Turn for the Worse - By The Wife

Okay, for the record, I loved Sara. She rocked.  However, the "one that got away" as he so boldly put it, eventually shaved her head and became a drug addict that oddly resembled Robin Tunney ala Empire Records.

Oh and for the record, Matt's bloody nose fiasco was hilarious. I laughed for about ten minutes. I could have peed myself I laughed so hard. My poor giant monkey of a boyfriend wanted a fight, and the bully everyone was looking for was my best friend, the girl who loved Matt more than anything, crying in a corner. He'd never go out with her now, right? Yeah, right. And I won't even get started on Tara. Not yet anyways. She's a part of his story, and right now, this is mine:

Other than the fact that I had been humiliated at the dance by my overly romantic boyfriend, I wore the ring and tried to get on with my life. Other than the moments I saw Matt in the hallways and at the dance, I had moved on from my over the top dream, and so did Molly as a matter of fact. She found a new boyfriend that looked like a sickly homeless person with a heroin addiction. We called him Eric. I hated him. He smelled terrible, but he and Molly loved each other the moment their braces got stuck together in a dark closet.

Both of our boyfriends lived in the same neighborhood, so Molly and I would sneak out at night from her house, and go our separate ways. She would crawl into Eric's basement and I would go to the local park and hang out with Justin. Were were all young and stupid, and that's the excuse I'll use for now. It was the life, or what we thought life should be. Forced happiness, or perhaps settling for middle ground. It was during this period in our relationship where things took a terrible turn for the worse.

Justin and I made it through the big events. The Dance, the awkward too early proposal, the meeting of the parents and even our first fight. Of course, our first fight wasn't like any first fight I had ever had with a boyfriend before, or since then. Justin was a big guy, ready to brawl with another guy for any excuse. So when Emmy's boyfriend made her cry and began spreading rumors that she was sleeping around, Justin lept into action. He had been in a few fights previous to this, and was warned by the school that one more and he was expelled. I was not going to be the girl who's bad boy went a little too bad and now she had to wait around for him to return to her from the world of expulsion.

Justin approached Emmy's boyfriend, with Molly in the background comforting our wounded friend. I rushed after Justin who was already calling out to his targeted victim. I had forgot one major detail about my current boyfriend: he had blackouts. When angered, Justin lashed out violently, and woke anywhere from minutes to hours later, having no recollection of what happened. So when I reached for him, taking hold of his arm, begging him not to fight, I felt a scourge of fire flow through my face the likes I had never felt before. My body flew across the pavement and I felt my back slam against the brick wall behind me. Everything looked blurry and almost instantly my cheek began to swell and ache.

Molly lept into action. She wore steel toed boots for a reason, and within moments, a swift kick to Justin's groin and he was down for the count. Molly however didn't see that as a reason to stop kicking, and she did until security guards pulled her off. Justin was expelled of course, though when he woke he didn't know why. I was sent to the nurses station where I remained for the rest of the day, confused as to what happened.

I fully understand that I was not in an abusive relationship, not to begin with. Justin truly didn't mean to hit me. That time. But I stayed with him, and now I was filled with anger. I pushed him to breaking points, testing the waters to see how hot they could get. I wanted him to fight me, and I wanted to fight back. It only ever happened a few more times, usually occurring as the first time did. Justin became angry, and I would step in the way, take the blow meant for someone else. I would fight back too; fight my heart out until Molly had to pull me off of him instead of the other way around. Our breakup was messy, and miserable. We agreed to take a break because we shouldn't be dating anyone, both of us as screwed up as we were. And then, I saw him in the hallway with another girl, and I confronted him.

Certainly his public proposal had been out of what he considered to be love, and my confrontation was out of hate and anger, and I felt that he deserved a little humiliation too.

"What the heck Justin!?" I remember shouting and then suddenly my senses came to me.

"You know what? Never mind. I'm done with you." I said, washing my hands of him. I turned and looked to the small framed shy girl at his side, pegging her as my exact opposite and my replacement all the same. I took a moment to publically shame his manhood in front of his new girlfriend and immediately began spreading rumors that he was incapable of pleasing a woman. Hell hath no fury.

