The First Boy

I woke up the next day with the biggest smile on my face. It was finally here. The first day of my senior year, and I couldn’t have been anymore excited. I blasted my music on my Alexa and danced around my room to Man! I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain. I thought it was the perfect tune to start the day and to get ready for school.

I went into my bathroom and fixed my blown-out hair and put on minimal make up for the day. In my closet I found my favorite black and white stripped sleeved sundress with a jean jacket to wrap around my waist. I was going to wear my flip flops but decided that my black converse would be more fitting with the outfit. Before I closed the door to go downstairs, I made sure my bed was made and my room was spotless. I could not stand coming home to a dirty room. I grabbed my leather black backpack and ran down the foyer stairs.

My mom is making espresso and pancakes, while my dad is sitting at the table reading the New York Times. This is what mornings usually looked like in the Marino household. Nonna and Nonno where here to see me on the first day of school. Nonno Tony told me I looked too beautiful to leave the house like that, and Nonna Josephine told me that I shouldn’t straighten my hair and should learn to leave it curly. That was her way of complimenting me.

“Belly, want me to take you to school?” Marco asks me while drinking his protein shake.

Marco starts his senior year in DC next week, while Gino and Giovanna go back to school tomorrow. Marco has always been there for me, and has always understood me, even when I didn’t get myself. He used to take me to school every day and used to take me out on brother sister dates at least once a month. He never wanted me to feel like I was the baby and didn’t belong. I truly missed having Marco around.

“Nah it’s okay, Stella is picking me up. Thanks Marco,” I say giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“If Stell is picking you up, you’ll never get to school on time,” my dad says.

“Daddy, why are you always so mean to Stella?” I say taking a scoop of fruit from the fruit salad my mom made.

“I love that kid,” dad says putting his face back in the paper “she’s just never on time for anything.”

We all start to laugh in the kitchen. It’s true, Stella has never been on time a day in her life when it comes to important things. If it’s a party, or something fun Stella will be there, but for important things she is never on time. It is one of those qualities you just had to love about her.

I continue to stuff my face with cantaloupe and then I hear a car horn from the front of my house. It was odd that Stella didn’t park in the driveway and come in to say hi. Especially when she knows Nonno and Nonna are here. I look at my watch and realize we are going to be late, so that’s probably why she isn’t coming in. I grab my stuff and say good bye to my family and run out the front door.

A white Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows is waiting in front of my house. It wasn’t Stella’s black Volks Wagon, and I didn’t know anyone who drove a white Jeep. The window rolls down and I still couldn’t tell who was in the front seat. As I walk closer to the car, I realize it is Noah in the driver’s seat. I stop in my tracks and I can feel my jaw drop. I must be making that stupid O shaped mouth, because it makes Noah laugh.

“Noah?” I say in shock.

Great Isabelle, now he’s going to think you are dumb as dirt.

“Good morning,” he says leaning over and opening the door for me.

I walk closer to the car and hop into the passenger seat. I look in the backseat and realize that Stella nor JP are in the car, just Noah’s football gear for after school.

“Why are you here?” I say trying to sound as calm as possible. I don’t want him to think I am freaking out inside.

“Stella called me and asked if I could take you to school. She says she’s sorry that she wasn’t on time.” He says still smiling.

I could stare at his smile all day.

“Noah, you didn’t have to come all the way to my house to take me to school. This is out of your way.” I say embarrassed that Stella didn’t just call me and tell me that she couldn’t take me.

“No worries, I don’t mind at all,” he says starting the car and driving away from my house.

“I could’ve gotten a ride. I feel really bad that my cousin made you pick me up,” I say getting a little flushed.

I was so embarrassed that Stella could do this to me. The last thing I wanted was for Noah to think I was having my cousin set me up with him. Back when Noah and I were friend’s I wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting a ride from Noah. He was sweet that way to always offer his help. Now that we aren’t really friends, and him and Lina are broken up, it is completely different. Lina is going to make me go through hell today at cheer just because I showed up to school with her ex.

“You know at one-point Belly, we were friends,” he says driving down Main Street and todays hits are flowing through the radio station.

I blush, this was all once upon a time “it’s Isabelle, and that was before you and Lina were broken up.”

