teenage dirtbag (4*TOWN)

chapter one

August 30th. The last day of summer break, the last day of sleeping in and staying up all night. The last day of spending hours at the skate park, blasting punk rock through an old-school boombox without a care in the world.

It's the last day that he has before he has to face the world again, and Aaron Torres is going to take advantage of that.

"Alright, I'm leaving!"

Aaron shouts to his mom from the bottom of the stairs, picking up his skateboard and heading for the door. He can't even get two steps outside before one of his sisters stops him.

"Woah, woah. Where are you going, you dork?"

Veronica punches her younger brother's shoulder playfully, leaning against the house's brick wall. Aaron rolls his eyes.

"I'm trying to get to the skate park before it's too late. So if you would excuse me..."

Aaron pushes past his sister, setting his board down on the sidewalk. Before he leaves, Veronica calls out to him.

"Aaron!"

"Ugh, what?"

"I'm headed to the mall for some last minute back to school shopping. When you're done skating with your loser friends, you should stop by."

Veronica smiles, and Aaron nods before skating off.

"Sounds good, hermosa!"

As Aaron skates down the sidewalk, he speeds up going past a certain house. What's so significant about this house, you ask? Well, it's where Aaron Zimmerman lives. Everyone at school calls him Z, and Aaron has been crushing on him since the third grade.

Aaron is finally past the house, thank god. Inside, Z's mother catches a glimpse of him through the window.

"Oh, honey, look! Your friend Aaron just passed by, isn't that nice? You should go say hi to him!"

She looks to her son, who's avoiding eye contact with her.

"Uh... I was actually about to... clean my room."

He lies, scratching the back of his head. To no one's knowledge, Z has been crushing on the other Aaron for just as long.

"Oh. Well, I wouldn't want to keep you from that."

"Heh... yeah."

Z sprints up to his room, immediately pushing back his window's curtains to try and see Aaron. He only sees a glimpse of him as he turns the corner. Z sighs and sits on his bed.

At the skate park, Aaron sees a few other guys. Guys that he skates with all the time, but never bothered to learn the names of. Except for Jesse, that is. He was always friendlier and less intimidating, despite his jet black dyed hair and face full of piercings.

"Hey, Aaron!"

Jesse waves, getting up to greet his friend. The other guys say their hellos, but mostly just ignore him.

"'Sup, Jesse?"

They fist bump, and Aaron wastes no time in jumping back on his board and diving into action. One of the other guys put on the radio, turning the volume up so the music rings out through the entire area. Joan Jett's Cherry Bomb is playing, and everything's perfect. Aaron's glad he got his fun in before the next day, which would inevitably be... hell.