I stormed off into the sunset so to speak, and Molly, with a smirk on her face, stood, looked at Justin and said, "And . . . . yeah!" And proceeded to follow me.

It didn't take long for me to get over the breakup, and Molly convinced me that I needed to set my sights higher. I knew what I wanted, but could never achieve. I wanted Matt. He was my high sights. My ultimate goal. But my timing was awful. Molly and Eric were on the last leg of their relationship and she was seconds away from breaking up with him.

Like the good friends we were, Emmy and I approached Matt with multiple questions, firing at random.

"Are you single?" She asked him.

"Umm . . . yes." He replied, probably wondering why we had interrupted his lunch.

"Because Molly's single now too you know." I added. Matt looked confused.

"See, she's breaking up with Eric like right now." Emmy said as we began to corner him.

"You should ask her out." I insisted. I wanted Molly to be happy of course, and as a plus, it meant that I would get to see Matt a whole lot more.

"Alright," He agreed. "I'll ask her out later."

"Why not now?" I said. After all, Molly had been waiting months for him right?

"Because," He said. "I like to give a girl time to grieve over her past relationship. There's a respect that needs to be kept."

I was in awe of him. He was a gentleman too. "What like two weeks?" I asked.

"Mmm, more like a day. I'll do it tomorrow." He said casually.

Oblivious - By The Husband

Don't get me wrong, my wife's summation on his looks were spot on. Remember that big red guy all made out of hair and a pair of sneakers on Looney Tunes? The one that they modeled after Lenny in "Of Mice and Men," you know the one, he would always go "Wheredidhego George? Wheredidhego?" There is an old episode of Looney Tunes where someone defends themselves against aforementioned beast with a hair clipper and the after math is shaggy red hair pooled around a lone pair of worn out sneakers. Its a classic, anyway back on point, they skipped a scene in which they revealed the actual face to be the face of a naked man ape. That was Justin, some forgotten missing link.

Or quite possibly the result of a gorilla breeding with a lady, and just before birth she fell down stairs. Massive flights of them. I make it sound like I hate Looney Tunes but the red guy and Marvin the Martian were always my favorite. In all honesty Justin had never once done me wrong. Actually, other than some bad times with one of my best friends, I have never had a bad reaction towards me made by one of "The Wife's" exes. Justin actually once came to my rescue when I was brutally attacked in high school, which resulted in the worst bloody nose I have ever gotten in my entire life.

An attack by a girl.

Molly.

It was around fall-ish before winter (which in New Mexico actually peaks sometime in the middle of January), "Wifey" was with "Monkeyboy", and I was in a slow period in relationships, (two weeks without a girl to call my own). At the time I had a girl buzzing about my head as annoying as gnats. Her name was Tara. She was an ex-catholic schoolgirl, meaning she was catholic, went to public school and had some great outfits.

She was blond and had never kissed a boy before. I was dark, broody and had just ended a relationship in which all I did was make out and have my head messed with. Ah, high school. I think I had so much time out of dating because of the head games, but I was wanting back in.

It was still warm out, not all that much going on and some of my friends were gathered around one of the schools placed foliage spots, a small twiggy tree, that even this early into fall had lost its will to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. The air was drying out, and I had had a nosebleed the night before. I could see that Molly was talking to a group of our friends and had her back to me.

For anyone that has been a boy, there is no greater joy in life than scaring the bejeezus out of an attractive female. Plus you get to touch them and they get pissed about being scared but not about being grabbed. I had perfected "dark and broody" so well, and in my head wanted nothing more than to be a vampire, so when I scared girls I did it without grabbing. I would just loom over a shoulder and let them discover me. This time I had not earned a playful hit on the arm though, and a "Stop it, Oh my gah, you scared me."

Instead she flailed and caught me in my (already what I thought was blood drained) nose. Oh how wrong I was. You would have though she broke my nose. I didn't think to, or was too proud to plug my nose and hold my head back. Instead I needed a heavy flow maxi pad badly, and stood there there like an idiot.

