Thanksgiving in Canada is in OCTOBER not November. It's three weeks before Halloween. Just in case I have any States readers.
Chapter One:
A Friendly Sock Theif:
"Well I know what I don't want to be when I graduate," Quinn said loudly in my ear as she was knocked sideways into me slightly in the crowded hallway. "I am never going to be a scientist."
"One failed test is not going to make that much of a difference on your grade," I said to keep things positive. I elbowed my way through one of those huge annoying crowds of people to get to my locker.
"Yeah one wont," Quinn agreed. "I'm at a 58 right now, barely. My parents are so going to kill me," she said with an exasperated sigh. I exchanged the books in my bag for the ones I would need for homework tonight.
"I thought you were at a 65?" I asked. I closed my locker shut and slid the lock into place.
"Yeah like last week," Quinn said waving her had dismissively.
"How did you drop that much?" I asked. We had only handed in one assignment in between then and now.
"Um...I may not have done the homework," Quinn said sheepishly as we made our way through the hall to her locker.
"Quinn, it was like a cut and paste project! It's the simplest thing ever!" I told her. She pushed some guy out of her way rudely as he was blocking her path.
"Well, you see..." Cue the excuse. "This weekend I had a bunch of the family over for Thanksgiving, and there were a lot of cousins running around and I couldn't just stop and do the homework..."
"You couldn't have spent the two minutes on the project like everyone else?" I asked. We had the easiest science teacher in the world of science teachers.
"You're such a goodie two shoes Bridgey," Quinn said. "Who even assigns homework over Thanksgiving anyways? It's a holiday. That translates into no homework."
She opened her locker and flipped her backpack upside down causing all the books and papers to crumple to the bottom.
"Aren't you going to need some of those?" I asked her pointing to the mountain of crinkled papers.
"Probably," she replied simply. She closed her locker after making sure she had phone and keys. "Oh god, look," she said gripping my arm. Her eyes were glued somewhere behind me. "There he is."
I glanced behind me even though I didn't need to. Garret Connors was standing behind me talking and laughing way too loudly with some of his basketball teammates.
Quinn had liked him for years. Personally, I didn't see what was so special, but Quinn was obsessed with the guy. From where I was standing, he just looked like any other stuck up jock whose main goal in life was to make others feel inferior. I didn't hate him, I just didn't particularly like him, is all.
"Yup there he is," I agreed.
"He is so gorgeous," Quinn continued like she hadn't heard me. I don't see what makes him 'so gorgeous'. He was really tall, so he was on the basketball team and he had these huge eyes that kind of reminded me of a bug's. Plus he had the whole I-haven't-cut-my-hair-in-forever-because-I-am-that-cool look going on. His hair wasn't long, but the dude had pretty long bangs.
"Whatever you say," I said to humour her. "Come on let's go." I tugged on her arm to try and get her to stop staring at the poor tall freak.
Quinn sighed but she did move to follow me. "Don't you think he's gorgeous? He's so tall," she gushed. "And he's so good at basketball." I was used to this by now. It happened almost every day where Quinn was concerned.
"No he's not," I scoffed. "He's only on the team because he is tall. He does nothing but take up room on the court and catch all the rebounds all the other guys are too short to get," I said. It was a hundred percent true. I had heard Garrett say the same thing when he thought no one else was listening.
"Can you at least sound a little excited about him for me?" Quinn pleaded.
I held my hands up and in a screechy voice said, "Oh my god he's gorgeous!"
"Yay, you think so too!" Quinn cheered. She linked her arm through mine and together we walked home thankfully talking about useless crap other than Garrett Connors.
I mostly just nodded and grunted in response to Quinn. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night or the night before. I had kept having really bad dreams that woke me up as soon as I managed to fall asleep. And I wasn't one of those fortunate people who would be asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow. I was grumpy and Quinn didnt even seem to notice.
Right now, I was looking forwards to getting home and just crawling into bed. I had pictures I should organize onto my computer so I had more room on my camera, but that sounded like way too much work right now.
When we were still a couple of blocks from my house, Quinn waved goodbye and turned down the alley that lead to her house. A lot of people say it is unsafe to go out of your way to use an alley, but I disagree. The alley's get used more than the streets here because they are much more direct and more fun than just a regular street.
I lived on a narrow street. No one except those who lived on it used it because it was on a steep hill. There were a couple all parallel to each other. The front of each house faced the back of another separated by only the street.
I stopped at the house behind mine to pick up my little six-year-old sister Alice. She went there after school with her friend Maddy until I got home from school. Maddy's mom, Ashley, was happy to watch her whenever I couldn't.
