Girl Next Door

TAYLOR

It always is the same story. You see it in junior high, you see it in high school, and then you see it when you get to college but with a different name. The popular kids, the ruling class, the sororities and fraternities. Who gets to be Queen Bee, who gets the designer glasses, the perfect skin and hair…? It’s always the same. You see it on TV; it stares at you from big billboards.

So then you’d think, maybe it’s not so bad, right? I mean, if they can be like that, so can you. Well… not in my dictionary, no it’s not possible. And so, on that note, one of those boring days for me started…Again.

“Taylor McKenzie Edwards!” the shrill voice of someone came into my room and pierced through my skull. It was my mother, of course – no other human being in this world was capable of attaining such a high….screech, to say the least, on the face of this earth.

“You’ll be late for class!” she called out again as I rolled out of bed.

“Seriously, mother – must you make such a scene every time you have to call for me?” I said, my voice was all grave and I felt groggy. This was one of the moments when I felt that, by our providence, maybe god would reverse time and kill every single person that had to do with the invention of school before this happened. Maybe that way I wouldn’t have to wake up at this ungodly hour.

As if reading my mind, my mother walked into the room and looked at me with a stern face. “It’s 7:12 AM, Kenzie! It’s getting late!” I couldn’t help but sigh at this.

“Fine, mom,” I said. This would be one of those long, long days, I told myself. I walked into the bathroom next door and avoided the mirror. While I was busy brushing my teeth, I heard a loud thumping sound in my room. It startled me and sent not only my toothbrush flying but a whole uncapped bottle of Listerine.

Just my luck.

“Tay, Tay!”

“Ugh. What do you want, you moron?” I asked and shook my head, droplets of Listerine dripping from my already messed up hair. Great. Now I was going to be in school while my head smelled of Listerine.

“Today’s the try-outs for the cheerleading squad, aren’t you going to try out?”

I looked at Connor as if he had lost the bits of neurons that I assumed he had left within his miniscule brain. He looked back at me as if I had just been run over by a car while he waited for his answer. Not that I probably didn’t look like that… but the Listerine was his fault.

Oh, yes. First, let me introduce him. This is my brother Connor. He’s my oldest and most annoying brother, not to mention he’s the only one I have. He attends Green-Lake High School with me, but then again he is everything that I am not. He made it to the honor role ever since his freshman year, his grades were always A’s. He also is a football quarterback for the White Tigers, our school team; and he also happens to be one of the most incredibly hot and popular guys in our school.

This is our senior year, and I still am the shadow of Mr. Connor Ewards Jr., my brother. And then you’d ask, why would any girl with such a brother be any different? I mean, you would think that since he’s so gorgeous so I’d be the same way. And since he gets so good grades and we’re on the same class, I would too.

WRONG. All wrong. I’ve got the arts, he’s got the brains. He looks like my mother, I look like my father. No offense to my father, but manly characteristics on a girl is never great. And so my brother ended up with the blonde hair, blue eyes, tall graceful yet strong and athletic built. I got stuck with the horrid red hair, the freckles, the not-so-great height and I also ended up being slightly chubby.

If there’s one thing I like about me is my eyes, but that’s only because they’re green and freckled with yellow. They look great, and if I may say so myself, they are extremely gorgeous. I may fall in love with them one of these days. But that doesn’t mean that people notice.

You see, with glasses on, no one notices anything behind those horrid things. People say they make you look smart… I say they make you look like a martian.

“Well, so are you?!” he asked again. Leaning against the bathroom door frame he stared at me with intensity and a small smile on his lips.

“No.”

“But… Tay!” he whined. His whines never worked on me, but heck.

“Why, Connor?” I asked, getting irritated. The Listerine’s smell was going strong on my nostrils. “So that people could make fun of me?” I asked.

“But, wouldn’t you want to cheer for your beloved brother?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Connor asked stubbornly.

If there was one thing that ran in our veins was being stubborn. My mother was so, and my father even more. What do you get when you mate a stubborn man and a stubborn woman? You get offspring that could argue with a wall and win.

“You just feel scared,” he retorted in a childish manner.

“Scared of what?” I asked, “I just am not the kind of girl who would want to go around jumping like a kangaroo on drugs and screaming out ‘Oh yeah! Let’s go!’” I answered. Flailing my arms in the air, I gave him a demonstration of how silly this would be coming from me.

Then he smirked. And I hated it. He was planning something.

“You will.”
“Will not.”
“Will, too.”

“How are you so sure?” I asked, sighing in a melodramatic way. Maybe that’d make him go away somewhere.

“Because I have your journal…. And it says every single little secret you could ever have and, as of last night, I know them all.” My eyes went completely wide at his words.

“What are you trying to imply?” I asked and he just chuckled.

“That if you do not try out, I will let this little book-like... thingy of yours, fall into the right hands, dear sister.”

“You mean the wrong hands,” I said in a smart-assy kind of way.

“No, I mean the right hands,” he said and sighed.. there he was, ready to prove me dumb. “You see, if I ever said your secrets to people, they’d probably think I’m off-my-rocket mad and that I’m probably just jesting, after all you’re my sister…. But imagine if this ever fell into the hands of one of the cheerleaders.”

“BLACKMAIL!” I cried out and he shrugged and went away, snickering.

“You have…” he checked his wrist watch, “exactly 4 hours to show up there, go get your pom poms!”

Why would the kid have to be so infuriating?! I could call mother and tell her, yes... but what would I gain from it? Of course, Connor was always right... I hated blackmail, I hated my writing every single thing onto a journal, and I definitely hated Connor Edwards with all my might right now.

And then it hit me…

“Oh my god! What if they found out about my secret obsession?!”

I couldn’t let that happen. No, there was no way in the world they would ever find out I had a crush on James Lewis. Not only was he way out of my reach, but he was taken. And just as if on cue I heard my brother again.

“C’mon, hurry up! James doesn’t like people who make him wait!”

WHAT?! WHAT?! What the hell is wrong with you, Connor?! HOW COULD YOU?! I WILL TAKE YOUR BALLS AND CHOP THEM UP AND FEED THEM TO OUR DOG IF YOU EVER SHOWED THIS TO JAMES!

Of course... I never said this... but by God how I wanted to.

Well, so I guess that leaves me no option. I’ll go try out… yes, I’ll try out – and then I’ll take pleasure on killing my brother in every single way possible. But I’ll make it slow and painful…