Meanwhile, we were by the lunch room doors so I was a spectacle for hundreds of students. Which eventually came to include Tara, who stood agape at the crowd of people pointing and laughing at me because a girl had punched me in the face (and my face in quick response geysered). She yelled to a friend to get me some napkins and sprang into action like a WWII field nurse. It was under-appreciated. I didn't really care. I thought it was funny.

Around this time Jia and "Chee Chee the idiot monkey who dances for quarters," (who had been in banana mode till now) exited the cafeteria area and came upon us, me with my nose obliterated, Molly looking horrified, and Tara doting and buzzing about.

Justin yelled, "Who the heck was it!? I'll kill him!" Everyone at once pointed at Molly as she burst into tears. Justin, confused began checking his head for lice and devouring what he found. All in all, aside for shortly later ruining the school nurses lunch break and linoleum, it was a good day.

Anyway, onto the winter dance and the title of my post. Tara had been calling me for weeks and had been finding me in the halls at school asking me about the dance. I had explained that in my hatred for the school, life, dancing, and 7 dollar soda, I was boycotting the dance. I had been doing so also because tickets were 20 dollars as well. EACH! She had been dropping hints like a guy with herpes drops his phone number at a club. However I was born with a PENIS, and I like GIRLS so I don't get girls hints very easily. Be blunt ladies, for the sake of mankind, be blunt.

So it came down to the day before the ball, a girl that I had known for years but I always thought was out of my league, Sara, came up to me, tickets in hand and asked me to go with her. Don't get me wrong, I was 15 years old and bullet proof, but she was smart and after talking to her for years she could see right through my bullcrap. That scares a man, once you can see through a man's bullcrap, all we have left is the ability to think on our feet, and that is like 75% bullcrap.

I said yes, and I asked her to go out with me that night under the spotlight. She asked me "Where to?" and I realized she wasn't as smart as I thought she was. And then she was my girlfriend. After the dance that night, I still kept contact with Tara who explained that I had missed my shot with her. She had been trying to get me to go with her to the dance, where she was going to ask me out.

I broke up with my dancing girl a week later to go out with Tara, and I was with Tara for a couple weeks, (before her catholic mother made her dump me) and I was on he prowl yet again.

I love my wife and the life I ended up with but I will always think of my dancer as the one that got away.

Love at First Sight? - By The Wife

After a few more weeks of listening to Molly go on and on about this new great guy, I was ready to vomit. She had officially ruined my determined single life and I was now cruising the market for my own boyfriend that would smash hers out of the water. What was even more aggravating was that she didn't even have a boyfriend. She hadn't yet found the guts to approach Matt in regards to her affections for him, just hung around him like a little stalker.

So then came the last day of school before our winter break. I was dying to get out of there, planning on a short trip up to Utah to visit my family for Christmas and get over my lack of boyfriend woes. I was however, having an on again off again thing with a boy that lived up the street from me. He loaned me his jacket and I suddenly felt all special, like I was in an early 90's High School sitcom where wearing the boys jacket meant you were "going steady". His name was Eric and he had shaggy blond hair and a rocker attitude. I thought he looked like Kurt Cobain which only added fuel to the fire. However, much like my beloved Kurt, Eric also had suicidal tendencies, so the jacket was returned and I said "Okay, whatever, nevermind."

There were only a few hours left of school and we were released from our classes to attend the pep rally, however I was very anti cheerleader at the time. Molly and I hated the school spirit thing. The athletes were treated like Gods and those of us with any intellect were the outsiders. It didn't make sense to us, therefore, we went on strike. Or well, not so much a strike as sitting in the cafeteria instead of the gym. Molly had gone in early to find a seat for all three of us, and Emmy (another friend) and I walked in to find her.

Within moments of arriving in the cafeteria, Molly jumped up and looked more excited than I had ever seen her before.

"Dude, oh you guys you have to come and meet Matt." She said, obviously wanting to show off her potential boy toy to her friends. She really loved rubbing salt in that wound.

"He's right there," She said and pointed to a long table where three empty seats remained sitting amongst at least five other boys. Three of them I knew personally. Joe, a short boy with curly hair who would eventually date my younger sister. Sean, a gorgeously tall one with long hair I knew from Molly's drama class, and someone else who's name actually escapes me.

