Untitled by Me, chapter 1

Anna's Point of View:
"Dude, like get up!"

My older brother jumped onto my bed, held his silver trumpet up to his lips, and started playing the song they use to get you up in the military.

"Dude, I'm up, I'm up!"

He laughed. It's kinda funny, he doesn't just laugh, there's a bit of a cackle somewhere in there. He's got these thin lips, all pink and pale, and this really pale skin and green eyes; they just kinda light up, but there's a funny, mischievous glare in there somewhere.

"See ya later," he said as he walked out my door. "And don't you dare go back to sleep!"

He peeked in again. "I'll be watching," he whispered.

"Yeah, yeah," I said, walking into my bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I mean...I guess I see a little bit of my brother in me. I've got his pale skin, his thin, pink lips and his skeletal face with his pointed chin...I've got his slightly large eyes. Thick eyelashes. But that's about it. My hair's wavy and brown, matching blue eyes. His eyes are green, and his hair's straight and dyed black. It sort of hangs down over his ears...it's hard to explain...but he looks good like that. His hair's really red. He's got this hooked nose, not at all like mine. I mean...his isn't exactly hooked...but...gosh, he's hard to describe. And his ears are kinda pointed a little. He's got a truckload of piercings, but he's more emo than goth. I'm just regular old me.

"G'morning."

"Dude, nice outfit."

I looked down at my denim skirt, then sort-of footless tights, then leg warmers, all loose and baggy, and then my shoes.

"Thanks."

He was wearing a pair of khaki pants, tight around his thighs, and flaring out at the bottom.

"Hey, those are my pants!"

"What, I thought you said you didn't want them anymore."

He tugged at the neck of his baggy shirt, then pulled out a chain necklace. He's very...artsy. He's a funny guy.

"Dude, could you drive me to school!?"

"What, you can't drive yourself?!"

"I don't have a car, remember?!"

He came out of the kitchen with a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

"Well? Are you coming or not?"

I ran out and jumped into his small silver car.

"Your car's like totally emo."

"Why thank you." He pressed on the accelerator as hard as he could and yanked the car out of the driveway.

"God! Never do that again!

He smiled and started driving.


"Thanks dude."

"No problemo."

He drove away, back towards our house. As he drove, he stuck his hand out the window and made the "I love you" sign, which I returned. I turned to see the cutest guy I'd ever seen. He had green eyes, like my brother's, pale skin, and black hair, but it seemed more...short. Wavy.

"Um...hi, do you know where the main office is?"

"Yeah, here."

"Thanks, I've looked through the whole school, I just came out the back door."

He followed me to the small door which blended in with the wall.

"Oh...I can't believe I missed that, thanks."

"Yeah, new student?"

"No, teacher."

"What?" I stared.

"How old're you?"

"24."

"Jeez...I thought...you look like you're..."

He smiled. "Thanks." He then disappeared behind the office door.

Black converses, not high-tops, baggy black shirt, tight black pants...almost like my brother. But he only had five piercings and had a couple tattoos on his arm. My brother only had one tattoo of a Celtic cross on his arm and millions of piercings. Well...okay, not millions, but more than five. Way more.

I walked into room 251, third period to see the teacher from this morning. On his desk was a small paper sign that said "Mr. Armstrong". He noticed I saw it and turned it around.

"Billie," he smiled.

"Hey, you're the girl who helped me this morning!"

I nodded and smiled.

"Thanks again, I dunno what I'd have done, I mean seriously." He shook his head and put his feet up on the desk.

"Wow...you remind me of my brother...he dresses a lot like you. Only he usually wears my pants. He's emo/punk."

"Oh...I'm just punk, I guess."

"Yeah...he denies he's emo, he says he's just Rory Tenor, but he's so emo."

He smiled. "Oh, I didn't get your name."

"Anna."

He smiled. "Read the name thingy."

"Nice to meet you, read the name thingy."

"No, read the name tag thingy!" He held it up. "Billie."

"Oh...shweet."

"You mean sweet?"

"No shweet...it's shweeter to say shweet."

He laughed softly. "Yeah...how old's your bro?"

"He's eighteen, but he skipped two grades, so he's in college. He's a genius. He got straight C's, but they gave him an IQ test, and he turned out to be a genius. He just got bored in class, so he was put up two grades, and he did a bit better. Then he started taking college courses when he was fourteen and he got A's in those."

"Cool."

"Yeah...he's in art school...and music school at the same time, they're the same school. He's studying both."

