Summer of '07

New Girl

Chapter 4

June 2004

~TRAVIS~

I still remember the summer of '04 like it was yesterday. I remember being this awkward, 14-year-old little dork gearing up for the start of high school in the fall. Middle school wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst either. Seventh grade was one of the most fun years I had ever had in my life, but eighth grade was where things quickly took a turn for the worst. At the start of the eighth grade, I suffered a serious knee injury playing football that I couldn't play again for the rest of the season or at all really, which kinda sucked for me because I ended up losing most of my friends from football that year. I became depressed and slowly started to lose my self-confidence over the course of the year. I grew socially awkward when it came to talking to other people, even other guys which I thought was kinda weird at the time. It sucked, but as soon as eighth grade ended I knew I wouldn't let ninth grade be the same, or worse for that matter. I didn't want to be lonely again for potentially all of high school and so I decided to go to summer camp to make friends before the start of the school year. And I'm so glad that I did.

Around the end of June of 2004, my mom had enrolled me in a summer camp in Northern California, which was pretty close to where I had lived in Vacaville. I have to admit that I was pretty nervous about going at first, despite the fact that I was the one who wanted to go there in the first place. As soon as I arrived I didn't recognize a soul and that obviously didn't help my anxiety in any way. It wasn't until I arrived at my assigned cabin that I recognized someone I knew from school. It was Elijah Radford, whom I had known since first or second grade, though I had never been friends with him because he had always been an asshole to me. God, I fucking hated him at the time and never thought we'd ever be friends, let alone best friends... little did I know.

We were both on the football team during the seventh grade and I was friends with pretty much everyone on the team except him. He was the most arrogant douchebag I had ever known and I literally couldn't stand him. There were times when I had tried to talk to him but he always treated me as if he were too good to even waste a breath on me. He couldn't even make eye contact with me most of the time which only fueled my hatred towards him. And when he started dating this girl that I had instantly developed a crush on at camp, he was even more unbearable.

A few weeks into camp, I had met this girl named Heather Highsmith. She was in my grade and had just moved to California from Oregon. We had become acquainted through an ice-breaker activity and we seemingly had a lot in common. She was a huge football fan... I was a huge football fan, she liked water polo... I fucking loved water polo, she wanted to be a legal assistant... I wanted to be a lawyer. It was like we were meant to be friends at the time and I was almost certain that she liked me the same way that I liked her. It took me a while, but eventually I asked her if she wanted to hangout with me, just the two of us, sorta like a date, and she said yes. So I took that as a good sign. We ended up hanging out by the lake that night and just took a long walk along the pier.

"So... you looking forward to... starting high school in a couple of months?" I asked her once I had run out of interesting things to talk about.

"Hell no! I'll be the new girl in a whole new school where I don't really know anybody. Why, are you looking forward to it?"

"Yeah, actually. I'm ready to get started. Middle school was kind of a disaster at the end and well, I just want things to go back to the way they were," I told her, rather ambiguously.

"'The way they were?'"

"Yeah, I actually used to be popular, believe it or not. But last year, I was kind of a loner, so... I intend for things to change next year."

"Oh, yeah? And how do you plan to make that change?"

"Well, I don't know... make new friends, get a girlfriend... stuff like that."

"Yeah, but how are you gonna make that stuff happen though?"

"By... putting myself out there, I guess? After all, I met you—"

"Yeah, but I talked to you first. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have made any new friends here."

I didn't say anything as she had completely gotten me there.

"Just saying, if you want to make friends then you have to make the effort and not expect the other person to make the first move. I mean, look at me, I'm new here and don't know anybody. If I hadn't tried to meet new people then I'd be miserably alone here. So far I've met five new people, one of whom is really cute." She smiled after that last sentence and I mistakenly assumed that she was talking about me.

"Really?" I said, all surprised and shit as I began to feel optimistic.

"Yeah, he's really cute. We have so much in common and I really think he wants to be my boyfriend," she said in such a bubbly manner that I was certain that she had to be talking about me.

"You got that right," I muttered beneath my breath, subconsciously hoping that she could actually hear me.

But as I looked up at her, I saw that she had wrinkled her forehead in bewilderment. "You know him?"

"Uh... yeah? ... Or at least I thought I did." And that was when I came to the firm realization that she wasn't talking about me.

"I'm confused, do you or do you not know who I'm talking about?"

"Apparently not," I said depressingly.

"Elijah Radford," she said and my heart instantly sunk the second she revealed his name. Elijah Radford of all people was the one guy she was hoping to be her boyfriend, who just so happened to be the one guy that I absolutely loathed. Just my luck.

"Elijah? Seriously?" I said in progressive frustration.

"So you do know him. Yeah, he's super cute and he's so sweet. Wouldn't you agree?"

"No," I replied firmly. I mean, I guess I thought that he was kinda physically attractive but sweet? No one was as far from sweet as he was. "I don't understand, I thought you liked me?"

"I do. Can I not like more than one person?" Um no?

"But you like him more, don't you?"

"I don't know. Both of you guys are pretty cool, I guess. But keep in mind, Trav, I haven't known either of you guys that long..."

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry for... getting ahead of myself."

She proceeded to rub my shoulder and to conclude our date, she kissed me on the cheek.

If only I had known at the time what I was getting myself into.