeah” he pauses awkwardly for a moment before continuing

“Sooo, you’re from the mother country”

I smile slightly at his term for England

“Yes, I am. I’ve never been to America before this....and it’s pretty weird, how you do things are so different from home—I mean London”

Jon smiles and begins talking about how his family moved here from Chicago five or so years ago. Our polite conversation continued like this for another fifteen minutes or so, the teacher didn’t mind as long as we didn’t speak to loudly. That was until he asked the question

“So why did you join Social Justice...no offence but it doesn’t seem like you’re sort of thing”
I felt my expression falter for a moment, should I tell him? His told me a lot of things about himself....like how he owns three cats and how he considers them more like family than anything else. But that’s not really on the same level of “I joined because I thought the guy that runs it looked cute”. I bit my lip for a moment

“I joined because I’ve been quite selfish about a lot of things recently...I need to help people more”

I almost smiled at how believable I made it sound, it wasn’t as if joining could hurt anybody, I’d helping and caring for people, I should just look at it as a bonus that Brendon runs everything. Jon nods before looking down at the untouched work sheet we’d been given and I considered myself safe from him detecting my lie.

“So what electives are you doing?” I ask

“Music, visual arts, biology and drama. What about you?”

“Extension English and music, does this mean we’ll be in the same class?”

“Defiantly, hardly anybody does music in this school, most of the time they just mix us up with the year above... y’know that Brendon kid: the one that does all the Social Justice things—he does music too, which means his sometimes in our class: has a really nice voice and plays piano brilliantly”

“Oh...okay” I was surprised at how even I was making my voice sound,

“ How often do we meet?....Social Justice I mean”

“We have a meeting each Saturday, and some days after school—we all take turns doing charity work and stuff”

This was going to be interesting.....