"Shweet."

I giggled and sat down. Man, he was h-o-t, hot.


"Okay, dudes, peoples, people, persons, dudets, losers, winners, peoples, I am your poetry teacher, and since I don't know any of you, we're going to introduce yourselves, tell at least two things about yourselves. If you've got like two million pages to tell about yourself, be my guest, and before we start, I know you think poetry's for dumb-asses. I used to agree, but seriously, I can like totally help with songwriting...I like writing songs...yeah...it's fun...like eating cheese..."

The whole class started laughing.

"Okay, that was random, but true, anywaysssssssssss, we'll start with you."

He pointed to a random person I knew as Hanna Thompson.


He was a good teacher really, he knew how to keep the class listening.

"So how was class? I wanna hear, dude, "

"Well...our poetry teacher, Billie, Mr. Armstrong, whatever, he's awesome. He's 24, but he looks like he's our age..15."

"Sweet, dude, totally grool."

"Grool?"

"I got it from that movie, whatsit, Mean Girls...you know? She's about to say great, then cool, and it comes out as grool dude."

"Yeah...you're crazy."

He nodded.

"Yep...CCCCCCCCCWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZYYYYYY PEOPLES!"

He grabbed his trumpet and started just blasting on it so hard it hurt my ears. Trumpet isn't his main instrument, it's bassoon tying with bass, but he plays literally everything.

"So like--"

"Wait, stay still...your right ear has...six piercing...left has seven...one nose piercing...what is it, two eyebrow piercings on your left?"

He nodded.

"Wow...any more?"

He shook his head. "Just sixteen."

"Wow."

He smiled and went back to working on some piece of paper. His arms are all long and extremely thin...his fingers are long and slender...he's thin and tall; he's so thin you can see his ribs through the back of his shirt!

"Jeez, you're so thin," I said.

He smiled, picked up a pillow, and tossed it at me so that it hit my head.

"Hey! That could have broken my neck!"

"I can see it now, the top news story, pillow kills young fifteen year-old by breaking neck! Pillows are now banned from the United--"

I threw it at him. He smiled and threw it onto the couch. I couldn't help but smile with him.

"So our poetry teacher, he's punk."

"Really."

He never says really like a question, just like a statement.

"Yep. He's really hot too."

"Yeah, I just met this really hot guy on campus today, but I think he's straight, so...he had this sexy girl with him and stuff."

Rory's bisexual. He had a boyfriend, but he cheated on him with some other dude. He stayed up in his room the whole weekend after that. But that was a year and a half ago. You'd think he'd forgotten about it though, the way he acts now.

"So like, you have any crushes yet?"

"Other than my poetry teacher?"

He smiled. I listened and heard footsteps upstairs (we lived in the basement).

"Mom and Dad are home."

"So I hear."

"I'm gunna go up and say hi." I ran up the steps.

"Rory?"

He looked up at me. "What?" Only it sounded more like "whuh".

"Um...think you can drive me to school tomorrow?"

"Well yeah, why wouldn't I?"

I shrugged. "Thanks."

***

"Dude, like, get up!"

He started blasting the trumpet.

"Okay, okay, I'm up!" I watched him stretch, then yawn.

"I'm borrowing your darkest pair of jeans, hand them over."

I searched in the closet and threw a pair of jeans out. They were so dark they were almost black, but they weren't. Just navy.

"Thanks." He took his pants off and changed.

"EW!"

"What, I have my boxers on. Like them, I found them at Hot Topic. I think it was the skulls, I was just attracted to them...the force united us."

I rolled my eyes. My brother will start ranting on about things that don't even make sense.


"Good luck."

I smiled, closed his car door, and walked into the school's double-doors, not being able to wait until third period.

Rory's Point of View:

I saw that hot guy again on campus with his girlfriend. Makes me miss Steve. He cheated on me about a year and a half ago. I miss him...I really do...I think I loved him, I dunno, I really don't. But I miss him...whatever, I haven't even gone out with anyone since. I came up to his room and found him with this sexy dude, kissing in their boxers and crap; that pissed me off, first I was angry, then I became really depressed and stuff.

I got out my special pencil. I don't know why I love it so much. I just love this one pencil. Its name is Luke. Luke Skywalker, Jr. I'm not a Star Wars geek, I just like to joke about it. I've insulted a lot of Star Wars geeks in the past, but oh well.

"Hey Rory."

