--Twilight--

Rating: PG-13 for drug references, alcohol use, and some language

Disclaimer: I do not own Lizzie McGuire. Though I do so hope to own a Lizzie McGuire box set! Hah.

Author's Note: Miranda-centric and based on several months of planning and contemplation. I have worked oh so hard on this, I can't even tell you. I hope it is enjoyed. Reviews are muchos appreciated. Kisses.

o o o o o o o

She liked poetry and older boys and rallying against the evils of the Republican party. I liked shopping and Josh Hartnett and rallying against the evils of algebra homework. While I was still stuck on Christina Aguilera and strawberry lip gloss, she was collecting Joni Mitchell on vinyl and getting her first tattoo. She smoked cigarettes, drank black coffee, didn't eat meat. She wholly embodied the phrase "elitist bitch." We were living on two separate planets, and I never expected my relationship with her to go any further than the single occasion when I'd begged her to let me use her punch bowl for my first boy/girl party.

But then high school came. Everything changed, all bets were off.

It wasn't her fault, though. People liked to say that the reason I changed was that she was a bad influence on me. That I fell in with the wrong crowd, that I was just an innocent victim of peer pressure. But those people were wrong. I don't exactly know myself how it all happened, but I know that it wasn't any one person's fault. I mean, that's life. Sometimes it throws people together, sometimes it tears them apart. We were all just caught up in its current.

It was a Thursday, seventh period, in the second week of my freshman year of high school, and I was dying a slow, painful death. The air conditioner in our classroom was broken, and I was struggling to breathe in the thick late August heat. Beads of sweat rolled lethargically down my neck and into the folds of my black t-shirt. My chin was resting on my arms and I fought to keep my eyes open as my English teacher Mrs. Fauxman crept through her lecture in a mind-numbingly dull monotone. She may as well have been speaking German, because I didn't hear a word she said. School had only just gone back in session, and already I was accustomed to the exhausting routine and counting down the days until summer vacation. My eyes continually flicked towards the black and white clock on the wall, desperate for the hands to move to 3:15. I was buried in a lukewarm hazy tedium. My head was ready to explode.

A sudden giggle from the back corner of the room caught my attention. I looked back and saw Lizzie facing the desk behind her. She and another girl were laughing quietly as they scribbled notes to each other with neon gel pens. I recognized the other girl's face, having seen her in class for two weeks, but her name was a mystery. I had never spoken so much as two words to her before, and somehow she had managed to become incredibly good friends with Lizzie. Everyone seemed to want to be friends with Lizzie lately. That was a little difficult for me to comprehend, as I wasn't used to sharing her with anyone other than Gordo.

I didn't feel like looking at Lizzie and her nameless friend any longer. I turned my head and on the other side of the room I noted Eli Saxon, fast asleep. This kid was a walking definition of creepy. You could never really pinpoint what it was that made him so bizzarre, though. The only any evidence anyone really had was the day he'd eaten his shoes back in seventh grade. He wandered the halls in his own little world, popping Starburst like speed and occasionally bothering people with off-beat comments. I wrinkled my nose as I watched him, his mouth hanging wide open and releasing a steady stream of drool onto the desk. Buried within in his monstrous tangled mass of sandy brown hair was a pair of headphones. Vaguely, I could hear the drums and bassline of the music. I laughed silently at the sight, and wondered if there was anyone who was actually paying even the slightest attention to Fauxman's lesson.

A hand shot up in the desk in front of me. "Mrs. Fauxman, I completely disagree," said the nasally, ever-obnoxious voice of Parker McKenzie. I loathed that voice with the fire of a thousand suns. She had such a dull, arrogant tone that made you think she was perpetually bored and unimpressed with the world around her.

Mrs. Fauxman exhaled with tired impatience, as if maybe she'd been hoping that no one really cared enough to make her think about the lesson she was teaching. Heaven forbid. "Disagree with what, Miss..." She paused for a moment and racked her brain. Finally she gave up and peered down at her roll for the answer. "...McKenzie?"

"With all of it. I think Schuller's completely wrong about human nature and this story is a crock of... well, it's a blemish on humanity to say the least."

"Well, dear, that's a very interesting observation," the teacher replied in carefully calculated syllables, though the drowsy glaze over her eyes suggested that there was nothing interesting about it at all. "But whether or not you agree with the author's theme isn't what we're focusing on here. We're simply examining the use of allegory and symbolism." This seemed to settle the matter as far as Fauxman was concerned, and she looked like she was about to pick up the lesson again. But Parker cut her off.

"Yes, but my point is, we shouldn't even be reading this story to begin with. It's a piece of Nazi, white-power propaganda and I think it's ridiculous that we're being forced to read this in a public school."

Mrs. Fauxman just kind of stared at her with an expression stuck somewhere between stunned and exhausted. It was a look that asked, "Why are you even bothering to argue?" I was wondering the same thing myself. What did it matter what they made us read? How was this possibly worth arguing over? What was she trying to prove? Who was she trying to impress? All I could think of was how insanely hot it was, and how long the minutes seemed to be stretching out, and how someone could possibly have the energy at this point to care, let alone argue.

"Well, I'm sorry, Miss McKenzie, but the curriculum isn't up for debate. You can take your views to the principle, if you wish."

Mrs. Fauxman continued the lecture. Parker sighed in defeat and rather angrily flipped her hair to one side. I had a sneaking suspicion that she might have actually kept at it, but it was, after all, too damn hot to bother.

