S T A T I C
shane/mitchie/nate~

-

new story. :)

it's not exactly a certain drama. it's meant to be insightful. not overly dramatic, not overly angsty, not overly fluffy. it's supposed to be real life.

-

chapter one:
extraordinarily ordinary

-

My life is not extraordinary.

I live in Wyckoff, New Jersey, in a quaint little suburban home. My parents, Steve and Connie Torres, are caring and loving, albeit a little clueless. My older brother Charley is nice and respectful, but then again, he's 21 and off at college and I don't really know what he does. I go to a normal high school, and even though I'm not the smartest girl in the class of 2011, I make decent grades.

This is absolutely nothing wrong with my life.

And yet, it seems like everything is wrong.

-

"Nate Gray was totally staring at you during Bio," my best friend Caitlyn – Caity – Gellar grins at me during lunch.

"I didn't notice," I shrug, even though I could feel his eyes boring holes into me.

"You're such a liar," Caity rolls her eyes and steals a bite of my chocolate case. Caity's always complaining about how she has to stay in shape for dance – and, of course, eating my cake is the best way to do this.

"Look, Caity, Nate and I had a thing over the summer, but it's over now," I sigh.

"That's BS and you know it!" Caity insists through a mouthful of cake. "His scrawny ass still makes your heart skip a beat and don't even try to deny it, Mitchie Liz."

I look up at her and blink. "Chew with your mouth closed, Caity."

Caity is quirky and beautiful and sort of androgynous in a way, but out-spoken and brash at times. She doesn't frown, because she says it's better to laugh and play, and she wears leggings and tunics the color of highlighters.

I kind of love everything about her.

Caity laughs loudly, and flicks my braid. "You've been telling me that since we were ten, M."

I'm prepared to respond when Nate Gray walks to our table, his hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes averted at Caity (which, in case you didn't know, is NOT at me).

"Hey Caitlyn," Nate flashes an easy smile at my best friend, and she shrugs at my response as she mooches more of my cake. My heart does skip a beat when he smiles. But it would be skipping two beats if he'd only smile at ME.

"Need something, Nate?" I ask him.

Nate turns to me, and blushes slightly. Even though he's one of the most popular guys in our grade (simply because he's a "nice kid" as my mom says), he's hopelessly shy. Sort of like me. Except I'm not popular.

"Yeah, Mitchie," he says quietly. "Listen, I know we had something over the summer. And I just wanted to clarify, you know...we're cool, right?"

We're cool, right?

My mouth gets dry, and I swallow a little. I can't look him in the eye as I say, "Yeah, um, sure. Totally."

"Thanks, Mitchie," he says.

And then he walks away. He's so beautiful and perfect and wonderful and I can remember how soft his lips felt against my cheeks and my jaw and my neck.

"Mitchie? Woohoo...Earth to Michelle...come in, Michelle..."

I snap out of my reverie, and see Caity's hand waving in front of my face.

"Sorry, Caity. I spaced for a minute," I shrug and open up my carton of milk. The school's milk is always too watery, and tastes a little like paint remover, but I drink it anyways. It's either watery milk or well-water.

"You mean thinking about Nate," Caity corrected me. "Look, Mitchie, he's cute and everything but that little stunt he just pulled proves my point that no matter how nice or polite any of the Gray boys seem, they're all douches."

I laugh a little, because it's probably somewhat true.

There's three Gray brothers. Jason, Shane, and Nate. Jason's a senior that I don't know but Caity swears is pretty cute, Shane's a junior that I see in the hallways but don't personally know, and there's Nate, a sophomore like me and Caity. Nate never talks about his brothers – Caity's explanation is that "they must be made of fail or some shit, unlike Hottie-McShottie-Body-Like-A-Maserati."

To which I responded, "You've never even seen Nate's body."

Caity and I finish our (technically my) lunch just as the bell rings. I don't feel full – I'm actually still starving – but the wonderful world of Geometry calls.

My shoulder bumps Nate's on my way out of the crowd and it starts to tingle and burn.

Caity gives me a knowing look.

My only thought is: I hate myself.

-

When I get home, I get on the computer to check a blog I read, written by a person named Hangnails. Hangnails is anonymous; I don't even know what gender they are, though I'm thinking girl, because the person's always talking about how they want to find 'the one'.

They're cynical but romantic and angry but broken and I don't even know the person but I think I'm in love with them.

The entry for today is different than usual, not about school or romance or music.

Entry: You're Born and then You Die
Location: Hell, aka, my house
Current Music: Silence

You ever felt like the whole damn world would just be a better place if you'd never been born?

Because that I'm feeling right about now. And nothing's making me feel better. Not music, not writing, not screaming at the top of my lungs how much I hate everyone and everything.

Wow. How fucking emo do I sound.

H.

For a minute, I can feel their anger seeping out of the computer monitor.

How fucking emo do I sound.

I want to yell, "Yes! I get it! I understand you!" but I know I can't. Hangnails is so...so. I want to be best friends with them. I do. I want to be that lover they long for so badly. I can just tell they're beautiful, from the things they wrong. They're beautiful in a broken way, silently screaming to be fixed, not in the perfect, Nate way.

And it's at that moment that I realize that I'm in love with a guy who asked me if 'we're cool' after a whirlwind summer romance, and an Internet enigma I don't even know.

Pathetic, Mitchie.

-

in case you're curious, these chapters ARE meant to be short. i hate LONG, DRAWN-OUT chapters to be honest with you. and plus i honestly run out of things to write about.

real life isn't drawn out. i don't want you guys to have to read through 3,000 words of nothing but mitchie at school being bored. :-/

please review with more than "so cute" or "i loved it/ud soon!", thnx!