Living High School to the Fullest (Completed)

He stared…

and stared…

and stared…

…and blinked.

“Ha!”

“Dammit! I was so close this time,” Aaron said and ruffled his hair in despair. He is always a bit down when he loses. Just like a little kid.

“You wish. No more howdy for you, mister,” I said with a triumphant smile. Sweet, sweet victory.

“But you did get better,” I admitted.

And just like that, his spirits were lifted again.

“I know. Soon, you’ll have no choice but surrender to the power of the stare-master.”

Yep, definitely lifted spirits present.

“Next time, loser buys ice cream. Two days.”

“Agreed. You will weep with fear, Adams,” the red-head replied cockily.

I just rolled my eyes and examined the pasta sauce. I really hope that is a piece of tomato.

“So,” Emma said, drawing the attention to her. “Has anybody seen the new guy yet?”

“What new guy?” Aaron asked somewhat baffled.

“You know, the new guy.”

Silence.

“I haven’t seen a new guy,” Brian stated.

“Wait, we have a new guy?” Aaron looked at Emma expectantly.

“Yeah,” Em replied a bit hesitantly. “You know, there always is a new guy.”

“Huh.”

I remained silent. It was fun watching where this conversation was going.

Now it was Brian’s turn. “What do you want from the new guy?”

“Well…” Emma looked at me helplessly. Sorry, but you’re on your own.

“Wait a minute,” Brian cut in. “Is that something you do? Adopt the new guy? Did you do that last year with me?”

“What? No!”

I tried to suppress my laughter. Oh, that’s a good one: Adopt the new guy.

True, Brian Henderson moved here to Rome, New Jersey, last year; right before the beginning of junior year. And yes, he is our newest friend. But that had nothing to do with him being the new guy.

He was in the same history class with Aaron and I, sitting right behind Aaron. To be honest, we didn’t pay much attention to Brian. We were way too busy inventing a game called ‘paper ball’, which despite its simple name was really quite complex with lots of elaborate rules. One day, a few weeks after school started, we had a serious book-pen-paper ball situation which was not covered by our rules. Aaron claimed it was his point, I claimed it was mine.

To cut a long story short: Brian tapped us on our shoulders, quoted one of our basic rules which could be interpreted for that situation as well back at us and that was that. We invited him to sit at our lunch table, expanded ‘paper ball’ to a game for three players and the rest is history.

Brian is actually the one who helps to keep a healthy balance between the rest of us. He is our voice of reason, so to speak. And yes, he is the smart one. He is quite tall and kind of skinny – his weight has yet to catch up with his height. He has coal black hair, is always tanned, wears rimless glasses and has the most beautiful eyelashes mankind has ever seen. I kid you not. They are the thickest, longest, blackest eyelashes ever. Every girl envies him. Fake eyelashes fade in comparison. Add to this his piercing green eyes and you can easily see why you are in serious danger to get lost in his eyes.

Good for him, too, since his eyes avoid to give him a nerdy appearance despite his glasses. If he would only know how to use his eyelashes to flirt and lose some of his natural shyness, he would be able to swoon quite a number of girls. But we were working on that. And I was still trying to talk him into wearing contacts.

“Why do you think we have a new guy, Em?” Dinah now chimed in.

Dinah Glassman is the short one of our group, petite, fragile like a porcelain doll. Pale skin, big brown eyes, curly brown hair – she is so cute, you just want to put her on your mantelpiece in your living room. She is very much into arts, currently she prefers using charcoal. There is always a bit of smudge somewhere on her clothes.

Dinah used to be best friends with Erin Roberts. We all met in middle school. Erin, Dinah, Emma and I did most of the girly stuff together. Sleepovers and such. But Erin moved to California sophomore year, and now it’s just the three of us girls.