Sometimes people ask if Alice was an accident, or even if I was. There are nine and a half years between us just because my parents hadn't wanted another kid in between. When I started growing out of the kid stage, Mom decided that she wanted a baby again. The story is just that simple.
I ended up taking both Maddy and Alice home with me. But that was expected. They were like attached at the hip. Where one was, so was the other. Our parents didn't care anymore. They always knew where their children were.
"Did you guys eat already?" I asked them as I let us in through the back door.
"Ashley made us popcorn!" Alice said excitedly.
"Okay," I said even though they weren't really listening. "If you're hungry come find me." The two girls nodded eagerly and then raced upstairs as soon as I was done talking to play with their Barbies, their favourite past time.
I grabbed a box of crackers and went over to the couch. I was lying down and all comfy when I realized the remote for the TV was across the room. But I was too tired and lazy to move now so I just stared at the blank screen.
I mindlessly munched on crackers while I allowed my body to relax. All thoughts of organizing my pictures were pushed to the back of my mind as I laid there.
"I've come to take my sister!" came the voice from the hallway. Barely a half hour had passed since I had entered my blissful half asleep state.
I heard footsteps moving around and then Garrett's face popped up above me on the couch. Yes, Garret Connors. Did I neglect to explain that he is my neighbor and Maddy's big brother? We've lived next to them since forever. But we didn't really meet properly until a couple of years ago when Alice and Maddy started school and discovered that they lived next to each other.
I was used to Garrett showing up randomly. He had a key so he could take care of our house when we were away and we had one to his. Quinn knew Garrett was my neighbor but she didn't realize how often I actually saw him and talked to him or the fact that I had access to his house.
"Hey Pigtails," Garrett said with a smug smile. When I was little I always had my hair in pigtails every day. So now he called me 'pigtails' when he was too lazy to say my name. But I don't see how 'pigtails' is easier than 'Bridget'. Isn't that the point of a nickname?
"Crackers I see. Trying to go healthy, eh? No longer eating cookies by the box?" Garrett said. He came around the couch and picked up my feet so he could sit down, placing my feet in his laps afterwards.
My eyes narrowed at his joke out of my snack of choice. Cookies shouldn't be boxed if they weren't meant to be eaten by the box. "We're out." I ate them all yesterday. "I thought you came for Maddy?" I reminded him. Talking to Garrett Connors when I wanted nothing more to sleep was not one of my favourite things to do.
"Yeah but the munchkin can wait," he said. He slipped off my socks and pocked my toes. "Your toes are tiny," he commented.
"Ugh, Gare, can you please just get your sister and leave?" I rubbed my temples to make the point that I didn't want him there in case my words didn't prove that.
"Your toes are tiny," he said again just to annoy me.
"Well I don't wear size twelve shoes."
"Ahem," Garrett said in disgust. "I haven't been a size twelve since middle school. I am a fourteen now."
"And I'm a five. Your feet are three times as big in sizes as mine are."
"Almost, Pigtails, almost." I had long since given up trying to get him to stop calling me 'pigtails'. He was just too proud of himself for coming up with it.
"I love your babysitting skills," Garrett said changing the topic suddenly. He was still playing with my toes though, I have no idea why. I'm only happy that he wasn't tickling my feet, he knew what would happen if he did. I cannot be held responsible for any injuries that I may accidently cause when my feet are being tickled.
"How can you tell they aren't dead if you are nowhere near them?" He, like me, knew that our sisters were up in Alice's room playing with their Barbie's and making up stories for the different Barbies' lives.
"That's the thing. I don't hear any screaming, their fine," I said tiredly. "Can you really just get your sister and leave? I want to have a nap." I closed my eyes against the light overhead and then laid my hands over my eyes and cheeks as well to block the light that still managed to seep in through my eyelids.
"Nap, see if I care. I'm over here hiding and completing a mission at the same time," he said proudly.
"What?"
"My grandma is going to be here in like ten minutes and I'm supposed to bring Maddy home so she can greet her."
"Oh and here I was thinking you came over for my company," I said sarcastically.
"Well that's always a plus." I could hear the grin in Garrett's voice if that was possible.
"Is your grandma that bad?" I asked. I figured I would probably regret asking him that but it was better than Garrett talking about how much of a fatty I was for eating cookies.