I turned around and blushed. I've been single since Steve...well...you know, but I've had my crushes, and I've had the same crush for about a year now...Lowilla C. Robinson. Hot, sexy, nice, smart, funny, but serious enough, cos I don't like girls who can't handle being serious.

You know what's really stupid? Steve tried to apologize for cheating with me, said he was drunk, he loved me, he'd never do it again, well guess what I saw the next weekend? That was the SECOND FUCKING TIME! Sorry, I scream and swear in my head.

"Hi—um—um—hey, Lowilla."

Now Steve, he was all smooth. I'm not smooth. The only girl I'm comfortable round is my sister, not even my own mother for Christ's sake. Just my sister.

"Mind if I sit next to you?"

I shook my head. I was blushing, oh no, I'm blushing—

"I'm gunna go um—get a drink, um—"

Why, oh why did I tell her that? I ran straight to the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water.

"Um...hey."

She smiled. God, she looked pretty when she smiled. I think that if a guy notices a girl, he should notice her face first, not the other parts they tend to notice. The first thing I noticed was her face. Black hair, deep, dark-blue eyes: she was beautiful.

"Hey, do you mind if I borrow your eraser?"

I pulled it out and gave it to her.

"H-here."

"Wow, you get nervous, don't you? You usually seem so calm and...smooth."

Did she just say that? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm so random, cos I miss Steve...a lot. I'm still not over it; I should be over it by now, I really should. But I will not cheat on Luke Skywalker, Jr. Just joking, okay, I'm crazy.

"Hey, don't you always use that same pencil?"

I nodded. "It's Luke Skywalker, Jr."

"It has a name?"

I don't actually like blush blush, my cheeks just turn pink, and now they were turning red.

"I named it a year and a half ago."

"I see...hey, I heard you were younger than everyone else, how old're you? I'm nineteen, this is my second year here."

"Oh...I'm eighteen...third year; I've been studying music and art...both...yeah."

She smiled again. She's so beautiful. She makes me think of Steve...I hate him. I hate Steve, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate him. But God, do I miss him

"So you know that project we're supposed to be doing for Kneebly's class?"

I nodded.

"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to get together for that."

"R-really. Um...yeah, sure, definitely, yeah."

She smiled again. "Great. I live with my parents, but they wouldn't mind if I brought you over. As long as we weren't in my room with the door closed, alone; they're really protective about that, it's evil."

Well, I'm still getting over something anyway. The worst I'd do is get so nervous I'd become light headed and maybe faint.

"Um...g-great. I live with my parents too, but they wouldn't mind if you wanted to come to my place."

"Which is more convenient for you?"

"Um, I'm completely flexible."

"Well...what if I went to your place? Mine's a mess."

"Um, okay. When?"

"What about after school?"

"O-okay."

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. That was real, wasn't it? Why do I suffer from anxiety?

***

"So, I have to pick up my sister from school, if you don't mine."

"Not at all." She smiled and sat in the back. "Wow, your car's totally emo."

I smiled faintly.

"So...what were the requirements again?" she asked.

I pulled out my folder and opened it. I dug out the requirements.

"You sure your parents won't mind we're alone here and stuff?"

"Heh, they don't even know what's going on in my life. They don't really care. We haven't really talked for a while, to tell you the truth. I don't know why, we just don't run into each other."

"Oh...I'm really close to my parents."

"Cool...the only person I feel really comfortable around is my sister."

"Wow. Hey, didn't you have a friend last year you'd always hang around or something? It could have been two years ago, I dunno."

"Um...describe him for me, wouldja?"

"Um...brown hair, brown eyes, kinda dark, um...tan-ish skin, about your height."

I winced.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't want to talk about it." I mumbled this through clenched teeth.

"Wanna stay for dinner?"

Did I just say that? I seriously did, didn't I?

"Okay, let me just call my parents."

She got out her cell phone, told them, put it back, and looked at the requirements sheet. It was just a bunch of notes I took on notebook paper.

***

"Well, I'd better get back to my house."

"I'll drive you."

She sat in the front seat. Gosh, I felt nervous.

"It's this one," she said after a while.

I stopped and unlocked the car.

"Thanks," she said.

"Um, no problem."

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. I turned and stared, wide-eyed, as she blushed.

"Um...uh...um...mm... "

so I was wrong about not doing anything but fainting, but it felt...right. The right person, the right moment. We drew apart.

"Um...gosh...um...uh...mm...mm...uh..."

