Teenage Dream

Chapter One

Summer break has hit Sacramento in 2004, giving Anthony and Ian a chance to spend more time together. Except their friendship changes into something greater, but with the new closeness comes a secret they must keep.

Anthony’s POV

May 19th in 2004 was the most epic day that year. Or so Ian and I thought. Or the rest of the juniors in our school thought. Okay, basically everyone at our high school thought. It was the last day of school, and because Ian and me were total slackers, we didn’t have any summer assignments like the smarter kids did in their dumb Honor classes. I drove us to my house in my new but crappy used blue car, always saying how one day I would be driving a Ferrari or Jaguar. Ian was singing a made-up song about the last day of school while I could hardly stay under the speed limit on the road, both of us excited as hell. “Anthony, we gotta do this next year, too.” I nodded eagerly, going 45 when the speed limit was 25 in my neighborhood. “Yeah. And I still have some papers from freshman and sophomore year. We’ll be busy next year when we graduate. Not going to college but having this much fun. I can’t-oh!” My foot slammed on the break when I nearly rammed into the closed garage door of my house. My car went from 45mph to 0 in a second. Ian and I just laughed from my recklessness before we jumped out and took our heavy and stuffed backpacks inside my house then out to my backyard. The shit we were about to get away with was all thanks to my mom not being home that day.

Ian unzipped both our bags as I went inside to get the cigarette lighter, skipping outside and grabbing the lighter fluid by the barbeque. Ian took the fluid and poured some of it into the big metal trash can we “found” in a dump we “went” to late at night. It was thick, heavy, and as tall as our waists, perfect for the awesome shit we were about to do. I slid one piece of my now useless schoolwork out of my backpack, put the lighter under it, set it on fire, then carefully dropped it into the home-made bonfire, flames shooting up from the large amount of lighter fluid Ian dumped into it. “Awesome!” He shouted, high-fiving me as heat poured over us. “Burn it, Anthony, burn this shit!” At the same time we dug our hands into our backpacks, grabbing several pages of homework, essays, notes, and dumb handouts we hardly read during the school year. The flames devoured what we threw in, snatching our hands back as the fire tried to burn us. I had another handful of schoolwork in my hands but waited as Ian held out one of his essays he typed. “Farewell, essay on the French Revolution I got a D on. Mr. Rodriguez, fuck you and I want you to know…” He dropped the paper into the bonfire, putting his right hand over his heart with a smile. “I didn’t learn a damn thing in your English class.” We laughed and I threw my papers in the growing fire, excited and feeling like a badass.

“Yeah, fuck you Ms. Martinez! I didn’t do most of your homework because I knew it wouldn’t make me learn shit! Now watch it burn, woman!” Our burning papers crackled in the bonfire, getting replaced with more school stuff we tossed in, cussing out our teachers and commenting on the work we did throughout the school year. We didn’t care that our hands and arms were hot from getting too close to the flames; as long as we showed that we were done being juniors we were happy. “Gave me an F on my drawing in art class? You don’t appreciate my zombie dancing to Thriller? Well fuck you and your high standards!” Ian slammed his okay-looking drawing into the fire, fiercely shouting: “Art-is-art!” Our backpacks were nearly empty soon after we started; who wouldn’t get out of hand when destroying stuff you hated? “Bam!” Ian screamed as he stood far away from the bonfire then ran up, using both hands to launch a bunch of schoolwork into the fire, flames shooting up, licking up every piece he threw in. “Fuck-Junior-year-we’ll be Seniors-then we’ll be…done!” The last big handful of dumb schoolwork in my bag went flying into the bonfire, me finally taking a big breath in, somewhat of a bad idea since black smoke was inhaled into my lungs.