That only left two boys and both sat on the end of the table. One was tall and scrawny, wore glasses and to me resembled a little mouse, like one that would remind you of a cartoon lab rat. He was cute, and looked smart, albeit a little goofy.

"That's got to be Matt," I said and smirked looking at Emmy who laughed along with me. It was true, he was just Molly's type, which was nothing like mine. The other boy caught my stare for much longer than his friend did. He had shaggy brown hair that reminded me of Shawn on 'Boy Meets World' (Hey, it was a good show, don't you judge me) and a black goatee which was odd by itself cause we were 14 years old and most guys we new still hadn't had the potential to grow facial hair. He wore an army jacket and underneath wore all black. Sexy wasn't even the proper word to describe it. My face felt flush and my heart skipped more than one beat. The thoughts I began thinking about this boy will be edited out for the sake that one day my Grandchildren might read this.

"I don't care who Matt is," I said to Emmy. "But God help Molly if she doesn't hook me up with his friend." I grinned from ear to ear as we approached the table. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I wanted to touch his hair. Oh! I wanted to touch that hair! I wanted to do many strange things when I looked at him. Touch his hair, smell his neck . . . and then in the midst of me mentally drooling like a moron, Molly stepped behind the sexy beast and said, "Jia, this is Matt."

CRAP!


Seriously! How fair was that?! I looked down and our eyes met and my heart sunk. I had to play best friend now. We women have a rule. You don't steal your best friends crush. Besides, he was gorgeous and I was the chubby girl that followed the model around remember?

We sat down at the table and listened as he told a story that for some reason had me locked in. Anime would of course eventually bore me to tears, but when he spoke, I was hypnotized. Molly clung onto every word as well, and on occasion I would glance over to her realising that she was looking at him the same way he was looking at me. Eventually, I felt guilty for my desires and turned away from him to talk to some of the other guys, most of which were fixated on Matt's story like the rest of us. All except one. The scrawny mousey boy who was smiling at me.

"You ride my bus," He said, his odd way of introducing himself to me. "I'm Josh."

I smiled. He was sweet. "I'm Jia."

Sadly though, it would be months before I even got to speak to Matt or Josh again. I was on my way to Utah dreaming of the sexy boy with a goatee, his mousey looking friend, and worrying that my most recent ex might have stuck a shot gun in his mouth. It was a long winter break. However, when I returned there were things that needed to be done. Molly somehow had been able to move on from Matt in my absence, so I took it upon myself to ask her a little question.

"Does Matt have a girlfriend?" I asked her one day. I had planned that if he was single, I would ask him to the Winter Ball which was traditionally the girls ask the guys type of thing.

Molly however quickly responded, "Yes." Which clued me into why she had moved on so quickly. Turns out, she hadn't, but it was better to pretend than to dwell apparently.

Apparently also, she didn't know all the facts. Matt had many girlfriends, the little man whore. During this time, I believe her name was Tara. According to him, he and Tara had recently split up, just in time for him to take another girl to the dance last minute. Molly was devastated, and frankly, so was I.

However I was soon to move on as well. Riding home on Molly's bus one day I was introduced to a giant of a guy named Justin. Have you ever seen a special on Gorillas in the jungle? And you look at the preview of the show and it's giant monkeys attacking humans and fighting each other, and then you watch the actual show and suddenly they're playing with baby kittens? That was the perfect description of Justin.

He was large by any standard. Full of muscle, and standing next to any of his friends he looked plain ridiculous. However, he was very sweet and Molly was certain that he and I would hit it off.

And we did. I was a sucker for poetry and I got letters from him nearly every day. But he was also very shy, and since it was my job to ask the boy out, I did so in a very Buffyish fashion.

"Hey Justin," I said as I rushed up the stairs following him to class. "I have a really big problem and I need your help."

He thought himself to be a real man, needing to save the damsel and all, so he dropped everything to turn around and try to fix whatever my problem was.  

"Yeah?" He said curiously.

"Yeah see, I'm gonna ask you to go out with me, but I'm kinda nervous about it. Any advice?" I thought I was so hot.

