Young Writers Society

“Mandi, do you want bacon?” Mom asked, pushing her brownish-blond hair over her shoulder.

“Yes, please,” I replied from my seat at the kitchen table. My eyes moved over what used to be her slender frame, before she got pregnant eight months ago. She is in excellent shape, and I can only hope to have a figure like that when I reach her age and have had three kids with one on the way.

Her brown eyes met mine, “You better hurry up if we’re going to head out to go shopping.”

“Mom, I have plans with Nick and his friends, remember?”

“Okay! Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Oh, and Mandi, remember that you have to do the dishes tonight and vacuum the house,” She said reminding me of my usual chores.

“I won’t forget about my chores and there’s no need for you to go I think I am going out with Nina and Carissa later this week,” Then, seeing the sad, upset look on her face, I quickly added, “but we could have a girls night out one night, just the two of us.”

Nina and Carissa were my two best friends. We have been friends ever since we were little, our families were extremely close, but once my father left our families grew further and further apart.

Then her face got all happy. I was happy to see that look on her face. Since my dad left I hadn’t seen it very often.

“Mom! I need money!” Briana said in her normal, rudely manner.

“Okay sweetie.”

“Don’t call me sweetie!” she said, as she looked up just to get the money then quickly averted her blue eyes away from my mom.

I watched my older sister storm out from the room and rolled my eyes. I don't know how my mother ever puts up with her. Bri and I aren't the best of friends. I love her and all, but there are days I can't put up with her rudeness and impatience. We were complete opposites, our only resemblance being the sandy color of our hair.

“Mom? I'm going out with Jake tonight.” Heather said, as she appeared from the basement, where she had been working out. She is always complaining that she needed more time to work out. Even though she works out for like two hours every day, which is why probably why she's a double zero with a belt fully tightened.

It wasn’t unusual for Heather to go out with Jake, her boyfriend. She was twenty-two now and has given me advice about boys, since we are really close. She is hoping he proposes one of these days. Not that she tells me, I just know it.

“Okay, have fun!” Mom said, pushed the plate of bacon towards me. I took three pieces.

“Oh, guys I'm gonna have to work tonight. I might not be home until later.” Mom added.

I nodded as I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter.

My mom, Sherri, is the owner of Laugh’s, a big indoor facility for kids to be kids.

It does very well. This is the job she uses to provide for the family. She misses my dad a ton even though she tries to hide it. I am not as easily fooled as the rest of my family. Briana doesn’t even care that my mom is in pain, she just keeps adding to my poor mothers stress.

Suddenly my phone buzzed. I looked down and saw a text from Nick.
‘Hey, John and my mom are going out tonight so if you want you can just come over here tomorrow. Love you, Nick.’

Nick is my boyfriend. He is like a best friend to me and he helps me through the good and bad times.

‘Ok, sounds good. Love you too,’ I texted him back as I walked up to my room, I heard the television blaring from the wall; where it hung. Beside it sat all my posters and pictures of my friends. I sat down on my fuzzy blue comforter and turned on my computer.

It is a huge, old, stone house and has lots of land in the back and front. There’s one passage from my room into another secret room. When I found it, it smelled like mold after spending hours cleaning it is now clean. I use it as my lounge.

As I logged onto Facebook, Marbles and Lucky, my two golden retrievers, came into my room and jumped onto my bed. We also have Boulder my orange tabby cat, who acted more as a dog than a cat, two Yorkshire terriers, Milo and Rover, two Maltese, Bear and Rocky, a brown tabby, Eliza, and another orange tabby, Whiskers.

“Mandi, dear. You father sent each of you girls a check do you want me to cash yours?” my mom said, as she walked by my room carrying a laundry basket, doing Bri’s chore for her. Ever since the divorce she has been afraid to yell at us, in fear of losing us, so she does our chores if we forget to do them. I always try to do my chores because I know how hard taking care of three daughters, being pregnant and working can be on my mom.

“Yes please. I'm going out later with everyone, want me to take it? I can cash it on the way. Nick is picking me up I'm sure he wouldn’t mind,” Thankfully Nick has been very supportive of everything. There have been many, many time where I have had to cancel the date because my mom wasn’t feeling good and someone at
Laugh’s couldn’t get to work their shift so I had to go in.

“That would be great, thanks. Oh, and I'm gonna work a little late tonight and Heather is out with Jake and God only knows what and where Bri is going so if you wanna invite Nick or someone over after the mall that would be fine,” she said heading downstairs to do Bri’s laundry.

