This is not another of those teenage love stories, where the popular jock falls in love with the crushing outcast girl. It isn’t about how two people are supposed to be together, and everyone knows it, yet they do not. No, this story is my love story. And how just one person can change everything you once thought you knew. How you thought you knew what it was like to be in love, how you thought you knew yourself inside and out. But he changed all that; he made me realize that I may have thought I was done learning, and I knew everything I needed to know. But in retrospect I had so much to learn about living life and myself.




Turning on my Aiden CD, going through my closet, and throwing every article of clothing I have on the floor. I wish I could write these kinds of lyrics. Aiden is so lucky; I mean I feel the same things they write about, so why can’t I put my feelings in a song? Standing in front of my mirror holding up possible outfits, this is how every morning starts. After twenty minutes of hating everything about me, finding the less than perfect outfit, and the whole black eyeliner, I head down to my less than perfect family.

“Melody, will you be joining us for brea-” that is all my mom could say before the little demon from hell, my brother, Christopher chimed in “Or are you going off on your little starvation diet? ‘cause I hear all the cool girls are doin’ it!”
“CHRISTOPHER TYLER! Watch your mouth!” ooh, mum sounded mad enough to start turning green, and look like she is wearing purple spandex jeans.
“Chris, lemme ask you this. How do you know what these teenage girls are doing?” said dad, he looked very calm and serene, oh how I despise him. Would it kill him to show a little emotion?
“Dad, look at me… I am a total babe magnet and I am a first class pim-” I stopped him before he could even finish the infamous sentence.
“Oh wait let me guess, the word you are about to use is…. Pimp?” he nodded smugly,
“Mum, to get back to your question… I am not going be joining you guys. I gotta get to school.” “Oh…” mom sounded hurt, “well I guess I will see you after school… bye pumpkin!” she kissed my cheek, and I was off.



Walking to school is the highest point of my days. I mean I am alone… no one bothers me; expect the toffee-nosed populars pointing and laughing, which I just brushed off my shoulder. In addition, I get to listen to my favorite bands. Most days I don’t get to see all my surroundings at times with my hair covering half my face, and me looking at the ground when I walk. My mother calls it “low self-esteem”, I call it “leave me alone, and no one gets hurt”. But you know you have those days, where it feels like someone is watching you, following you, breathing down your neck. That was today, the eerie feeling of someone stalking me, I turned around I saw this boy with dyed black hair. He was wearing tight black jeans, with an “Atreyu” band tee. Normally I would have told him off, or at least swore a little, but he was different. I mean when I had a fixed glare on him, he didn’t just look away... he stared back. Even though it was only a 7.2-second stare, it seemed to last hours, as if the world had just stopped then and there. The person who broke me out of the trance was Brittany, “Hey Mel… Melody? Helloooooo? Anyone there?”
“WHAT! Gawd you people annoy me.” I said frantically but with a smile.
“WHATEVER! Ooh I see you have met Andy”
I cannot believe how much she changes the subject!
“Who? Oh him… yeah… no! I was just staring at him.” I mumbled under my breath.
“Well lemme formally introduce you guys. Andrew! C’mon over here, there is someone I want you to meet.” I hope this isn’t another freak she is trying to hook me up with.
“Andrew, this is my best bud, Melody. But just call her Mel… sounds more hardcore” she one of those giggles like when someone in the classroom farts during a big test.
“And Mel, this is Andrew; he was my best guy friend before I met you. Oh, wow! Look at the time… I gotta go see Ms. Jewels. See ya later!” she bolted into the school like a bat out of heck. By the way, if you are wondering who this wonderful sounding “Ms. Jewels” is, she is our guidance consular/social worker at the school. She is helping Brittney and me “get better”, but we are not sick… just different. We love wearing out of style retro if you will, we worship the color black, we both love the same music (scream-o, emo, indie, and so on). We are just devoted to being different, and stand out and make a statement.