Justin smiled, blushed and then practically turned away to giggle before looking back.  

"Well, I'm gonna say yes," He said as if right on cue.

And that's all she wrote about that. Justin and I were a couple and attached at the hip for what seemed to be almost creepy. I thought I loved him. Just like I thought I loved every boy I crushed on since I was five and went into Kindergarten. Justin was romantic, and soon we were off to the Winter Ball where I got to wear a pretty dress and he bought me flowers. What I didn't know was he had brought something else that night too.

Passing through the doors after handing our tickets over to the guard, I caught sight of Matt and my head turned to see where he was going. I wanted to follow him. He had a girlfriend, I didn't care. I had a boyfriend, I didn't care. But then a song came on and Justin wanted to dance. So we danced and enjoyed our time. I eventually turned my thoughts away from my shaggy haired dark mystery man and enjoyed my time with my six foot tall gorilla that wrote me poetry and wore Winnie the Pooh socks. And then, he took my hand and lead me into the center of the room with a big smile on his face. I had no idea what was in store.

But then, in the center of the room, surrounded by all of our friends and most of the school, Justin declared his love for me, and then dropped to a knee. My eyes flew wide open and everyone around me dropped their jaws. The boys turned away, embarrassed for Justin. My friends covered their mouths, embarrassed for me. Some of the younger girls cooed, wishing they had such a sweet boy. I looked down and felt like gagging as he pulled a box out of his pocket. I wanted to yell out, "Are you insane!? We're 14 years old! You are not the rest of my life pal!" But he smiled up at me and showed me a ring, and God help me, the boy asked me to marry him.

It seemed like everyone went silent, and I didn't want to embarrass him anymore than he had already done to himself so I looked down at the ring that was gold with tiny gold leaves all around a small diamond in the middle and silently prayed that it came from a vending machine. "Oh, how pretty." I was able to utter out before I took the ring, smiled and hugged my boyfriend and then got the heck outta Dodge.

Lesbianic Tendancies - By The Husband

So . . . did anyone else get that vibe from my wife's blog? I love her as the flowers love that guy who drinks a lot, but when she talks about Molly it gets a little too much for me. Was Molly beautiful? Yes, in a very classy Angelica Houston type way, she was. Tall and dark, thin and strong willed, she commanded attention . . . and had taco stuck in her braces.

I love reminiscing about exes just as much as the next person, but aside from being dark and broody in High School, I was also kind of a man whore. I loved the attention of women. I still do.  Am I a chauvinist probably, (when it comes to my affection for the fairer sex), but I do love a strong willed women. Hence the red head wife.

The sad fact was that my future wife at the time was the thirteenth girl I had considered a significant other, yet out of all the others she was the only significant one. Before Molly there was one girl that really messed with my head. That chick messed me up. Her name was Alicia and she not only would break up with me, make out with the new guy if front of me, and after a week dump him and get back with me, but would play head games to the point that she convinced me that my parents were abusive.

She had convinced me so well that she got me and another mutual friend to run away for a weekend, to her home 3 hours away.. I left with her after school so I never came home and never told my parents a thing. It was something that I still feel that, even though my parents have moved on, I have placed a permanent wedge between them and I. I still go back to the thoughts of hurting them all those years ago, and these 10 years later it still wakes me up at night.

So when all those years ago I was dark and broody I definitely had reason for it. I loved to talk about things I read, and things I had seen on TV because I hide. I play video games for the sheer escapism of it all. When I had come home from running away, which through time, my mother and I had decided we could partially blame on her depression and it causing her to push me away, she had put Final Fantasy 7 in my room. It had been there since the night I ran away. It had been her way of apologizing for pushing me away, and was meant to be a surprise for me when I had gotten home that afternoon from school. 

 

Ever since then I have emotionally tied myself to the gruff and angry adventurers, whose stories so resembled mine of self loathing and self destruction.

