The next couple of days went by slowly. I couldn't ever remember being this bored, or this depressed. My grades went up despite of how I was feeling.
Courtney hadn't talked to me since that morning I "embarassed" her, I guess that hard head of hers finally learned something. But now that I was beginning to realize that I wasn't going to get any of my friends back, I missed how we used to hang out.
I closed my door and turned up the radio full blast when I heard an old time favorite of mine. I picked up my hairbrush and started singing everywhere in my room, but mostly on my bed. I had turned into a mad woman!
I had it all,
But I let it slip away,
Couldn't see I treated you wrong,
Now I wonder around feeling down and cold,
Trying to believe that you're gone.
Love takes time,
To heal when youre hurting so much,
Couldn't see that I was blind,
To let you go ,
I cant escape the pain inside,
'Cause love takes time,
I dont wanna be here,
I dont wanna be here alone.
Loosing my mind,
From this hollow in my heart,
Suddenly I'm so incomplete,
Lord im needing you now,
Tell me how to stop the rain,
Tears are falling down endlessly.
It was somewhere around when I was repeating the chorus again when I was standing in front of my full length mirror singing in tune with my radio. I jumped about a mile when an old time friend of mine came in singing with me.
I just stood there watching her, completely surprised at her appearance.
"Courtney! What....what are you doing here?" I turned my radio off when the song was over and I had laughed enough on the inside at her performance.
"Oh, I just came by to model my new outfit for you." I laughed and looked at her. She was wearing an exact replica of the outfit I had on about a week ago. She was surprised seeing me like that! I was even more surprised at her!
"What is this?"
"What? I think I look perfectly fine the way I am! And if you don't like it, you can go piss up a flag pole!"
"Courtney, I'm sorry."
"I'm even more sorry. We've been drifting apart lately, and I know why, I understand why. And...I know I can't turn back time and change how it went, but maybe we can prevent it from happening again."
"Okay, so what does this mean? I mean, what...how have you changed Courtney? How!"
"I have, answer me this. Would the old Courtney wear something like this? Something comfortable beyond belief? I swear! I like baggy clothes, and tennis shoes, and even atletic gear! It's actually pretty cool." I couldn't believe she was saying this! She definitly had changed.
"So, you wanna give it a shot? Ya know...at doing normal kid stuff, and doing normal friend things? Like, sleepovers, fat fests, pillow fights, and all that other pointless crap that we'll have fun doing?" she nodded and I sat down on my bed. "What happened to me? One day I was wearing pigtails, chasing Nick around with my body covered from head to toe in mud and now I'm-"
"You used to do that? I thought you were always like this."
"Ha! I don't even wish."
"I used to do that stuff too. Yep, in California with this annoying little brat and her brother, he was like 4 years older than me, but I still had the biggest crush on him!"
"What made you change?" I asked.
"Amanda, it's kinda hard for me to talk about, if you can understand that."
"Definitly. So how about we have a sleepover, here, tonight, and we can give each other quizes and we can bug your brother!" I said changing the subject.
"Mandy, you sure?"
"Yeah! What do best-friends do if they don't do that!"
"I dunno!" We laughed and she called her mother to ask if she could spend the night. Her mom said yes and the night was set right after I got permission from my mom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Okay, here's a good quiz! Is your best-friend the one that you know best? We'll just have to see!"
"Alright, let's make a bet on it Amanda."
"Huh? With what? Money? Like we have any of that!"
"No, but our parents have plenty!" I rolled my eyes at Courtney and looked at her again while she continued.
"How 'bout we make a little consequence thing."
"Okay, example."
"Like if I know you better than you know me, you have to run naked through your entire house."
"Okay, but Courtney, that one is off limits! Here," I took out a notepad and tore off two sheets. Write down what you want me to do on your sheet, and I'll write down what I want yout to do. That way, we can't change it, and we can't cheat."
I thought and thought and thought, and after I had changed it about ten times, I had the perfect one.
Courtney had chosen mine at about the same time I did, and by the smile on her face, I didn't wanna lose this bet.
"Okay, get out your markers, and let's begin. Question one, what is their favorite song." I had to think a few, but I remembered it was some lame song by some lame group, so that's what I wrote down.