“So, are you… umm…emo…” I cut him off before he could finish that offensive judgment.
“Don’t you dare talk to me! And, for the record I am not “emo”…” air quotes are awesome “I am just different!” I spun around so rapidly I think I got whiplash, but Andy did not want me to go. He grabbed my messenger bag, and pulled me back to face him.
“What is with you?! Why can’t I talk to you?” he had such a strong, bold tone.
“You wouldn’t understand...you just wouldn’t…” I looked down to my feet after saying this, and he let his grasp go.
“Why wouldn’t I understand…?” I looked up into his eyes; they looked so affectionate, so kind and caring. Just as I was about to pour out my heart and soul, the school bell rang. I bolted into school and headed for first hour.



The next couple of days I avoided Andrew, not because I did not want to see him, but because I could not stand looking into his eyes. Nevertheless, by Friday, I could not get him out of my mind, so instead of writing him a note saying how much I and how I am kind crushing on him. In addition, how I can’t get him out of my mind. Somehow, I think he knew, like he could read my mind. I got a text from him, I replied, so did he, and so on. Here is everything that was sent in the conversation.

Time: 8:30 am

To: Andy
Message: meet me at lunch. I wanna talk. ^_^
---------------------------------------
Time: 8:35 am

To: Mel
Message: srry. I have a meeting. Do u wanna meet after skewl?
---------------------------------------
Time: 8:38 am

To: Andy
Message: ooh. Well I think tht’ll work.
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Time: 8:40 am

To: Mel
Message: kewl sounds like a plan... cyl baby girl!
---------------------------------------Time: 8:45

To: Andy
Message: … okay. TT4N!



Hmm…“Baby girl”… I like the sound of that! ............

I kept thinking about this all day, and what would happen. In the middle of a lecture from Ms. Jewels about how bad our (Brittney’s and my) grades are. And how we need to make this year count since we are going to graduate next year, blah blah blah, I started to think about what it would be like to kiss him. What it would be like to have his arms around me, holding me tight, saving me from the danger of the real world.


“Miss Roberts, are you listening, our time is almost up. And you haven’t said a word” I looked up at Ms. Jewels, and shook my head, and glanced at Brittney. I looked over to the clock, times up, I stood up and walked out of her office with Brittney following.


“What was that about?” she asked, me being dumbfounded, could only reply huh. “ You know the whole face thing. Like you were daydreaming… about something…” I looked over to her and started to blush, which you could easily tell cause of my pale skin. “… or SOMEONE!” she smiled, as I turned look to the ground with my bright-cherry-tomato-red face. “c’mon, tell me who it is! Please pretty please, pretty please with sugar on top…” I didn’t look at her, she was just making a scene, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “… I’ll even put a cherry on top!” then she gave me that puppy-dog-pout.

“Fine… I like a boy. Here at school an…an…and he is new.” I told her what I knew, besides his name.

“Umm… who is it? Name-wise here, please! Wait… Oh My Gawd. Is it Andrew?” I cannot believe it took her this long to figure out; he is the only new boy this year. Nevertheless, all I did was turn to my locker and start stuffing my bag full of books.

“IT IS ANDREW! OH, MY GOWD! That’s so cute! Does he like you back, do you want me to find ou…” she is roaring this in my ear. But, all I do is cover her mouth with my hand, close my locker, and lead her into the girls’ bathroom. I told her everything, I let her read the text messages, and I explained how we were meeting in just a few minutes. Her jaw-dropped mouth turned into a smirk, as I stopped talking. We left the bathroom, and headed to my, what Brittney would call, “Knight in Black Armor”.