I was on Facebook for all of five minutes before I was bored. The same couples that are always on-and-off-again were on or off and the same drama causing girls were posting about their drama filled lives. I shut my laptop and reached around for my remote, after a few seconds of searching I turned on the TV to the NHL network and was listening to them talk about illegal hits to the head while working on my math homework. I was relatively good at school, I kept up a 3.8 G.P.A and I had been recently accepted into my dream college, University of California San Diego only a few miles from the school I currently go to San Diego Prep, a private school near San Diego Zoo. All of my friends went there since all of our families except Nicks were wealthy, even his isn’t that poor they just aren’t as wealthy. Nick got into SDP with a scholarship, which I think is cool that he didn’t just get in by paying. Ever since his dad died when he was ten and his mom remarried to a guy named John, before we started dating, his family lost a lot of money. Since his dad was the big money maker. He doesn’t talk about his dad a lot but I know he misses him terribly just as I miss mine.

My father had owned the local restaurant around here and was extremely famous for his cooking. Eight months ago he got an offer to put his cooking on a TV show. The only catch was that he would have to move to Los Angeles, we all would have been more than willing to move with him, in fact that was the plan, until one day he just left without telling us. None of us wanted to chase after him so we just stayed here. Every month he sends us checks and a month after he left he sent us the checks as well as sending my mom a letter requesting a divorce, blindsiding us all. Briana was extremely close to my father so when he left she blamed my mom and started being even more annoying and rude than usual.

I was done with my math within ten or twenty minutes, thankfully that was the only homework I had due tomorrow. Since SDP did a block schedule I only had half of my classes each day which was extremely helpful. Taking one glance at myself in the mirror before I left for the mall I noticed the little imperfections that were always there, my oversized butt or my hair that gets frizzy way too easily. When I was little I had always wanted to be skinnier or have pin-straight hair, now though I love my imperfections. They make me who I am today.

When I saw the clock face read three forty, and Nick wasn’t picking me up until four fifteen, I decided to take a little nap.

When I opened my eyes and got up I saw Nick.

“Hello, beautiful. How was your nap?” he said leaning down giving me a quick
kiss. He was the shortest out of the guys in our group but he was still five inches taller than me at five foot eleven.

“What are you doing here?” I said, brushing my side bangs out of my eyes.

“I came to pick you up and your mom let me in, you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you up so I waited,”

“Ohmygod, I'm so sorry. I should’ve set my alarm, we are gonna be late,” I said putting my shoes on and heading towards the door.

“No need to rush, we still have a little bit of time I texted them and told them we would be a little late,” he said putting his hands in his worn out blue jean pockets

That was one of the things I loved about Nick. He didn’t care if things didn’t go as perfectly as they were supposed to; he just went along with it.

“I love you,” I said, really meaning it. We had been having a little rough patch lately but that didn’t mean that I didn’t think he was perfect for me still. Yeah, maybe he is a little to engrossed in football season sometimes or didn’t take things seriously sometimes but I still loved him. I loved how his brown hair fell perfectly on his head or how his blue eyes sparkle whenever he first sees me.

“I love you too,”

Walking down the stairs I yelled goodbye to my mom and walked outside and got into Nicks beat up blue pickup truck. He had saved up for two years to be able to get the truck, and I loved it. It was perfect for him.

We arrived at the dinner place just in time. We met up with everyone and went to our table.

“Why were you guys so late?” Austin asked, sliding into the booth beside Stephanie, his girlfriend of ten months.

“Sorry, I fell asleep and Nick had to wait for me,”

“Oh, is that all that went on?” the sarcastic obvious in Matt’s voice as he moved over a little so Megan, his girlfriend could sit down. Matt, Nick, and Austin were all best friends so that forced Steph, Megan, and I to hang out more than we regularly would. Honestly, I don’t like any of them. His friends are nice but are complete douche bags when they are around their girlfriends and the girls are complete sluts.

“Yes,” I said, looking over to the oblivious Nick. We were the only two in this group that hadn’t lost our virginity yet. Matt and Megan have been dating for a year and a half now but had been ‘friends with benefits’ for a few months prior to that. Megan would always come to my house and have Steph get her blond hair perfect for their dates with his bed. Austin and Steph at least waited until they were officially a couple. Three months into their relationship they lost theirs to each other.

“Honestly, just join the club already,” Matt said to Nick as he flipped his brown hair out of his bright blue eyes.

To that Nick chimed in, “Dude, drop it.”

“Mandi, didn’t you think that Mr. Obrien’s test was super hard?” Megan asked, her stupidity obvious.

“Um, actually no, I thought it was really easy, but that may just have been me,” I said, trying hard to be nice.

“Mandi, is really smart, tell them what you got on your state scores babe,” Nick said, unaware to the fact that being a nerd made me just an easier target to his friends. When we had started dating a eighteen months ago his friends weren’t as rude and ignorant as they are now. Now they are just unbearable and I hate going out with them, but I know if I'm not there then I will just be making myself an
easier target.

