At home in May, my mom is getting pretty serious about Michael, and my grandmother starts having more trouble with her breathing. She’d had three heart attacks in the last year and a half. She was on a breathing machine type thing. So I get the news that, hey, guess what? I’m going to get to move to Austin, Texas. In two weeks.

We were gonna move so that my grandmother’s breathing would get better. Her doctor told her that a lower altitude would be better on her than the thin, high altitude Ruidoso had.

I told my friends, and Kira gets a big idea that she’s gonna get William to go out with me, since I only have two weeks left in town. The day I told her I was moving (Monday), she went up to William and asked if he’d go out with me. I freaked out, not believing that she could actually do that to me, and walked away. That’s my way of dealing with that kind of shit. Walking away.

Of course, as I’m walking, she yells out "He said yes!" That didn’t make me stop walking, though. I went on inside, for about five minutes until she came after me and made me go back outside, all the while telling me how stupid I looked walking away.

When we got back outside, and back to where he is (suddenly everyone else is gone except him and his best friend, Jason - surprise!) and Kira is like, "Well?" or something. So he asks, "Do you want to go out?"

The only thing I could think of was, "Sure." (Kira got mad at me later for saying just ‘sure’. She said something along the lines of, "Is ‘sure’ all you could say? You’ve been wanting to go out with him for months and you can just say ‘sure’. You could try to be a little more enthusiastic".)

On the way inside, the bell rang right after he asked, Kira said, "You guys are going out! Hold hands or something!" She’s muttering things like, "I am not going to be telling you two what to do the entire time you’re dating, you know." Blah, blah, blah. She never shuts up.

So yea, we walked together to my class, but not really holding hands or anything. I mean, I did feel kind of weird. It really was weird that I was ‘going out’ with him, or whatever. I’d liked him for a while, and I normally never actually get to date any of the people I like.

On the bus that day, I sat with him, which I never did, because he’s very picky about his seat. He gets the back seat, and never lets anyone sit with him. So I guess that I shouldn’t have been surprised when Josh asked if we were going out. Which also made us both slightly uncomfortable because we knew what to answer, but didn’t know how, I suppose. So instead of having a straight answer, I asked where he heard that. That’s normally what I do when I don’t want to answer something right away.

So tell me if you know the answer or not:

Who told Josh?
A. The Gossip Girls who never shut up
B. Josh’s math teacher, Mr. Wall
C. Josh’s best friend, Jon
D. Kira

Hmm . . . if you guessed D, then, you’re right! I don’t know how she gets those little bits of information about me into her conversations. It’s crazy. So after Josh answered my question, which I had hoped he wouldn’t, William told him that, yes, we were going out. Just hearing him actually say that, made my feel so great.

But like always, my peaceful little start of a relationship was struck by disaster (that sounds like it came right out of a cheesy novel). I get home that day, and I find out, hey, I heard my mother wrong. I don’t have two weeks left in Ruidoso. I only have one week.

The next day (Tuesday), I get to school, and in the morning, I told Kira about how I had to leave sooner than I had originally thought. She was devastated, but we agreed that we needed to get some film, and take a lot of pictures so that we could have lots of pictures. (Because, you know, that’s what film is for. Pictures.)

Some were going to be for my friends, some for just people I wanted to remember, and some for me and William. Because damn, dat boy be fine! I only actually got a couple of him, because I didn’t really want to set him down, and be like, ‘Can I get some pictures of you?" So Kira had taken my camera from me, and we were all walking down to our spot, and he was holding me from behind like he did normally, and she was like, "Hey. Stop so I can get your picture, you guys." So she got at least one picture.

That day during lunch, we were all sitting by the tree, and these cops came by and was talking to us, even though we didn’t want to talk to them because all my friends wanted to smoke. While we were talking to the cops, William made this comment about Texans. "The only thing in Texas, are queers and steers." I gave him this really ugly look, and hit him in his gut. I remarked, "I’m from Texas, bitch!" Everyone around us found that quite funny, and made several comments, like, "Ooh, that’s your girlfriend!" or "She called you bitch."