Back to the story at hand. I threw myself at the masses of girls that found my silence intriguing, my "Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas" sense of unforgiving unapologetic hatred for myself. There were many girls between Alicia and Molly. I was never without a "girlfriend" for more than a week. I had become like Alicia. Disposable relationships, it was the new fad. I knew Molly was into me and neither her or I were open about our affections for each other. I had taken the stomach turning leap while we were dating and told her I loved her. Less than two weeks later sometime in early May of 1999, she had told me that when she said it back she was confused and didn't mean it. It was the day of her best friends birthday she broke up with me. I had planned on going to the birthday party but with Molly going I felt like I would be trespassing on everyone elses' good time.

But alas I get ahead of my self. Back in December of 1998 I was sitting at an anti-pep rally in the cafeteratorium at Rio Rancho High. The school gave us a choice: we could fake school spirit, and watch chubby thighed New Mexican cheerleaders stomp their way through a Will Smith song or we could sit in a foodless cafeteritorium (multipurpose) and chat for a few hours. I chose the chat. 

 

I sat with friends being tough, spouting profanities while telling the story of a particular Japanese cartoon when Molly (pre-realtionship) came down the stairs, smiling her metallic car wreck of a smile at me, to the lowest section of the cafe-whatever, the spot that was normally reserved for jocks, dragging her friends with her.

One hanger-on was a dark haired moron who had been easily convinced by some goth kid that his trench coat swallowed souls, and tearfully begged him to not have hers taken. The other was a large chested red head knock out with an ear to ear smile and stars in her eyes.

"Dang," I whispered to a friend, who was sitting far too close to me. I continued my story consciously being coy and trying to ignore her to keep from staring, the whole time thinking, "She probably thinks I'm a idiot."

When Fates Collide - By The Wife

Being LDS, it would be nice to say that my husband and I met when we were in our twenties. He had just come home from a mission and I was doing very well at a singles ward where I was the Relief Society president. We met at a Church dance, had our first date on a hay ride, courted for a few months when he then proposed to me on temple grounds. We were married a few weeks later and everything has been sunshine, rainbows and baskets full of kittens ever since.

Course, it wasn't much like that.

In fact, it wasn't at all like that. I mean, we did eventually get married . . . and well . . . that's the only resemblance.

I was never the Relief Society President.

(Me at 14)

Truth is, we met young. I was 14 years old and enjoying what I thought would be a horrible year of High School. I moved to New Mexico the summer before my Freshman year, from California no less, leaving behind friends who would go on to forget all about me. I spent the summer inside watching Days of Our Lives with my Grandmother while my aunt and uncle (who we lived with) were off in Chicago visiting friends and family there. I didn't do much that summer and when the end of August rolled around, I dreaded the first day of school. I had lived with my aunt for almost five years now, and because of moving, I had gone through three schools already. Three first days, and each of them began the exact same way: she forgot something.

High School would be no difference other than the fact that the things she forgot was my shot record, which to this day we believe remained buried somewhere in the California house we left behind. So instead of making friends in my first class on my first day of High School, I was rushed down to a clinic where an old blue haired nurse smiled at me and stabbed me in the arm with what felt like liquid daggers. My aunt Paula then rushed me back up to school where they stamped "Accepted" on my forehead and ushered me off to class.

Because it took so long for me to get in, I was introduced in the middle of my second period class, and everyone was staring. I was big for my age, not so much fat, but a little top heavy, and my red face and red hair stuck out a little bit. I was sat down at a small table with two others who at the time, I didn't know would become my best friends.


Ernest, who I would eventually also label as my first boyfriend was from Texas and he sounded like it. His hair looked like he had worn a cowboy hat for most of his life but then decided that High School would allow him a new change, where baggy pants and shirts saying "Wazzup!" would make the rest of us believe he didn't grow up on the farm.

Our teacher, Mr. Wood-fookar (Yep, real name), put us into pairs and it was he that looked across our table and said, "Jessica meet your new partner, Molly." I looked across the table and was astonished by the beauty of the girl in front of me. She had gorgeous long brown hair and olive skin. But this was High School, which meant that because she was pretty, she was also a snobby cheerleader type. Boy was I wrong. "Dude," She said and leaned across the table. "This assignment is bull, wanna bail?"

