When it Happens

Prologue

Warning: This book may include risky love scenes and explicit words in it.

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Ages before famous baseball player Nate Remington could be seen on my living room TV screen, he could be found sitting behind me in History class, the year being 1994.

All girls had their eyes on Nathaniel Remington when he was the new kid at our Catholic school. And later, it wasn't just girls. Baseball scouts.

And just like other teenagers in my grade, I find myself wanting to be closer and closer to him...

...Until I fall head over heels for him.

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Shannon DiLaupher has been my best friend since the third grade.

She had moved here from California (Shocking, I know. Who'd ever move from there?) to our town Walden, off the coast of Massachusetts.

It's a small town that sat on top of a cliff, with no actual beaches nearby within a two hour radius, unfortuantely. Not that it mattered, anyway. We only got to swim in the ocean in the summer, unless you were crazy to swim in the Atlantic ocean at any other time. I lived in a two-story cream wood-paneled house in one of Walden's more prominent middle-class suburbs. 

I remember the day our principal walked into our classroom that one day in second grade, accompanying her was a thin, blonde haired girl, missing her two bottom teeth. I had always loved it when we got a new kid in our class. I think it was just a part of my personality; I loved making new friends. However, I knew Shannon would be special. Turns out I was right.

"Class, this is Shannon DiLaupher. She will be in your class this year. Her family just moved here from San Francisco. Everybody, be kind and welcome her with open arms!"

San Francisco. Wow. Who in the right state of mind would move from a beautiful, lively city like that to our small, cozy town of Walden, Massachusetts? Don't get me wrong, I loved Walden. But I really didn't have anything to compare it to. I had only occasionally made it out to Boston to catch a baseball game with my dad. Other than that, I had been nowhere else in the country. 

I made it my school year goal to befriend her, which wasn't that hard to do. She was one of those people that was so easy to talk to. That day at lunch, I invited her to sit at my table, along with a few other girls who I'm no longer that close to now since they go to the public high school in town. "What's your name?" She asked me as we got settled at the table, her bright green eyes peering into my blue ones. 

I hesitated. A little shy, I answered, "Vivian." Don't get me wrong, I always thought Vivian was a beautiful name. But I was always at the end of the line whenever teachers lined their students up in alphabetical order by the first name, and I hated that. I was a pretty competitive girl back in the day, and I always wanted to be first. You could say I thought I was the hot shit around elementary school. That couldn't have been farther from the truth.

"That's my cousins' name," she said with a smile, and that made me feel a little bit better about it. She peered down at my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which my mother had cut in half, and looked back up at me. "You going to eat the other half of that?" I shook my head no, handed her the half, and the rest was history.

She was the new girl, and everybody wanted to be friends with her. She was just a fun person to be around. Shannon was loud, flamboyant, bubbly, and drop-dead gorgeous. All those attributes helped her rise in the popularity spectrum at school.

After talking to Shannon more, I had learned that she had moved only two houses down from me! It was so exciting having a real best friend. I had some friends that I talked to at school, but none I was really all that close with. I was no introvert, but I had my insecurities that hindered me from fully being myself at that young age. I never had that one friend you see in all the movies to share secrets with or do blind makeovers with. Until Shannon.

At that time, I was going through my tomboy phase. I mean, it's not as though I was dressing like a total guy. I just would have much rather have played wiffle ball in the streets with my dad and little brother and the older kids that lived in our neighborhood than playing dollies in my room. One look at Shannon and I could tell that at the time, we were complete opposites. The more we hung out, the more and more I started to act less like a boy, and more like an actual girl. She introduced me to some awesome TV shows and movies and is responsible for some of my childhood crushes (John Travolta could get it.) 

The longer she was in Walden, the more she got popular. By sixth grade, she was deemed "the most popular girl at our school," me being a close second, probably just by being best friends with her. How stupid does that sound looking back at it? Grade school just had the most horrible standards.

Sixth grade was the year of crushes, poofy hair, crushes, neon clothes (the year was 1988, if that tells you anything), and especially crushes. Jimmy Gray was easily named the cutest guy in our grade, and I had started to have feelings for him. I remember telling him about them, and he told me, "You would be a really pretty girl, you know."

I was heartbroken, but that didn't stop me. I told Shannon what happened, and she helped me with my Great Transformation. She showed me how I can make my naturally wavy brown hair into the new style (the frizzier the better, she told me.) We went on a major shopping trip that my mother had thankfully agreed on helping me pay for, and we bought make-up along the way. The next day at school, you couldn't tell who the old me was.

And, in fact, two days later I kissed Jimmy Gray.

I remember that day like it was yesterday because there was another important event that happened that day.

That was the day my father, my biggest hero, died in a car crash.

I got the news after I came home from Jimmy's house. My mother sat me down, tears running down her face, and broke it to me. I cried for days, and later, I found out that the crash was his fault. He was the one drinking and driving.

The reality was that my father was a mess. He was a great man, don't get me wrong, but from stories my mother told me, he wasn't a pretty man drunk. Luckily, in my youth, I never witnessed him wasted, to my knowledge. If he was, he did a pretty damn good job hiding it from me and my little brother Bobby.

My Great Transformation wasn't the only thing kids were whispering about in the hallway. My father was mentioned in the conversations too.

I remember asking God why he did this to me. Why he planned for dad to become an alcoholic, and why he planned for him to die so suddenly and at such a young age of 36. My prayers were always left unanswered.

Moving on to a more brighter note, high school was coming up, and most of the kids from my public middle school were enrolling in the all-prestigious Saint Agnes Catholic school, including Shannon. I remember being so bummed the first day of freshman year. Uniforms? Really? Nice touch, whoever thought that idea up.

1993 was the year when frizz started going down, and girls were starting to blow dry their hair straight, and also the year when we only used house phones and had to read to look up information. Yeah. Try and imagine that 21st century kids. 1993 was the last year I would ever have a first day of school at St. Agnes. 1993 was the year everything would change.

But now, at the start of senior year, I felt myself wanting to stay in high school forever. Especially the day Nathaniel Remington turned my life upside down. 

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