***Veronica’s POV***
“Hurry up, Ellie! Veronica’s waiting!” Connor yelled into the front door of his house before turning back to me and flashing a smile.
Connor Franta was the best friend I had ever had in the whole world. We had always just been friends, and I loved it that way. He was the perfect friend to have, because he wasn’t dramatic, and he always understood me.
He had been through a lot, which makes him easy to relate to.. He was the sixth child in his home, and when he was just seven months old, his parents got divorced. They were both cheating on each other, and his mother had a child with another man right after the divorce.
Then they had eight more.
That’s a grand total of fifteen children, ten of them all living under the same roof, with five of them gone for college.
It was even more chaotic than it sounds, because most of the younger ones were boys, and they were all crazy.
I went to Connor’s house in the morning, just like always, so that his sister could drive me to school. It wasn’t a big deal to go there, all I had to do was walk across the street.
Mostly, I tried to stay away from the inside of the house in the mornings, because it was a mad house. Toys were thrown everywhere, hairdryers were blowing, and kids were screaming.
But in all of that chaos, Connor just stood there, smiling at me.
I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
“I want to sit in the middle!” Ellie screamed, bolting through the door behind Connor.
Although she acted much younger, she was a freshman, just like me. She had strawberry blonde hair that fell slightly higher than her waist, and her green eyes were always full of energy.
“Come on, Ellie, stop being a baby,” Connor laughed, getting into the truck before me.
Connor always sat in the middle, it was just tradition I guess.
“Oh my God, Connor! Can’t you just let me sit by Veronica for once?” She argued back.
I loved Ellie, but sometimes she could be a little.. dramatic. Did I mention that she practically lived on stage? That was a strong contributing factor to her overall annoying demeanor.
She sighed and finally got into the car.
Connor had a soft smirk on his face beside me, like always. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was just a naturally delightful person or because his sister was being crazy, but it made me happy.
Well, I probably shouldn’t say sister, because whenever anyone says that, Connor has to remind everyone that Ellie was only his half-sister. So he only shared half of her crazy genes.
Connor and Ellie didn’t even share the same last name. Ellie’s last name was Dillon, which was Connor’s step-dad’s last name, and half of his sibling’s.
One of his other sister’s was Kinley, and she was the one who drove us to school. She was a senior, and she was one of the sweetest people I had ever had the pleasure to know.
She made her way to the truck, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she laughed at something that my brother said.
My brother, Timothy, was one of my three siblings. I call him Tim most of the time, but sometimes Kinley called him TImmy. It gave me a vibe that she liked him or something. THat would be a little too weird for me.
The car ride was always the best part of the day. It was a great escape, getting a chance to talk to Connor.
The only time I get to see him was during lunch and after school, which was hardly enough for me.
He was a junior, so we didn’t have any classes together, even though I was taking some of the most rigorous courses that Cedarwood High had to offer.
Unfortunately, when we got to school, we entered another realm of craziness. I said goodbye to Connor and navigated through the swarms of people straight to Ms. Atkin’s room.
“You’re late,” Lauren Bell said as soon as I stepped into the classroom.
She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she was one of my best friends, besides Connor, of course.
We were working on a history project together and this was the only quiet place on the entire campus.
“Blame Ellie, she forgot her lip gloss, so we had to wait,” I replied, rolling my eyes.
We both knew how much she valued looking her best. Lauren was like that sometimes, but not nearly as bad as Ellie.
“Are you sure you weren’t just talking to Connor? Hmm?” She asked.
She was convinced that Connor and I were an item or something. And she always loved to tease me about it, even though she knew that I didn’t think of Connor, or any other guy, like that.
I was very shy when it came to guys, but Lauren wasn’t at all. She was a dancer, so she had practically the perfect body, and her soft blonde hair was just long enough to flick over her shoulder, but not long enough to get in the way.
“I always talk to him, just like I talk to you. He’s my best friend. Get over it,” I snapped unknowingly.
We stopped talking and started working on our project. It was due in less than a week and we had barely accomplished anything in the two months that we had been working on it.
“So who was that boy you were talking about, Veronica?” Ms. Atkin piped in a few minutes later, smiling sweetly.
She was my favorite teacher, but she always found a way to butt into teenager’s conversations. She felt a need to know everything about “who likes who” and it got kind of irritating sometimes.
“Oh,” I said, blushing. “You know Connor Franta? I think he may have been in your class a couple of years ago. He’s just my friend.