It would be the first of many bailed classes and assignments. We were smart, and had good grades, but we liked to cause commotion far too much for our own good. We liked the rush of having people pissed off at us, and started something with them nearly every single day. Refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance was our crowning glory and it started a feud between students that lasted the whole semester long. We studied others, and found them to be less than worthy of us. Our friends were a mixture of people that in any other decade would have been tossed aside as outsiders. Drama thespians, art geeks, skateboarders and rockers. We were the elite, or at least Molly was, and I was her spunky little side kick.

Molly was a powerhouse. She walked with confidence that I could only dream of, and when she spoke, people listened. When she moved, boys followed her and I wanted that power. She was also infectious and just being around her I felt the power and confidence flow into me. I started fights if I felt like it instead of cowering in a corner like I had done throughout most of Jr High. I knew that she and our other friends would back us up no matter what, and we both had the ability to talk our ways out of anything. We were unstoppable. We were best friends and closer than sisters.

 We were so close in fact that at a concert downtown in Albuquerque, her boyfriend Dan at the time picked a fight with me in the parking lot, determined that she was more in love with me than she was him. I laughed of course and the two of us squared off front of the club where his friends tried to hold him back while Molly begged me not to kick him in his manhood. Of course that wasn't the highlight of the night. The true moment of interest was when our parents discovered where we were and we were both grounded for at least two weeks. It was easy to get through though. We were always getting in trouble.

The scene in the parking lot with Dan wasn't long lived. Their relationship ended because she had moved on to new horizons. I in the meantime had gone through a few boyfriends of my own. Ernest had become a good friend and he lived closer than Molly did so hanging out with him was quite easier since we were all fourteen years old and still lacking the ability and permission to drive. Because he was the only boy I really knew, it seemed obvious that we would date one another. I had never had a real boyfriend before, just small time crushes, but I felt that High School was my launching pad into a new life where maturity involved relationships and romance. I picked Ernest as the perfect specimen for a starter boyfriend.

He apparently thought differently. After a week I was taken aside and told that he only wanted to be friends with me. Come to find out, it was because he was secretly in love with Molly, and I was demolished. It would be the beginning of my true envy for her that would eventually start my life of happiness, but destroy our friendship forever.

While Molly finished off her relationship with Dan, I moved on to Stuart, Lance and then Eric. Small time moments of me trying to fill the void of self esteem that Ernest left me with when he claimed his love for my best friend. While I had originally planned to carefully pick my beaus, my lack of confidence and jealousy of Molly's sex appeal had me scratching the mold off the ponds surface and calling it boyfriend.

Lance was a swift replacement for Stuart who wounded me by his infidelity. High School is much like a soap opera. Everything is overly dramatic and you're certain that a broken heart will send you to your death that very night. I miss those days. It was much better than paying a car loan. Lance however didn't last, and neither did Eric who followed him. I was now on a mission. To be single! I didn't need some boy at my side to try and make me feel good about myself. Molly was now single and we were determined that men weren't apart of our new plan to get through the year. We were going to go see concerts, party all night and find spirituality and our true selves.

Of course, that was until early December when Molly rushed up to me during our lunch hour.  

"Oh dude, oh dude Jia," she said, calling me by my nickname. "I'm in love." She proclaimed with stars in her eyes that made me want to puke. She was ruining our plan! We were supposed to stay single! Enjoy life together as best friends, as sisters, and say screw men! And here she was proclaiming her undying love and devotion to what I figured was just the new flavor of the week. Of course Molly rarely used the word "love" without some serious reasons behind it.

"He's brilliant dude," She uttered through her mouth, the sunlight bouncing off of her braces, her one flaw. "He's so smart and funny, and he reads books like me and he's gorgeous." Molly's most recent boyfriend made me wonder if Molly understood what gorgeous meant. 

"We were talking about vampires today and everything he said was so profound. I really think I've found my intellectual match." She sighed, her level of happiness causing my lunch to rise from my stomach. 

"His name is Matt." She declared to me and the world as she fell back on the grass behind us and looked up at the sky.

"He's probably a an idiot." I replied bitterly. Hey, green is said to look pretty on redheads right?