-I wrote the following novel nearly two decades ago. In the years between then and now I've honed my craft, and my perception of this world; my thoughts and ideas; have changed dramatically. However, I still enjoy the premise and have decided to do an overhaul of revisions and rewrites, though likely not until sometime next year. (Though I'm sure I'll do a little as I post chapters)
For now I hope you will enjoy a glimpse into my book writing beginnings...
They are the closest of friends though they have never met in waking life.
Prologue-PT1 Prologue-PT2 Chapter 1
Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13
Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19
Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22
Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25
Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28
Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31
Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34
Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37
Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40
Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43
Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46
Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49
Chapter Fifty
Aliyah was completely unaware of what was happening to her good friend and was having an excellent week. It was Tuesday after school and she was finalizing her plans for the weekend while she waited for cross country practice to start. She would be going to her first dance on Friday, and because last year they had decided to move the eighth grade into the high school they were included in all high school activities. The dance would be from 8pm to 11pm, after which she would be spending the night at Amy’s.
“I have to change for practice,” Dave stated.
“I never used to understand why any woman would get into watching football until I saw you in that uniform,” she teased.
“I look good, don’t I?”
“Yes you do.”
“I still think you should quit running for fun and come cheer on your guy instead,” he grinned.
“Never happen.”
“But then you can have a sexy uniform too, short little skirt and all.”
She shook her head, “Rah Rah sisboomblahhh,” she stuck her finger in her mouth gagging, as she did every time he mentioned cheerleading.
“All right, all right. You could at least get those little black spandex shorts and order a one size too small jersey.”
“Oh yeah, that would be a fashion statement. This conversation is getting a bit too mature for me.”
“Hey, you started it.”
“I was just teasing!”
“Then so was I,” he grinned and gave her a peck on the mouth. “I’ll call you after dinner, okay?”
“I’ll be waiting breathlessly by the phone.”
“Uh huh,” he waved and headed to the locker room.
Amy came around the corner and hurried up to Aliyah, her face flushed with excitement. “Guess who just asked me to the dance.”
“Who?”
“Seriously, guess!”
Aliyah screwed up her face. “Well considering you seem ecstatic about it, when just yesterday you were saying you wouldn’t go with anyone because of Mike, I would have to say it must be Greg.” Greg was also on the football team, and Amy had had a crush on him since she moved upstate. He was good looking, not as cute as Dave, but close.
Amy was nodding emphatically. “Can you believe it?”
“Amy, your gorgeous, of course I can believe it.”
“Oh stop, I am not. But he is!”
“He and Dave have been hanging out quite a bit lately, if you start dating him we could become the fabulous four.”
“I know! Wouldn’t that be fun, we could double date!”
Aliyah laughed at her friend’s exuberance. “Then we could eventually have a double wedding, a double honeymoon, have babies at the same time, family barbecues…
Amy punched her in the arm. “Okay, I might be getting ahead of myself, but not that far ahead, jeeze. Besides that won’t work since you’ll be marrying dream guy, remember?”
Aliyah smiled faintly, wondering for the umpteenth time why she hadn’t dreamed of him in days. “We better get changed for practice.”
Practice was brutal. They were only in modified, so normally they didn’t run more than four miles in a day. Their first race would be the weekend after this one, a mile and a half long at a school an hour away. Today the coach decided they needed to add a little more distance so he dropped them off on a road seven miles from the school. He would be waiting at the halfway mark with some water. As usual Aliyah and Amy ran together, although Aliyah thought she could probably outrun her friend if she tried. When it was race time it was every man for themselves so she would see.
“Oh I forgot to tell you,” she said as they ran, “my grandma is moving into Verona Village sometime in January. Apparently my aunt has had enough and she feels its dad’s turn to live close to her.”
“Is she that bad?”
“Not to me, I think she’s great. She loves to read, she’s intelligent and cool. But to her kids she has always been a bit of a pain. For years now she and my dad have had a good relationship, but my aunt insists it’s only because he doesn’t live nearby. She says he’ll see. So I guess he will. But for me, Verona's right behind the school, I could get us permission to go their for lunch sometimes.” She had to stop talking and catch her breath, they’d been running for twenty minutes, roughly three miles.
“That would be fun, do you think she would be okay with a couple of boys coming too?”
Aliyah shrugged. "I'll have to ask her."
They finished their run thirty-five minutes later. Seven miles in a about an hour, not great, not terrible either. Of course they weren’t really pushing themselves. Either way, Aliyah was exhausted. They went straight to the locker room to wash their faces and change. They had about fifteen minutes before their parents arrived so they hurried out of the locker room and ran up to the football field to see if Dave was almost done.
