The Average Lives of Above Average Teens

Chapter Two - Insertcoolchapternamehere

Even hours after their hasty, daring departure, Trixie Montgomery had to admit the journey still hadn’t lost any of its fun. Music blasting from the stereo, A/C blasting from the vents, bags of Crazy Core Skittles bought from gas stations forever in their supply…now this was the way to travel. Not in a stuffy Cadillac with Mr. and Mrs. Boring while classical music - oh, the horror - drifted quietly from the speakers and everyone sat in stiff silence, broken occasionally by her mother’s need to yell at her once more and warn her about not getting into trouble and -

She shuddered like a soldier with a Vietnam flashback. No, that was all behind her now. She was riding off to her future, like the end of Snow White when she abandons her lovable dwarf companions and gets onto the prince’s horse so he can carry her off into the sunset. And that’s exactly what she would do. She would leave her companions - a little more reluctantly than Snow White did, who seemed to have always mysteriously and suspiciously all but forgotten about her closest friends at the end of the movie - for a bigger and brighter future.

“Want some Skittles?” Leo Pattinson asked, mouth full.

“Sure,” she said, “always.” Then she held out her hand and he dumped a mound of the colorful candies into her palm.

Trixie had always had a soft spot in her heart for Leo, who was like her older brother. In the sixth grade, when Joshua Wilson called her a whore, Leo had kicked his ass and ultimately received a three-day, in-school suspension. In the eighth grade, when he was trying to teach Trixie how to skateboard (which had resulted in a broken ankle), he carried her back to his house, paternally shushing her worried sobs, and sat with her in the back seat while Mrs. Pattinson drove them to the emergency room. Just a couple months ago, when Trixie’s mother had finally caved and bought her the black and white Havanese puppy she’d been pining over, she had named it Leo after him.

But their relationship had been - would always be - strictly platonic. They were brother and sister, and when someone would ask, “Are you two dating?” she would wrinkle her nose as though she and Leo were actually blood relatives.

“Man, can you believe it?” Maxine Thornton said, turning around in the passenger seat to smile at Trixie, who was sandwiched between Leo and Geoffrey Higgins. “Our little girl is all grown up!”

Geoffrey sniffled and pretended to wipe away a tear. “I know. Hold me, Leo. Hold me.” He stretched across Trixie’s lap and collapsed into Leo’s arms, who patted him soothingly on the back and whispered encouraging little “I know’s” into Geoffrey’s ear. The girls cracked up at the scene.

“But seriously, though, can you believe it?” Maxine said. “One day, you’re getting kicked out of boarding school, and the next, you’re being shipped off to the best school in the whole damned country!”

Trixie looked at Maxine, really looked at her, drinking in her face, trying to preserve it in her memory forever. She never wanted to forget her friends. Yes, she would video chat them as often as she could and see them during summer break, but…there was a long period in between now and then where she wouldn’t get to see them in person, and it would be crime to forget Maxine’s black pixie cut and the way it flopped into her hazel eyes, the six piercings she had in each ear. Hailey, with her flaming auburn hair that she had to keep armpit length or else it grew wild and unruly, parted so that it fell over one of her two cobalt blue eyes, the smattering of freckles across her nose, her cupid’s bow lips. Leo, with his messy head of hair a dark blonde and eyes the color of a new penny. And Geoffrey, sweet little Geoffrey, with his brunette curls and impish green stare, framed with eyelashes so long it was a wonder they didn’t tangle when he blinked.

“I bet they have the best parties,” Hailey sighed enviously, bringing Trixie back to reality. “If not, they’re about to.” She caught Trixie’s eye in the rearview mirror and winked.