Well what was I supposed to say, thank you?

"I'll see you tomorrow then. We should probably work on the project tomorrow too."

I nodded. "Y-yeah...see ya."

***

"Dude, get up!"

I jumped onto her bed and started playing a random song on my trumpet.

"Okay, okay, I'm up."

I smiled. She was beautiful, she really was.

"Can I borrow those earrings you have, the black ones?"

She nodded and pulled them out of the dresser. I smiled, kissed her head, and ran out the door.

"So..."

I looked at her.

"About last night..."

"Yeah?"

"I really like you," she blurted out, quietly.

"Really?"

She nodded.

"Oh...um..." Now what? I liked her...but I missed Steve. And what if she had homophobia or something, or...I dunno. "Um..." I lowered my voice to a soft mumble. "I...sort of...do you want to get coffee at Star Bucks after this?" Did I just say that?

"Yeah, sure!"

"So..."

I drank my chai tea frappe with no whip or cinnamon on it.

"Who was that dude hanging around with you like...two years ago?"

I looked at my Converses.

"Um...um...see...I don't really want to talk about it."

She nodded. "Why not?"

I felt tears stinging my eyes. "Um... " I didn't want to be rude and just say "I just don't" like some jerk, but I really didn't want to talk about it. "See...um...it's just a little...um...private."

Private. Painful.

"Okay then." She drank her coffee. "Well how am I supposed to get to know you if you don't tell me?"

"There are plenty of ways you could get to know me," I said this rather curtly, I do realize this.

"Okay."

I think she noticed it too. Suddenly though...I wanted to tell her.

"C'mere." I grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the Star Bucks, and kept walking down the street until I got to this large hill. I climbed up it with her. The hill led to a tall cliff. Below it was a field, then the city. It was funny...everything was so peaceful from up there.

"Whoa...it's so...peaceful and..." She sat down.

"Me and Steve used to come here all the time. You should see it when the stars are out."

She looked at me. "Who's Steve?"

I looked at my shoes again. "He...I...he was the guy I always hung around."

"What happened?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Do you have homophobia?"

She shook her head.

"Um...he was my boyfriend...I'm bi. He..." I felt a tear leak out.

"Dude, you okay?"

I didn't answer, just stared out. "I went up to his room one day...he lives in an apartment...and he was there with this other dude. They were in their boxers and crap...making out and stuff...I left, and a day later he came and apologized. He said that he was drunk, that he loved me, that he'd never do it again, and a week later...he was with him again...and I saw, and he ran after me, and told me...how he'd been going out with this other dude...Gary...for about a year. Since we'd started going out. He...um...just sort of stared, and I asked him why...he said I was nothing but a pest, and that I always bothered him, and I was really clingy, and I needed to get lost, and that he never loved me, and he loved this other guy. I asked him why he didn't just break up with me, and he..."

Great. Now I was really crying.

"I'm so sorry...what happened next?"

"He...I...he...mmmmm—" I gasped, breathed out slowly, and stopped crying. "My parents still don't know. Neither does my sister. He knows he cheated on me, but that's it."

"What happened?"

"I...he..." I looked at her.

"Would it be okay...if I maybe told you when I got to know you a bit better?"

"Yeah, sure."

"'Kay...look, if you hate me, break up with me before you cheat on me, okay?"

She didn't answer, just stared into space. I wanted to see her smile again. kissed her and stood, helping her up.

"'Bout half a year later I noticed how pretty you were...you were talking to Ashley Weatherfield, you were smiling, you looked so...beautiful."

She smiled. Oh yeah, she smiled. Shweet. Oh gosh, Anna's rubbing off on me.

***

"Dude, like, get up!"

Oh, I loved doing this. I started blasting away on the trumpet. "Okay, okay, I'm up!" I laughed, and hugged her tightly.

"Good morning star shine, the earth says hello."

She pulled away and raised an eyebrow.

"What, I got it from the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

She rolled her eyes, got up, and walked over to the bathroom. I sighed and fell onto her bed. My eyes closed.

"Rory!"

I felt a pillow against my face and shot up.

"Get up!"

I grabbed my trumpet.

"Why'd you fall asleep?"

"I'm exhausted."

"You go to bed the same time as me."

"Do you have insomnia?"

"You have insomnia?"

"The sleeping pills don't work so well."

I hugged her tightly.

"I'm gonna borrow your earrings, 'kay?" I grabbed them from her dresser, smiled, and walked away.