“More like you either hit the ‘snooze’ button ten times or just flat out turned it off,” Hayden Callahan, the driver of the little black convertible, teased with a smile, his eyes hidden by black-mirrored sunglasses.
“Yeah, something like that. And then my mom started yellin’ at me about breakfast and that was a ten-minute ordeal…” she sighed as she pulled the sun visor. She needed the mirror to do her make-up.
Taylor and Hayden had been best friends since the second grade. It was then that the Callahan family had moved into the empty half of the duplex where the Kelso’s lived. Though the duo had been inseparable for years, to see them together was always a shock to anyone who didn’t know them, as they were complete opposites.
Taylor was eighteen years old and what everyone would label as a ‘Goth’. She wore dark make-up, dark clothes, and listened to ‘dark’ music. Her hair was very long, falling down her back, and dyed to a dramatic jet black. Her skin was a perfect ‘peaches and cream’ color and her eyes were an unbelievable bright blue. Though very petite with a mere five two-inch stature, she had womanly curves, which she loved to flaunt in low cut tee shirts and low rise jeans. Taylor was the rebel of the two. The one that would come home hours past curfew (if she came home at all), and even went as far as getting a tattoo (a scorpion between her shoulder blades), a tongue ring and an eyebrow ring at the age of sixteen when her parents threatened to disown her if she did it (they hadn’t).
Hayden, on the other hand, was seventeen and the poster child for the Preppy Culture. A clean-cut athlete and Dean’s list student, he stood six foot one inch with short, messy, sandy blonde hair. His deep blue eyes and ‘million dollar’ smile made him of the most sought-after boys in their high school. He followed the rules, planned everything, and stayed out of trouble as much as possible.
“Why do you wear all that make-up?” Hayden glanced over at his friend as she applied a thick line of black liner around her eyes. “You do realize, don’t you, that you look a million times better without it?”
“I wear my make-up for the same reason your half-wit girlfriend wears short skirts and waves around pom-poms. It’s just who I am,” Taylor replied simply.
He shook his head and laughed lightly, “You just can’t get past the fact that Natalie is a cheerleader, can you?”
“Noooo…I can’t get past the fact that you’d actually want to date a cheerleader. And not just any cheerleader, mind you, but the dumbest and nastiest of all cheerleaders.”
Hayden sighed. “Listen, I know you two don’t get along,”
“That’s and understatement,” Taylor muttered under her breath.
“But can you please just attempt to be civil? For me? I’m begging you, Taylor,” he continued, ignoring her comment.
“Whatever.”
They pulled into the school parking lot and parked the car.
“How much longer until we graduate?” Taylor groaned, grabbing her bag and getting out of the car.
“Only a couple of more weeks, kid…hang in there,” he smiled.
The two walked inside together, chatting amiably, then split for their two separate groups of friends.
“Morning hunney,” Natalie Smith, Hayden’s sixteen year old girlfriend greeted with a smile and a squeal when she saw him.
“Hey Sunshine,” he smiled back, giving her a quick kiss.
Across the hallway, Taylor was joining her group of friends—the less popular crew that mainly kept to themselves. And liked it that way.
“I don’t know what Hayden sees in that moron…honestly,” Brooklynn Farrell crinkled her nose in disgust as she watched the quick but obvious display of affection between her friend and ‘The Cheerleader’.
“I agree completely, but it’s his choice. All we can do is warn him and hope that he will eventually realize that The Cheerleader is an evil being that must be discarded quickly,” Taylor nodded with a small shrug.
Brooklynn was Taylor’s other best friend. She, like Taylor, was eighteen years old, but that was where the physical similarities ended. She had shoulder length, dark brown curls and big, deep brown eyes. She had the most perfect smile known to man, and towered over Taylor standing five foot seven. She was the kind of girl that demanded attention when she entered a room without ever saying a word—she was that stunning to look at.
“I need a cigarette…” Taylor sighed, leaning against the wall.
“No you don’t…you can wait until you get home,” Sam Mullholand replied, joining his friends. He hooked his arm around Taylor’s waist, then kissed her cheek.
“When you weren’t here already, I though that maybe you’d decided to take a personal day,” she laced her fingers with his.
“Nah…I was just doing a little business before class, that’s all,” he replied with a smile.
Sam and Taylor had been together since the two were sophomores in high school. They met in theater class and the rest, as they say, is history. He was good-looking, in a dark and mysterious kind of way. He, like his girlfriend, was a ‘Goth’, wearing dark clothes, listening to the ‘dark’ music, and appearing to everyone who bothered to look at him, completely unhappy with his existence. He was tall and lanky, with gray-blue eyes (which, more often than not, he defined with black liner) and a labret piercing. His spiky hair, though naturally a light blonde, was dyed to jet-black.
“Where’s Scott at?” Sam asked Brooklynn suddenly, noticing her boyfriend’s absence.
“Mental health day. He decided last night that he couldn’t work school into his schedule today and faked sick,” she answered. “I wish my mom would fall for that.”
A few minutes later, the late bell rang.
“DAMMIT!…Late again,” Taylor groaned, picking her bag up from the floor. “Bye kids,” she kissed Sam quickly and waved to Brooklynn, then ran down the hallway.
“Ms. Kelso. How nice of you to join us,” Mrs. Barker, an old hag of a woman who looked like she should’ve retired twenty years prior, greeted dryly as Taylor attempted to slyly take her seat in the back.
“My apologies, Mrs. Barker. My locker was jammed, and I was trying to get it open so that I could turn in my homework when the bell rang,” Taylor lied smoothly.
“I can vouch for that…I tried to help her earlier this morning,” Hayden jumped to her defense.
“And did you get your locker open, Ms. Kelso, and retrieve you homework?”
“No, ma’am…it’s still jammed shut,” Taylor answered, trying to sound disappointed and ashamed.
The woman just turned her back to the class and began to write on the board.
Stifling a giggle, Taylor mouthed ‘thank you’ to Hayden.
All he could do was wink in reply, as he too, was fighting the urge to laugh.
“Check out the freak show,” Gina Roberts, Natalie’s best friend, scoffed as Taylor and Sam entered the cafeteria hand-in-hand during their lunch period.
“I know. Can you believe that Hayden is actually friends with that girl? And that boy is his cousin…talk about swimming on the shallow end of the gene pool,” Natalie agreed in disgust.
“So, did you guys know that Halloween is over? Yeah, it’s May already,” Gina smiled sweetly as the couple went to pass her booth.
Sam chuckled, turning his attention to the girl. “I’d never expect something so moderately witty to come out of your mouth, Gina. Of course, up until now, I never thought you could put a full sentence together, either. Wow. The things one can learn in such a short period of time.”
“You know, you look…different…today,” Taylor added, biting her lip. “Oh, I know what it is…are you gaining weight? You better go back to the bulimia. It was doing wonders for your waistline.”
And with that, the couple walked away, leaving the pair of girls stupefied and embarrassed.
“Bitch,” Natalie muttered, glaring at Taylor’s back.