“Oh, those, I got a one thousand,” I said, nonchalantly hoping they wouldn’t know how good of a score that is.

“Oh, nerd” Austin mumbled under his breath.

Finally the waitress came and I ordered my salad with a diet coke. After three long, torturous hours of the boys talking about the new NHL rules with me occasionally chiming in, and the girls complaining about other sluts which I found really funny since they are bigger sluts than the poor girls they are talking about, the guys paid for their girlfriends we got to leave the restaurant. Nick and I said goodbye to his friends and their girlfriends and hopped in his car.

He drove a little bit and then pulled off onto a ditch, where no one would see us and started making out with me. At first it was like our normal make out sessions but then he started getting more touchy-feely, feeling my breasts and butt as his tongue was fully absorbed in my mouth. His hands went from my butt and breasts
to taking off my shirt and unbuttoning my jeans.

“Nick,” I said, backing away from him.

“C’mon, everyone else has,” he said, sounding like one of those cliché movie jerks as he continued to feel up my breasts and take off my jeans with his other hand.

“Nick! Stop! Now!” I screamed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened, I know you’re not ready, and neither am I. I'm sorry, I’ll just take you home,” he said looking away as I put on my pants and shirt.

“I thought we were going back to your place?” I asked, concerned he was changing the plans that we had made a while ago.

“I just didn’t know if you would still want to, considering,”

“No, of course I want to,” I said, as he turned on the car and pulled out of the ditch.

I turned on the radio to my favorite country station.

“How’d your mom’s doctor appointment go?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh, good. They said that the baby is doing fine and that everything looks great. She's due by the end of this month which is good because that is right when school ends so I’ll be able to help out without having to worry about school.”

“You’re mom must be glad that you are willing to help out, especially since she's gonna have to work and all.”

“Yeah, especially with Bri, who isn’t willing to help out one bit. My poor mother, I feel bad that she has to put up with her. So most of my summer will be spent just me and the baby, since my mom has to work so much,” I said trying to hide the fact that I was extremely upset with Bri for not being willing to help out. Heather has to work and go to college and be with Jake while Bri has nothing all she ever does is stay at home or go out yet she isn’t willing to watch the baby at all.

“Well I would be willing to help you if you needed help,” he said, the sympathy obvious in his voice.

“Yeah, well you always say that you will help or you will stop by and visit and you never do because of football or whatever so, I don’t wanna be counting on you,” I retorted as Nick pulled over into a vacated lot and put the car in park.

“Nick, what are you doing? Don’t stop the car again, please,”

“What were you talking about before? Lately all you do is complain about what I do and do not do, can’t you just be happy. Honestly, is it that hard? You drive me crazy too sometimes but I don’t flip out about it. Why? Because I love you and I know that I love the things you do more than I hate the few things you do. I know you’re stressed and all but please don’t take it out on me,” he said, making sure his blue eyes made direct contact with my brown eyes.

“I’m sorry. I do love you, I really do. It’s just with everything going on, and we haven’t exactly had time to just hang out the two of us, I don’t know what to do. I fell in love with a guy that always made time for just the two of us and now I don’t know what to think. The only time we ever get to hang out is with your friends and you know I don’t get along with them or their girlfriends. Us going to your place today will be the first time we have hung out one on one in like forever. You don’t get that I'm not ready for sex or that when your friends make fun of me it hurts, it’s even worse that you don’t stand up for me. I always have to hang out with your friends but you never have to hang out with mine, whenever I say we should hang out with him you just cancel on me with some stupid excuse. You used to always be there for me. I used to believe we were meant for each other, but now? Now I don’t know what to think or believe.” I said as a tear fell from my blue eyes and onto my bright pink v-neck.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said wiping the tear off from my cheek.

“Of course you don’t, you never ask about anything. All you ever talk about is your friends and their girlfriends and when we do hang out one-on-one you just talk about how we should have sex,” I said still crying. Reality is, I was ready for sex. I just wanted it to be more romantic for my first time. I didn’t want him to be pushing me to do it the first time, I wanted it to just happen.

“I’m sorry, I promise I’ll stop pressuring you, because I love you and if you aren’t ready I don’t wanna pressure you to. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me and I don’t wanna lose you. I'm sorry about my friends, I promise I’ll make more of an effort with your friends and stop forcing us to hang out with my friends, I know you hate their girlfriends and I do too. They are sluts but those are my best friends so I have to put up with them. Why don’t you call Nina and Carissa and invite them to my house tonight with their boyfriends. Are they still dating Luke and Zach?”

“Yeah they are still dating them. I’ll call them once we get to your house, if you ever get off the side of the road and drive,” I leaned over and gave him one kiss for the road.