They could see the players mulling around the sidelines and bleachers so they knew practice was over. She slowed down when she spotted Dave leaning against the bleachers talking to Carrie McCray. The shallow, phony cheerleader was flirting her head off, she kept hitting his arm and giggling. Dave looked…. How did he look? Like he was enjoying himself, that’s how.
Aliyah bit her lip, Stop that, she told herself, you’re not the jealous type. And she wasn’t, but she despised Carrie. A couple of years ago the stupid girl had put notes in her locker saying crap like “Come join us in the woods while we worship Satan”. It was extremely childish, some sort of attempt to poke fun of her beliefs. Carrie and Pamela Ann walked by her giggling for days until Aliyah confronted them outside the lunch room. They both claimed innocence but Aliyah destroyed them with words for about three minutes straight, telling them exactly who they were. The speech had invoked a lot of clapping from students standing close enough to hear. The injury to Carrie’s ego was so great that for the rest of the year she found every opportunity to belittle Aliyah no matter how stupid. Pamela had actually backed off, she was a mean spirited girl but she was also a coward. Carrie finally lost interest when she discovered boys, but from then on they had never spoken a word to each other.
Amy stood beside her watching with a big frown. “Ick, why would he give her the time of day, I can’t stand that horrible girl!”
Aliyah nodded. “Come on, let’s go wait for our mom’s.”
“No, no way, you go over there and step in between them. You’re not going to stand by while she flirts with him, she’s probably just doing it to get under your skin.”
Aliyah shook her head. “No, I don’t want to come off as the jealous girlfriend.” She was about to turn around when Dave noticed her and waved. She waved back but stayed where she was so he was forced to come to her.
Carrie watched him go smiling meanly at Aliyah who ignored her.
“Hey, how was practice?” Dave asked draping his arm around her shoulder.
“Long, we ran seven miles today.”
“That is precisely why I couldn’t be in that sport.”
“You guys run back and forth for hours everyday!”
“It’s not the same.”
“If you say so...did you have a nice chat with Carrie?”
He smiled guiltily. “She cornered me right after practice.”
“Cornered you.”
“Are you jealous?” he poked her jokingly.
“I despise her and you know that. Believe me, I do not care if you talk to other girls, even if they flirt with you, I would flirt with you if I wasn’t your girlfriend. But her, she’s probably mainly doing it to upset me.”
Dave nodded, “I’m sorry Aliyah, you’re right. I guess I was flattered, you know I’m not used to all of this female attention, no one gave me the time of day before.”
“That’s because you weren’t dressed right and most of the pretentious fakes in this school are about outside beauty, not inside.”
“I wasn’t dressed right?”
“Dave.”
“I know. I know I wasn’t. I changed my wardrobe and my hair for you, you know. I didn’t want you to get a hard time for dating a dork.”
“You have never been a dork. Well except for maybe five minutes ago.”
“You’re the only one for me Aliyah, next time Carrie approaches me I’ll be rude, would you be happy with that?”
“Yes, actually I would. It’s just her. You can even be nice to Pamela Ann, she’s not my favorite either but she doesn’t bother me in the same way. Pamela is mostly just insecure, Carrie is missing something in her soul.”
“Are you calling her a soulless Beotch?”
She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about her anymore, walk me to the parking lot.”
“You got it gorgeous." He looked around, “Where did Amy go?”
They looked around and spotted her coming around the bleachers with Greg.
“Oh yeah, Greg told me he asked her to the dance. He wanted to know if we could go somewhere afterward.”
“Hmm, eleven o’clock, I doubt Mrs. Hurnard would let us stay out later than that. But we could do something together on Saturday.”
“Good thinking.”
The other two caught up and they walked together to the parking lot. Her mom was already there so she waved goodbye and climbed in the passenger seat.
She talked about school, cross country and the dance all the way home.
“I was fourteen when I went to my first dance." Her mom said, "I remember it was very exciting. His name was Vinnie Delaluca. He was dressed in a white suit and he brought me a wrist corsage. I was wearing a brand new powder blue sundress, I felt so grown up.”
“Back then every dance was formal, huh?”
“Oh yes. Aren’t your dances formal?”
“Not until the homecoming, but I still wouldn’t mind dressing up a little. Dave won’t be picking me up though, or Dave’s dad I should say. Mrs. Hurnard’s dropping us off.”
“He will for the homecoming, won’t he?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure he would if I wanted him too.”
“Well I would like to take some pictures of that.”
“It’s not the prom, mom.”
“I know, that doesn’t mean I can’t take pictures. So you want to dress up a little for this one, do you need a new outfit?”
“If you want to buy me one I won’t protest.” Aliyah grinned.
“Sure sweetie, why don’t I pick you up from school early tomorrow, we’ll go out for lunch and do some shopping.”
“Yeah!”
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