I remember the fourth day (Thursday) pretty well. He’d followed me to second period, even though his class wasn’t by mine. I thought it was pretty sweet. I guess little things like that I find more endearing than those romantic long dates. And during lunch, Wendy had her car, so me, her, William and Kira went out. I suggested that we stop by my little brother’s school since it wasn’t exactly far away, but Kira and Wendy were both like, "NO!" because Chip, my brother, is a major brat.

So we swung by my house, so I could grab something, and then at the end of lunch we went back to the school. Wendy asked if either of us could miss the last couple of periods of the day, and both of us were like, ‘Yeah," but Kira said no. So we got to the school, and Wendy talked to a couple of people, and I suggested that we leave, and she told me, "No way. I’m not going to be you two’s chauffeur."

So she got Carlos Ontiveros to come with us. He’s really cool. Once, when Kira rode home on our bus, I got him to talk to ‘Fred’ my portable tape recorder that I take places with me. He’s really cool like that. On the bus Tuesday, he’d talked to it for a long time. Every time he started he’d say "It’s Round 2." Or "It’s round 3." To show that he’d been gone for a few minutes, and that he was back again. Here’s a short snippet of what he said:

Carlos: "Okay. I’m back again and it’s Round 4 I think. Yea. And Kira’s over here trying to be all Miss America. Yea. She’s lookin’ at me like she wants me. But yea, I could see how she wants me. But Flora is getting jealous. Erica’s gonna beat . . . someone’s ass. I don’t know, ‘cause, like, she didn’t get none last night from Juero. And then Anthony’s over there trying to be bad and bust a knack on . . . uh, what’s Wyndham’s girlfriend’s name?"

Kira: "Jailyn."

Carlos: "Jailyn. So Wyndham’s gonna have to beat Anthony’s ass. So Kira’s all like Miss America, and Wyndham’s gonna have to beat Anthony’s ass ‘cause of that, ‘cause he ain’t getting shit. But it’s okay. And Kira’s all over here trying to be bad like she gets everybody. Yea. We know she got Juero, too. Yea, but, I don’t know. There’s some blonde dude up there that Kira wants to rape. She always gets off with him. Yea, like, really gets off with him. I give up on Randy. I can’t think of anything to say about him no more."

Kira: "Why don’t you rag on Emily?"

Carlos: "Yea, Emily, man. She just look good everyday. Like, the prom queen and shit. She be here. I’d have to tear her up, too, but it’s okay."

Kira: "No, that’s what William’s for."

Carlos: "We need to hook Randy up with someone but Emily’s already taken, so I guess she’s out of the picture. Now. I guess fucking Patterson, I guess Patterson wasn’t even in the picture. So, Emily’s like, Emily disowned Patterson, so I don’t know."

And the next morning, he talked on ‘Fred’, too. Here’s another little bit, mainly about William.

Carlos: "And then, look at this. Over here with Willy! Willy Wonka over here puffin’ on this damn wannabe light cigarette. Tryin’ to be a bad ass. Tryin’ to be a pimp. This motherfucker, I’m gonna have to beat his ass, gonna have to dick slap his ass. But it’s all good."

William: "I’m gonna dick slap your ass, dude."

Carlos: "I’m gonna shove my dick down your throat. Willy’s all over here tryin’ to be bad. He’s tryin’ to be pimp. ‘Cause, like, I don’t know. Yea, ‘cause like Willy’s over here goin’ out with Emily. And Willy don’t even know how to give her a kiss good-bye. He’s a wannabe pimp."

But, anyway, I'm getting farther and farther away from the present, and more into the past. We got Carlos to come with us so that way, it wouldn’t be Wendy driving me and William around. I guess that she wanted someone to talk to, too. I didn’t really see the big deal. As Carlos had said, William and I hadn’t even kissed yet, so it wasn’t as if we’d be making out in the back seat the entire time.

So we went cruising around, Carlos talking to ‘Fred’ almost the entire time. We went to this deserted park, and sat there for a while, and Carlos and Wendy went off to go do something, and left us alone. I know why she did it. To get us to finally kiss. So did we? Make a wild guess . . .

Chapter Three . . . . . . Chapter Five

See all of my friends! Now you can know what Kira, and the rest look like. (oh hurray.)