"She's terrible! She's always bugging me to get a girlfriend and saying that she isn't getting any younger and she needs to see me married before she croaks. Then she starts dressing up Maddy in all these frilly dresses and stuff which even Maddy doesn't like. Plus she bakes these horrible cookies and forces us to eat them and tell her how good they are afterwards."
"She doesn't sound all that terrible," I said. She sounded like any grandmother that didn't see her grandchildren often enough.
"Trust me she is. That's why we only see her like once every two years."
"I'm sure you're just over reacting Gare," I assured him.
"Bridget!" Alice and Maddy called in unison. A moment later I heard the thumping as they came down the stairs and then they were standing in front of us, both panting slightly.
"Is it okay for Ken to kiss Barbie when Sam likes Ken too?" Maddy asked completely ignoring her brother.
"Who's Sam?" Garrett asked.
"Barbie's best friend," I explained simply. He nodded.
"Only if Sam isn't looking," he told the girls. I took the pillow out from underneath my head and chucked it at him.
"Ignore him," I said even though the girls didn't really need the reminder. "Barbie should talk to Sam first before she kisses her crush."
"Even if Ken surprises her with a kiss?" Alice asked. Where were they coming up with these things? What kind of TV were they watching?
"Yes. If Barbie thinks it's going to happen, she needs to talk to Sam. Or as soon as it happens," I said before Garrett could say anything.
"What if she doesn't?" Maddy asked.
"Then she has to make it up to Sam somehow."
"Okay," Alice said. The girls turned around but Garrett called out to Maddy, stopping them.
"Maddy, Grandma is coming over. We have to go home," he said with a surprising amount of authority.
"Aw but Gare," Maddy said giving him her best puppy dog face. "Please, just a little longer."
"No, Mom asked me to come and get you." I was amazed that Garrett was able to say no to her. Not only did Garrett tend to spoil Maddy, but Maddy also had his large eyes so that her puppy dog face was like torture. She was too adorable for her own good.
"Fine. Let me go get Sam from upstairs," she said with a very defeated look. Her and Alice shuffled back up the stairs. Sam was Maddy's along with Ken's friend Alex. Barbie and Ken were Alice's. I paid attention when my sister talked to me, so I knew these things. And I had to run across the street to return lost dolls on more than one occasion.
"What are you doing later?" Garrett asked suddenly, all the authority he had used with Maddy was gone now.
"Gare, are you asking me out?" I asked teasingly. I knew Garrett never would. We were barely friends, merely acquaintances because we were forced together by runaway children. How could things over turn romantic between us?
"Hardly," he said breezily. "I need someone to kidnap," he said seriously.
"Oh that makes everything okay," I said sarcastically.
Maddy and Alice came back downstairs with twin pouts on both their faces.
"Gare-Gare, do I have to go?" Maddy whined.
"I don't like Grandma either but you don't see me complaining," Garrett said in his big brother voice again.
"I do," I said raising my hand. "You were just complaining." Garrett glared at me.
He stood up from my couch dropping my feet in the process. The weight of my feet dropping forced me to sit up, much to my displeasure.
"Gare can I have my socks back?" I asked running my fingers through my dirty blonde hair in attempts to fix it.
Garrett held up my highlighter green socks. "Oh these? Nah, I like them. I think I'll keep them."
"Why does Garrett have your socks?" Alice asked looking between us with her eyebrows pulled together in confusion. As she did that her glasses slid down her nose slightly.
"Because he is a big meanie who steals socks," I explained to her. Then to Garrett I said, "Bring 'em back clean please."
Garrett scoffed. "I am not your maid." He reached down for Maddy's hand and physically started to pull her towards the door. "See ya at school Pigtails!" He called over his shoulder.
"Lock the door please!" I called back.
"Yeah, yeah," I heard him mutter.
I glanced out the window to see Garrett cradling Maddy protectively to his side as he looked both ways, twice, before crossing the street.
See this was the Garrett I was almost friends with. The sweet and caring Garrett. The one who talked and laughed with me so easily. The one was always doing things for his sister and eleven-year-old brother. The one who would stay home to be with them if their mom asked, instead of going out with his friends.
It was that Garrett Connors I was almost friends with. The Garrett Connors Quinn was in love with was a foreign specimen to me. I didn't know who he was. He might look the same as my Garrett, but that was it for similarities. They talked differently, acted differently, they even smiled differently.
That's why Quinn didn't know about my almost friend status with Garrett, she would assume it was the guy she knew, not the lovable guy I knew he hid.
***
This is my new story, tell me what you think please!!! And please put up with the first couple of chapters, you need all of this information for any of the story to make sense.
Thank you so much for reading!!!
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