(Un)certainty

First

"Don't go, don't go.." He laughed, holding both of my hands, spinning me around, getting my feet wet. "Dooon't goooo!"

"But baby, I've gotta," I said sadly, running up to dry sand, still holding his hands.

"You don't gotta do anything, it's Friday! There's no school tomorrow, it doesn't matter babe. Just stay with me. Here. Forever." He told me while caressing my cheek.

"Dennis, I have to! Do you want me to get grounded and never see you again?"

He looked down at his feet for a second, collecting his thoughts. "Alright," he scratched the back of his head, "do you need a ride home?"

"Please." I smiled.

He led me to his car and we drove about two blocks down from the beach to my house.

We sat in the car for a few minutes in silence until he said, "I'll call you tomorrow, Arden."

"I'll answer your call tomorrow, Dennis." I giggled.

He went in for a kiss and right before our lips touched, all I could hear was a bell ringing.

Ringing, ringing and ringing.

I bolted out of bed to the sound of my alarm. It was all a dream. All a goddamn dream.

"Ugh," I groaned, slipping back under the covers to see if I could fall back asleep, to no avail.

I reached over my nightstand and grabbed my alarm clock. "I hate you." I whispered and slammed it back down on the table.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, sat up and stretched.

"God," I thought, "I can only hope school will be half as good as the dream I just had."

-

"No way! You actually dreamt about that?" My friend Jordan laughed. I told her how I'd dreamt about Dennis Wilson, and she probably only found it obscure since he's a year younger than I am. "You gotta find a boy your own age, Ard."

"What's so bad about it?" I shut my locker door and began walking down the hallway with her, "It's only a year. And everyone says, 'age is just a number', right?"

"Arden." She stopped me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"The only people who say that are women approaching age 40."

"Oh whatever," I took her hand off my shoulder and she laughed, I began walking again, until I spotted Dennis. I stopped Jordan and we both backed up.

"Why are we-"

"Shh!" I cut her off so I could admire him without him noticing.

"You know, this whole thing is real childish, you're acting like a little kid," She scoffed. "He's had like 20 girlfriends this school-year, if you go for it you're only hurtin' yourself."

"He's cute, Jordan," I shook my head, "you have gotta admit that."

"He may be cute," she unenthusiastically admitted, "but if he ended up cheating on me, or you, for that matter, I wouldn't be surprised. He's simply not worth it, Ard."

The bell rang.

"I'll see you later. Wanna go to the park after school?" She asked.

"I don't know. See you around."

-

"Can anyone tell me what the theme of Romeo and Juliet is?" Ms. Wilkerson asked the class, which remained silent.

"Hm.. How about if I read you this quote?" She began reading it, but I just couldn't take this boring class any longer. I put my head down but saw something unexpected. A boy staring at me.

He quickly turned his head back and faced the front, so I didn't think too much of it. After a few minutes I slowly began dozing off, but then same boy tapped my shoulder as I was closing my eyes.

"What?" I asked him, slightly irritated.

"Oh! You were about to fall asleep." He seemed so concerned, I didn't even know this guy's name.

"Yeah.. Is that a problem?" I said that in my sassiest voice possible.

"No, it's just.." He looked back at the front of the room, to make it seem like he was paying attention, "She doesn't handle people who sleep in her class kindly. I would know, this is my second time taking her class."

I suddenly felt bad for sassing him now. He was only trying to prevent me from getting in trouble. Plus, he wasn't completely bad looking, with his dark hair, blue eyes and freckled face. He was tall too, taller than Dennis, that's for sure.

"What are you doing taking this class twice anyway?" I whispered.

"They won't let me graduate unless I retake it with an overall average of a B+ or higher," he looked down at his desk, "something about the amount of credits I have."

"What grade did you have before?" I was being so invasive.

"Well, isn't someone a bit of a Nosey Rosey," he smirked, "I had a C-, I believe."

"I have an A." I bragged. I don't know why I felt the need to impress him, but for some reason I did.

"Aren't you lucky?" His sarcasm made me laugh. "Since you've been interrogating me, how about we turn the tables. What's your name?"

"Arden. Arden Peterson. Yours?"

He stuck his hand out to shake, "Brian Wilson."

I stuck out my hand to reach his but was abruptly stopped by the sound of Ms. Wilkerson's voice.

"Wilson!" She yelled.

Brian quickly regained actual focus on her. "Ma'am?"

"Can you tell me the meaning of this quote? The one I have been reading repeatedly for the past 10 minutes?"

He blew a small raspberry and began blushing, because all attention had been drawn to where we sat, in the back of the classroom. "I'm sorry Ms. Wilkerson, I must've gotten a bit sidetracked. Could you repeat it one more time?"

She gritted her teeth but complied.

"Young men's love," she stated in that monotone voice of hers, "lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes."

He thought for a second. "Young men's love.... not in their hearts, in their eyes.." He repeated quietly to himself.

"I think it means that love is truly all based on a first impression. You see a girl and think she's pretty before you fall in love with her. It's sorta.." He looked over at me, "a love at first sight thing, if you will."

"Very good. You're not like how I remembered, Wilson."

"Thank you ma'am."

"Anyway, turn your books to..."

-

Once class was over I immediately searched for Jordan, I needed to tell her about what had happened the period before. She walked over to me before I realized where she was.

"Hey, there's your boyfriend over there!" She teased, pointing over to Brian and Dennis standing by Dennis' locker.

"Jordan... something big happened in English today." I explained everything to her while leading her over to our last class of the day.

"No way.. he likes you! Too bad it's not his brother."

I stopped her. "What?"

"Yeah, didn't you put that together? Brian is Dennis' older brother. If anything I'd rather you go after him, he seems interested."

While she was saying all that I made eye contact with Brian, and he smiled.

"Jordan," I called.

"Hm?"

"We're going to have a lot to talk about next period."