I tried my best to sound like I wasn’t lying.
“Boyfriend,” Lauren argued.
“Not he is not!” I raised my voice slightly.
“She likes him,” She countered.
“No I don’t.”
“She talks about him all the time,” Laure continued, obviously exaggerating.
It was starting to get pretty annoying, all this teasing. I couldn’t believe she would say these things about me, and especially in front of a teacher. I was completely mortified.
“Okay, maybe I talk about him sometimes, but that doesn’t mean-”
“She goes on and on about his-”
“Can you just shut up and drop it Lau?” I yelled right as the bell to go to first period rang.
We didn’t usually fight like that. Hell, we didn’t usually fight at all. But especially not over something as stupid as boys.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. You know I don’t like him that way,” I started, but she sped out of the room too quickly.
All day, I kept trying to talk to Lauren, but it was hard, because I didn’t have any classes with her, so I had to go out of my way to try and find her. She always avoided me, so I didn’t get a chance to say anything to her until lunch.
“Lauren, I’m so sorry. I really am. You know Connor’s my best friend and neither of us should have said those things. Just please talk to me,” I said to her, following her through the lunch line.
The cafeteria worker offered me a tray, but I declined. I would never eat the substances that they call “food” here.
“Whatever,” she replied, expressionless.
I walked over to my usual table, watching Lauren stroll away to a group of giggling girls.
Connor was sitting across from me, just like always. Nothing much change with us.
“Where’s Lauren?” Connor asked, looking up at me as I sat down at the table.
His green eyes twinkled in the light. It meant a lot to me that he cared about my friends just as much as he cared about me.
“She doesn’t really want to talk to me right now,” I replied, not looking directly at him.
“Why? What happened” He said, biting into a turkey on wheat.
That was his favorite type of sandwich. I would know, I made them all summer with him.
“Nothing, we just got into an argument,” I said back flatly.
I could tell that he sensed my uneasiness about the topic, and lucky for me, he didn’t press any further about it. It would be even more embarrassing if he ever found out what our argument was about.
Connor pulled a granola bar out of his brown paper bag and pushed it towards me. When I refused, he opened the package and placed it in my hands, practically forcing me to eat.
I loved the fact that he cared so much about me to do something as simple as make me eat a granola bar when I didn’t bring a lunch.
“What up, bro?” A very obnoxious voice came from behind Connor and I took a deep breath.
Ross was a junior who was one of Connor’s friends. He had the typical douchebag physique, shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes, played football, but only on the off season from lacrosse.
I tried way too hard to not associate myself with him, and it never made any sense why Connor wasted his time on him.
Everyday, he complained about how Connor just sat with a bunch of loser freshman girls when he could have been sitting with the “popular crowd”.
But I guess Ross would rather stay at our table with Connor, because he never moved.
“Ronnie, do you want to come to my place after school? I have a ton of homework and I could really use some help,” Connor flashed me one of his signature smiles, completely ignoring Ross.
He knew how much smarter I was than him. I was about to respond when Ross interjected.
“Dude, you have like a billion siblings, why don’t they just help you? Do you like her?” Ross said.
Connor just stared at him and Ellie pretended to gag from the seat next to me.
“I would love to,” I turned my gaze to Connor after rolling my eyes at Ross.
“Great, we can just walk home, Kinley has a chess club meeting,” He said, finally peeling his eyes off of Ross.
“See you then,” I said smiling as he walked away with Ross.
How could someone as sweet as Connor have been friends with someone as rude as Ross?
***Connor’s POV***
“See you later then,” Ronnie said.
Then she smiled at me.
She had one of those smiles that covered her whole face, all the way up to her beautiful brown eyes.
I walked away, knowing I had to go to class, but wishing I could stay there to talk to her.
“Dude, you need to get over her. It’s never going to happen. And even if it did, it would destroy your social rank. Dating a nerdy freshman? Come on bro, snap out of it.”
I thought about what Ross said. I don’t care about any of that “social rank” stuff, but still, what would happen if Ronnie and I were a couple? What would people think about us?
Oh well, why did it matter anyway. Like Ross said, it was never going to happen.
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Hey guys! So just in case you haven’t figured it out, this is pre-o2l Connor. The story will be mostly told from Veronica (Ronnie) Gresham’s point of view, but I will mix it up a little.
This is my first fanfiction, so I would appreciate it if you commented what you thought about it so I could get some input.
Love Always,
~shelbigrace