𝔽₳𝜯Ǝ

Standpoints

Except I had a girlfriend.

If it wouldn't have been so unmanly, I'd have been squealing from the rooftops. But I was squealing internally. In a manly sort of way.

Jenna, unsurprisingly, was on restriction for the rest of summer, which wasn't much longer at least. Worse though, she'd been barred from going out for the cheer squad again, which was devastating to not just her, but Chloe and Becky as well.

Becky and I spent the rest of the summer joined at the lips. I spent every day with her, and as many evenings as I could get away with. We never got as far as we did that first night, but we came close a few times.

We did more than just make out though, we talked a lot as well. Becky had always been kind of an 'add-on' to the group to me I guess. Certainly a part of it, but my attention had almost always been focused on Chloe if she was around, or split evenly between the other three if she wasn't. Plus Becky wasn't nearly as talkative around her friends, she generally just went with the flow and was content to let other people take the lead. Once it was just the two of us though, it was like I was discovering this whole other person.

She was very funny. She wasn't afraid to make funny faces, or silly noises, or ridiculous voices to aid in joke-telling. She often had me in stitches from just generally being a goofball; she enjoyed making me laugh. Every time she'd get me going, she'd give me this bright beaming smile like she was super pleased with herself.

She was also surprisingly insightful. I guess being the non-talker of a group of five gave you a lot of time to watch people and figure stuff out by reading in between the lines. She was also bluntly honest when asked direct questions, so I learned a lot more about the other girls than maybe I thought I wanted to know. Either way, it was illuminating talking to her.

Mostly though, she was just fun to be around, even without the physical stuff (which was great fun too, and we did a lot of it, but it was more than that.) We cuddled a lot and watched movies. I'd become a huge movie buff over the last few years, and had expanded my interests to a much wider range of genres. From some of the more modern contemporary stuff to some pretty esoteric indie flicks. I fell in love with dialogue. Good banter could give me chills. This had the side benefit of improving my witty banter skills as I learned what worked by watching it on screen. Sometimes I'd have to explain the more out-there stuff to her, but she never blanched at even the most esoteric art film or the old classic film I'd want to watch. Though I think she got bored pretty quick with foreign films because that's usually when the necking would start. Sometimes, I have to admit, that was deliberate on my part.

School started, and we continued to be a couple. I was nervous at first, I'm ashamed to admit. Summer flings are one thing, but back in the social hierarchy of school is a different story. The wee hours of the morning versus the light of day I suppose. But Becky didn't even flinch. I was her boyfriend, and she was proud of it.

Boyfriend.

It takes on a different perspective from thinking about it that way.

It's one thing to say, "I have a girlfriend!" Hell, that's a milestone, like running a marathon. You did it, you got the girlfriend achievement, congratulations.

It's pretty one-sided.

But being someone's boyfriend - that's a different story. That has responsibilities. You have to be there for her. You have to not just take pleasure in her company, you want her to take some in yours. I dunno, I think I was lucky to have figured this out this early on, I guess a lot of guys never do. Maybe it's because I was smart, maybe it's because I'd been friends with four girls who went through boyfriends like water, so I got to hear the aftermath of the whys and why not.

Maybe it's just because I was stupid lucky.

I'm going with that.

I was a pretty good boyfriend I think. I went out of my way to brighten her day when she was down - which wasn't often, or encourage her when she got frustrated - which was all the time with school work. In fact, I'd gone tutoring Becky in all of her classes. She was struggling pretty badly if the truth was to be told.

I was starting to have issues of my own. Between generally spending time with Becky, both helping her with her classes, and being lip-locked with her, my studies were starting to suffer for it. By the middle of the term, I was in danger of slipping to a B in my calculus course.

Oh no! You gasp in mocking derision, a B!

That was huge. I was still in the 4.0 club, a perfect GPA for my high school career, which meant I was in the running for Valedictorian, a prestigious award that I'd be able to put on a college application and scholarship forms. It was a big deal. Besides, I'd been working on it for three years now. I didn't want to lose it in my last year.

Previously, I'd been fortunate to be smart enough that any slippage of studies was made up for by my excellent test-taking skills, and ability to cram a final project home in the last 72 hours. That didn't happen often, but it had happened. I was also generally pretty good at getting homework done before I'd even left school. Now, my free time at school was filled up with Becky, so homework started having to come home. Which was fine, until I started helping Becky out with all of hers, and mine got pushed until I got home late that night, and I had to finish mine in the wee hours of the morning, missing out on sleep.

To stop the hemorrhaging of lost time, I'd started just bringing my homework over to Becky's and while she worked on hers, I worked on mine. This helped some, but my courses this term were much harder than previously. I was in advanced placement for nearly every class; chemistry, calculus, advanced lit, and world history. In my only 'free' period, I was a TA for my advanced lit teacher during her basic senior English course, and Becky was in that class. I got some work done there, but I spent most of it grading the papers and tests of students who probably should not have been in a senior English class, even the most basic one. Luckily, thanks to my help the previous two years, Becky wasn't one of those, but only just.