As our resident AV club nerd, some of Matt’s buddies had been put in charge of the principal’s latest lame attempt to be innovative. He’d gotten this idea in his head that this year’s welcome back assembly would involve a slideshow featuring all the incoming seniors in a “what I did last summer” presentation.
Lame.
Even lamer because if the principal were even half as innovative as he’d like to think, he would have realized that such a thing already existed in our world. It was called Instagram. If I’d wanted to see Julia Farrow and her fellow cheerleader friends taking selfies at the beach I’d be following them on social media.
I wasn’t, just like they weren’t following me and my friends. Because they didn’t care what we’d done this summer any more than I cared about what they’d been up to.
Of course, I had some idea, but not out of any sort of keen interest. Only because I happened to live next door to one of the pretty people. Jason Connolly—AKA star quarterback. AKA the school’s equivalent of Prince Freakin’ Charming. AKA the most popular guy in our class and one whose parents didn’t seem to care that their house and back patio were pretty much always overcrowded with the kind of people who either didn’t know I existed or who’d been making fun of me since junior high.
All of that I could handle. I mean, I didn’t love being mocked and ignored but it was to be expected. I knew where I fit in on the social totem pole at Grover High and I was fine with it. No, what really irritated me was Jason—the white-hat wearing knight himself. Why? Because he was so dang nice.
That doesn’t sound like much of a complaint, right? But it was. It drove me nuts, because he insisted on acting friendly to me, as if nothing had changed. As if we were still best buds who played in our backyards together and used walkie-talkies to communicate from our respective windows.
He acted like middle school and junior high never happened, like there was never a great divide as he became one of the pretty people and I became…well, I became a nerd. I didn’t mind my social status—in fact, I embraced it. I loved my friends, I couldn’t wait for my future, and unlike the pretty, mindless clones who followed Jason and Julia around the school like a flock of sheep, my outcast status allowed me to wear whatever I wanted, to say whatever I wanted, and to do whatever I dang-well pleased.
So no, I didn’t mind being Grover High’s resident band geek. What I minded was Jason’s obliviousness. What I hated was the way he seemed so incredibly ignorant to the fact that his friends were a bunch of grade-A meatheads and the girls who fawned all over him looked at me like I was an insect beneath their feet.
But then again, I guess it was easy to be oblivious to things like social status and the unfair divide that let him and his friends breeze through an idyllic high school experience while my friends and I watched from the sidelines.
I tried to shove aside all irritating thoughts of a certain sexy, smiling dirty-blond quarterback as I focused on my actual friends. The real friends who stuck by my side when the school divided itself up into the cool and the not cool, the pretty people and the geeks.
So yeah, I was over it. Mostly. But I could tell you right here and now—one of the best parts of going off to college?
Moving away from the boy next door.
To keep reading, check out Love at First Fight
About the Author
MAGGIE DALLEN IS a big city girl living in Montana. She writes romantic comedies in a range of genres including young adult, historical, contemporary, and fantasy. An unapologetic addict of all things romance, she loves to connect with fellow avid readers. Subscribe to her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bFEVsL
IG: Mag_Dallen
Facebook: facebook.com/MaggieDallenAuthor
Twitter: twitter.com/Mag_Dallen
Website: maggiedallen.com
Audible Love: A Young Adult Romance Page 19