Her bare neck was now visible directly in front of me, as well as patches of back and shoulder that her tank top revealed. I noticed that not only was this the first time I'd ever seen Parker wear anything as risque as a tank top, but at the base of her neck, just slightly to the left, was the most remarkable thing. I was a little bit skeptical, but I could have sworn it was... a tattoo. I squinted my eyes and examined it more closely. Sure enough, glittering with beads of sweat, there was a decorative purple moon etched into her skin. My imagination began to race as I wonder how in the world someone as uptight as Parker McKenzie had ever gotten a tattoo.

I was so intrigued by the interesting addition to Parker's neck that I hardly noticed time finally catching up to me. The bell rang it's tone of sweet release and I immediately jumped up to start packing away my books. In my hurry, I knocked my khaki messenger bag over, emptying the contents all over the floor beneath my desk. I growled in frustration; it was just too hot for this to happen at the end of my day. I dropped reluctantly to my knees with a tired sigh and began tossing things back into the bag as everyone else around me hurried towards the door. I looked up and saw Lizzie with Nameless Girl, waiting with anxious impatience on their faces. Nameless turned to Lizzie with a disappointed look on her face.

"We'd better hurry," she said, trying to pretend like I couldn't hear her. "We don't want to show up late for warm-ups."

Lizzie bit her lip and looked over at me, the dirk on the floor picking up her spilled bag. "Miranda, we have to go. Is that okay?"

"Sure," I replied, in my most supportive-best-friend voice, although they were already out the door before I even opened my mouth.

By the time I finished getting my things back in order, the room was empty except for Mrs. Fauxman, writing tomorrow's assignment on the board, and Parker, who was flicking Eli's ear to wake him up. He shook awake rather uneasily and looked around the room in a daze. With an unreasonably heavy sigh, I lifted my bag and slung it over my shoulder.

"Ouch, Sanchez," Parker said to me as she waited for Eli to pack up his stuff. "Burn much?"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, Parker."

Eli was finished, and now he, too, was looking at me with an unnerving curiosity. "Must suck now that Lizzie's Miss Popular."

"She has cheerleading try-outs," I snapped, while wondering to myself why I was bothering to be so defensive. "If she's late they count off on her scores."

Parker and Eli exchanged a knowing glance before breaking out into laughter and walking towards the door. I tried not to let it show but even I realized how lame it sounded when it was put that way: Lizzie had ditched me for the sake of cheerleading. I hoped I wasn't blushing.

"Are you coming over today?" Eli asked her as they were leaving.

Parker shrugged. "I don't know. My mom wants me to clean my room or something. Which is stupid, when you think about it, because my room is immaculate compared to Maddy's, and I haven't seen Mom nagging her about cleaning..." They were now deeply engaged in their own issues, and had forgotten all about their brief encounter with me. I almost would have rather stayed there and argued with Parker than be left alone. I tucked a small chunk of black hair behind my ear and sighed again as I left the room.

The commons area was tightly packed with circles of friends chatting excitedly, all in high spirits now that the school day was over. I looked around for a familiar face, but most of them were unknown to me. Our high school contained all the students who'd come from three middle schools other than my own. It was enormous and over-crowded and intimidating.

"Gordo!" I called across the commons to my shaggy-headed friend. He look slightly misplaced in the circle of boys he was standing with. They were all tall, bulky guys with calculated "flippy hair," dressed in khaki and Polo and pooka shells. Gordo, in contrast, was short and thin and wearing his too-small thrift store t-shirt. He wasn't really saying anything, but he smiled and laughed politely as they conversed.

He turned to me and smiled. "Hey, Miranda," he said. No one else in the circle even acknowledged me.

"Are you riding the bus?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Actually, I was thinking I'd stick around and watch the cheerleading try-outs."

Three months earlier, those words couldn't have been anything other than sarcastic coming out of Gordo's mouth. Three months earlier, he would have been making fun of these guys from a distance, not hanging out with them and laughing at their jokes. Three months earlier... well, three months earlier we were living in a completely different universe.

"Oh." I dropped my eyes and tugged nervously on the strap of my messenger bag.

He gave me a look. "You're not going?"

I hadn't really thought about it. The idea sounded about as appealing as having my teeth pulled, but then again, if I was a good friend I would have been there for moral support. "I... I don't think I can. I didn't tell my mom about it, and she'll probably freak if I'm not home on time."

Gordo nodded, but in a way that was doubtful rather than understanding. "All right then. Lizzie's probably going to be disappointed if you're not there, though."

"I doubt it," I muttered lowly.

He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry. Tell Lizzie I'm really, really sorry. I'd better go before I miss my bus."

We waved goodbye to each other and I left the loud, crowded commons.

The busride was long. I had no one to sit with. There were people I recognized, of course, but none of them I knew any better than acquaintances. None I truly cared to know as anything more than acquaintances. I pressed my forehead against the warm glass window and watched the quaint, colorful suburban houses as they flew by. I pictured Gordo in my head, next to Ethan Craft and Thomas Conner and all the other jock studs, grinning and cheering as Lizzie stepped up to do her routine.

Cheerleading had been an itch in Lizzie since... I don't know, forever. She was a cheerleader for Halloween from the ages of four to seven. The rest of the year she would dress up in her sparkly costume and watch football with her dad, jumping up and down in front of the TV with her little pink poms. Later, she learned to be more discreet. But the itch was still there, no matter how hard she tried to play it cool. Even after seventh grade, where she had faced utter rejection and humilation and sworn off cheerleading for good, she still had that look in her eyes. She wanted to pretend like she didn't care, but she did. She tried rhythmic gymnastics in seventh grade, joined the pep club in eighth. Just so she could have the next best thing. Knowing all this, I shouldn't have been too surprised when she decided to try out for the high school squad, especially since she'd started hanging out with Kate again. In fact, I should have been happy that she was going for something she wanted. It wasn't really even that big a deal. So I had to wonder, as I got off the bus and marched into my house, why it was bothering me so much.