The questions continued on like that and pretty soon we were down to the last question, and as I looked over my paper, I was beginning to get skeptical about ever agreeing to her bet.
"Number 10," I said aloud. "What is his or her's most embarassing moment?" I figured it was the time I had slapped her across her cheek. Even if I got that question wrong, she couldn't possibly know mine! It was way back when......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Amanda?" I heard my mother call. "Nick's outside asking if you can come out to play."
"Okay mom!" I ran full speed down the stairs to find out what we were gonna be doing today. Whether it was something exciting, or plain old sitting and staring, I didn't care as long as I was with him.
"Hey Nick."
"Mandy, guess what? I got this new dog, and I want you to see him. C'mon! I'll race you back to my house!" That's all it took to set me off running. I loved to run, it just gave me such a good feeling to know I could run faster than most kids my age. But with Nick, it was different everytime.
We finally tied at the end, and agreed we needed some water after we checked out the dog.
"Neat Nick! It's one of them....dogs!"
"Yeah, I don't know what they're called either." We laughed and started petting him.
"Mom, we're gonna take him for a walk okay?"
"Be careful Nick, don't let him run out in the street either, oh and don't go to far!" Jane said. We hurridly returned outside and we started walking around the neighborhood. After awhile I was getting bored watching him hog the dog, and making me trail after.
"Nick, can I walk him?"
"No, you're just a girl. You'll lose him."
"No I won't Nick, please?"
"Un uh." We argued back and forth, back and forth, and finally I snatched the leash out of his hands. The dog didn't protest, I guess because that's when he saw the cat.
"Lucky, go get her Lucky!" Then on the idiots command, the dog took off. He started running as fast as he could go with me attached to the end of it.
He drug me along and I glanced back at Nick once or twice to see him laughing as I weaved in and out of peoples yards. Then came the family.
I had no idea who they were, I had never seen them in my entire life, but they were walking along the side of the road, my side of the road.
Lucky continued chasing the cat and he darted between the family, knocking over a little girl. I couldn't apologize, just try to stop the dog!
"Young lady, I know who your father is! You better watch it kid because next time I pass your house, I'm telling her what you and that....that mutt did!" Well I kept on running with the dog, trying to make out the woman's sentence, but all I could make out was the fact she called Lucky a mutt. I knew that pissed Nick off.
I finally slowed him down to a complete stop and turned around to find that idiot! But I couldn't see him.Then all of a sudden, I saw Nick bounding the corner at full speed telling me to run! Huh? I was asking why but then Lucky took off again, and I had to as well.
It turned out Nick had done something to that family and their Halloween decorations that I got blamed for. The woman hadn't been lying at all and she did know my family. She ended up telling my mother the entire story, and even exaggerating to extreme measures! I could've killed her!
Then my mother made me apologize to the Hunters, Nick, and his family! I had never been so humilited in my life!
~~~~~~~~~~~
I snapped back to reality as Courtney waved her hand in front of my face.
"Earth to Amanda!"
"Shut-up!" I said teasingly and slapping her arm.
"Now don't go and hit me again! Let's tally up, together, no cheating." The first couple of easy questions were right, but as we went down the list for the longer answers, we started cracking up!
"Courtney, oh my gosh! You think my best day was let's see here...and I quote, 'when you did Nick in the back seat of yo mamma's car'!" I started cracking up and so did she. Then she hit me upside of my head with my pillow and told me to shut-up.
"I couldn't think of anything so why not make it fun while we could! At least I didn't put 'smoking crack at the White House!'" We had another fit of laughter.
"I was thinking the same thing as you! For real though, let's total up, and see who the loser is." It turned out Courtney had 7 of mine right, and I had only 2 of hers!
"Fine, so I don't have as good of a memory as you do! Doesn't mean I'm a bad friend!"
"Think again Amanda! That's not what this thing says!"
"Screw the thing! Let's go pick out some scary movie to watch as we go to bed." I tried to get up and leave but Courtney knew what I was up to and pulled me back down again.
"Sister, you gotta do your task! I think you're gonna love it!"
"Noooo, I don't wanna!" I sat back down and leaned against the bed. I knew she wasn't gonna let me get away with it. A deal's a deal.
"Now let's see, I believe this dare is mine." She handed me the sheet of paper. I slowly opened it and read my destination. I gasped as I found out what I had to do.