Walking down the halls of the school are like being on death row, every stairway seems to never end. It’s as if time was going by so slowly and everyone was watching me. My stomach is in knots, my breathing is heavy and it feels as if my heart is going to burst out of my chest. I can picture him now, standing there… waiting…wanting. Wanting something I don’t have, something I will never find. As all these thoughts race through my head, I can feel Brittney digging her nails into my skin, because she is nervous for me. She is nervous with me, and has we march down the last hallway her deathlike-grasp loosens, for she knows in a few more steps I am on my own. Gawd I hope Brittney does not start crying, she’s acting like I am getting married. But, hey, maybe I am…wait what am I thinking. I am a junior; I can’t even begin to think about marriage.


Those few steps seem to take hours, but walking away from Brittney to continue on my own, seems to take centuries. Nonetheless, I know I cannot hide from this, from him. I need to keep walking; I need to keep taking deep breaths. Because there he is; leaning against his locker. I try to dodge the glances of people looking at me, looking at him, looking at the earth. No one in this school has ever seen me go gaga for a boy. I wonder what they are all thinking; most importantly, I wonder what he is thinking. I mean sure he is not the most popular person in school, but he has a ton of friends who are girls. Then I wonder what does that make me? Am I just another one of his friends? Oh, god I hope not.


Half way down the green mile walk, Andrew sees me. I look at him; I look at his eyes. They are shining like the moon and a clear summer’s eve. The next thing I know he has his arm around my waist, and I cannot breathe. Its not that I am nervous, it’s just that no guy or girl has ever given me attention like this before. We walked to the neighborhood park. We are alone, at least for the time being.

The worst spy I have ever seen was Brittney. When we sat down, and I could see her little head popping out of the bushes behind Andrew. She knew I saw her, so she came out. Nevertheless, she started making kissy faces, and pretending to make out. It made me laugh hard that I snorted. Then my face turned bright red ‘cause Andrew saw what happened. I was embarrassed at how I snorted, but he said it was cute. Yet, I still wanted to get back at Brittney, so I got up from my bench and tackled her. Now we were laughing so hard, and we could see Jason move toward us. However, we couldn’t get up, because of us laughing chaotically and because of the fact that we are entangled in each other. Andrew helped Brittney up, and then he helped me. Grabbing my hands and pulling me close to him. So close that I could smell the spearmint coming from his gum. Brittney knew this was her time to leave. I watched her depart back facing us. Never looking back. I turned back to Andrew, looking in his eyes, and then it happened. I kissed him. It felt as like the first time I met him, the earth had almost stopped. It felt so right. Like it was meant to happen. When I realized what I just did, and was doing, I pulled away. I took a step back and looked at his face. He looked stunned.
“I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t mean to. Its just I couldn’t help myself… an… and I’ve been wanting to do that all day.” I looked to the ground while saying this. I tried so hard to keep the tears from running down my face. Yet, I couldn’t. They came, and they burned. Like acid rain drops, from the window to my heard and soul.
I felt him move closer, he took my hand in his. With his other hand, he lifted my face up and wiped away the single tear that was falling.
“Why be sorry? I like you, Melody. I like you a lot … and I wanted to kiss you too. It’s just that I was afraid you would feel weird, and not like me anymore.” Hearing this made me smile. Andrew kissed me ever so softly, and just like that, my bittersweet tears vanished.

I’m not sure when it happened… but we ended up at the beach. Andrew and I, just watching the sunset. The purple and pink sky, the waves crashing against the shore, looks so much like a painting in a fairy tale. Where the perfect princess falls in love with the perfect prince. This is what I felt like. Everything was tranquil and perfect. While he walked me home, hand in hand. I think about what has happened. I met him as friends only four hours ago, and now I am walking home with him as a boyfriend. When we reached my house, and said goodnight. I kissed him again.

“Thank you…” I whispered.
“What for?” he said it so softly.
“Everything…” I kissed him again, and turned around into the house.

I watched through the window as he left. I took out a pen and my notebook, and wrote a song for him. Therefore, he knows how much he means to me. I doubt that I will ever give it to him… but it’s nice to know I have something to remember him by. Tonight I am going to dream, sweet… sweet dreams.