I hit a nerve and I could tell. I see him clam up and get stiff. That’s it. I’ve lost all chances I could’ve possibly had with Noah. All I had to do was stay away off the jealous topic of Lina. If I never brought her up, I wouldn’t have hurt his ego so badly. I managed to ruin my chances in five seconds.

We are driving in silence now. It is the most painful silence I have ever been presented in my life. I feel like I need to roll down the window and get a breath of fresh air. I needed some flow of oxygen and the hot summer sun was entangling itself around my neck, like it was trying to strangle me.

“I’m sorry,” he says as we sit at the last stop light before we enter the parking lot.

“What? No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It is none of my business,” I say looking at my phone.

Stella: I’M SO SORRY! PLEASE DON’T BE MAD!

I am ignoring her. I still have a right to be mad at her for sneak attacking Noah Carlo on me.

“I’m sorry I stopped being your friend for Lina. You helped me with all my studying, and you were there for me when I needed someone to talk too and I never was there for you,” he says pressing on the gas a little as we enter the senior parking lot.

He parks in the usual captain of the football team parking spot. JP’s car is on the right, and Stella’s car is the one next to his. This makes me madder at Stella because she wasn’t running late for school. She was running just on time. Where we park is right near the left cafeteria door where all the seniors hang out before they have to go to homeroom. This was finally the year we got to hang out in the senior cafeteria. If you were popular you got to hang out with the seniors, but if you weren’t you had to wait until this year. I always got to hang out here because of my brothers and sister. I didn’t think I was cool for being able to be in the senior cafeteria, but they also had way better food options.

I open my door and try to escape Noah’s car as fast as I can. The words he just said are still lingering in my ear. He was sorry for not being my friend. He was sorry for not being the friend I was to him. I wish I had the guts to tell him he was the sweetest boy in the grade to me. I wanted to tell him that even though Lina didn’t like us being friends, I wish we could’ve remained friends. I wish I wasn’t so scared to be honest with him.

“Belly! Wait up,” Noah says catching up to me as I’m about to enter the school.

“Please, stop calling me Belly. Especially at school.” I say a little annoyed that he is calling me my least favorite nick name at SCHOOL!

“I’m sorry, I just really think Belly is a cute nick name for you,” he says with a smile on his face.

My smile fades a little bit. It isn’t the best compliment being called Belly by the hottest guy at school, especially when he says it’s a “cute” one.

“What does that mean?” I say crossing my arms over my chest.

It’s hard to be strong in front of Noah. He is 6’0 and I am 5’2. He is almost a whole foot taller than me and I can barely see him when I look up with the sun glaring in my eyes. I wish I brought my cute new sun glasses with me. This would make me look much more intimidating.

“Oh, come on Belly, I didn’t mean it like that! I mean it’s different, and you are different.” He says opening the senior hallway door for me.

I don’t walk in after Noah. I wait a couple of minutes until I know that he has walked in and Lina doesn’t think we ended up coming to school together. I scroll through my phone and look at all the notifications I have, and then put it on silent. I don’t usually use my phone throughout the day, but sometimes if the class is boring I will.

I open the door to the hallway and standing there is Noah right behind the door. I start to scream and throw my phone in the air. It lands on the floor and the whole senior hall is looking at me and Noah. Some people take out their phones, some people start whispering, and some are just too involved in their own lives to care about us. Which is what all people should be doing.

“What the heck are you doing?!” I say picking up my phone and start speed walking to my locker.

“Why were you standing outside so long?” He says keeping up with my speed and practically walks me to my locker.

“I didn’t want Lina to see us come to school together, and I didn’t want people to think anything of it,” I say grabbing my first block books and I shut my locker.

Cassie walks into the senior hallways looking better than ever. She has on her white jeans and cute light pink button up top. She has her tan wedges on and looks like she just came out of Teen Vogue magazine. I could see why Cassie and Sal were together. Cassie definitely didn’t belong in high school and she was definitely too mature for any of the men here. She smiles and gives me a wink and walks right past me. I think she is just giving me and Noah I moment. I really needed her not to do that.

“I don’t care what Lina thinks. We broke up,” he says walking towards my home room.

“Noah, your homeroom is the other way,” I say looking at my fellow classmates.

I didn’t like people starring at us, I didn’t like them staring at me. I didn’t want my first day of senior year to start like this. The gossip and talking about me and Noah was something I did not crave. Of course, I wanted to be with Noah, and I should be a lot more excited that he seems interested in me. I just can’t help but feel that it’s wrong.

Noah was used to having the people flocking all over him and want to know everything about him. Lina and I would see each other later at cheer practice, while Noah would be practicing for football. This triangle was a recipe for disaster, and I did not want to be a part of this mess.

“I want to walk you to homeroom. We used to do this all the time. Why are you being so weird about it now?” He says getting annoyed that I am pushing him away. “I thought you liked me?”

And with Noah saying that, my cheeks are bright red, and I can’t help but run towards the bathroom and try not puke on the way there. I slam the door behind me and splash my face with the cool sink water. I never thought that today was going to turn out like this. I didn’t think Noah would call me out for liking him.

I look in the dirty bathroom mirror and don’t even realize who I am looking at. I was not the same Isabelle as I was yesterday, I was more her today than any other day. I needed to realize that I did deserve attention from men, and I deserved to be loved like the other girls in school. Although I don’t deserve a man like Noah, maybe I deserve someone else.

I walk out of the bathroom and Noah is nowhere in sight. The hall is emptying out and everyone is making their way towards their homerooms. I fix my dress and my jean jacket that is now hanging on my lower waist. I hear the first bell ring, and I know I have four more minutes to get to homeroom before I am late. I try to find Stella to confront her, but she is probably in her own homeroom already.

I hated not having homeroom with Stella and Cassie. Since our homeroom schedule was alphabetical order, Cassie, Stella, and I were in three different ones. Homeroom was the gossip grounds every morning. Homeroom was your social hour and got the scoop every day. We did get to have lunch and free period together which was the only way us three got through high school so far together. The good thing was that Cassie and I had most of our AP classes together and Stella and I had gym and history together.

I was definitely the smart one in my family. I always got good grades in all my classes and did all my work to hand in on time. Marco was the historian in the family and loved taking history classes. I think that’s why he ended up in DC. So much American history has taken place in DC and that is something Marco always wanted to be around. I hated history. Giovanna was the fashionista and always needed to keep up with what was in style and what wasn’t. Her closet is definitely missed since she is away at school. Gino is the athlete. He loves all and any sports. I strongly see him being a great sportscaster one day.

The final bell rings as I make it into room 410, which will be my homeroom for the year. I look around and see all the familiar faces from last year and smile. I can’t believe we all made it to this point, senior year. It’s crazy how time flew by and now Mr. Di Angelo was our homeroom teacher, and also my calculus teacher.

“Saved by the bell Ms. Marino, have a seat,” he says as I make my way to the second to last row.

My usual seat is behind one of my cheer squad team members, Nicoletta. Since we were little, Nicoletta never liked her name and we always called her Nikki for short. She was best friends with Lina, and you had to be very careful what you told Nikki, because it went right back to Lina. Nikki was always nice to me because Stella was my cousin, but I knew if Lina told her to turn on me, she would.
“Isabelle! You look so hot! How was your summer?” Nikki asks turning around to look at me.

Nikki had black hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and perfect olive skin. She was Greek and Italian and according to 2018 hottest girl bible in our school she beat Lina by being in third place. Nikki was so scared that she would lose her friendship with Lina that she literally made the boys make a new book. Nikki was always a good friend, but Lina had her strings in her.

“Hi Nikki,” I whisper while morning announcements play in the background “it was good. How was yours?”

“You know, same old same old. Drank and fucked a lot.” She says with a smile on her face.

Nikki never cared what people thought about her, and she never mind being called a slut. She said it how it was. She liked to drink and have lots of sex. Nothing wrong with that.

“Oh nice,” I say starting to turn red. I definitely didn’t understand her same old same old.

“Girls,” Mr. Di Angelo says, “talk outside my classroom or you’ll be in detention with Mrs. Rizzo.”

You definitely didn’t want to have detention with Mrs. Rizzo. She was old, nasty, and hated high school kids. She’s been a teacher for 33 years and I’m not really sure how she has kept her job for so long. She definitely didn’t belong with high school children.

The morning announcements come to an end, and the first block bell rings. Nikki and I say good bye to each other and that we will see each other later at cheer practice. I go into the hallway and see Cassie talking Stella at her locker. When they see me in the hallway, they stop talking and I turn the corner towards my first class. I was not ready to talk to Stella and Cassie definitely didn’t want me to see her talking to her. I was annoyed with the both of them, they always did stuff like this to me, and I was over it.