WANNA BE YOURS - MISCHA BACHINSKI

CHAPTER 1: Tumblr Girls

August 21st, 2016

A summer to go down in the books as a memorable one, the best one yet for Senior Johanna Davidson. For most kids in Uranium City, Saskatchewan, Canada, life was monotonous. Living in such a small town was almost torture for dreamers alike. Uranium City was a place for realists, older hardworking people. Not teenagers who craved adventure and the taste of life outside of waking up, going to school, and coming home every single day. But Johanna Davidson had no complaints about her quaint town. Of course, she held some bias, being Uranium royalty and all. Johanna's father was the mayor of the small town, although he ran unopposed so he had been Mayor since Johanna was 11. There weren't enough people who cared about Uranium City the way the Blackwood family and Joseph Davidson did. The families were very close, only due to Johanna's late mother, Lillian, and Fiona Blackwood were dormmates in college and became best friends. But when Lillian passed away, the families dispersed as if they never hosted Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and even Valentine's Day at each other's households.

Johanna and Constance Blackwood were childhood friends. They made up their own dances, handshakes, songs, nicknames for each other, and all. Nothing could separate them, aside from their parents which was the unfortunate fate of their friendship. The two girls were still unaware of what was said that day in Mr. Davidson's office that caused the fallout, but whatever it was, it must've been pretty damn big to hold as much disdain that the two families held for each other. The last time Johanna and Constance had spoken to each other was in eighth grade in the hallway passing each other. Johanna had begun to blossom into a beautiful young lady, she was no longer the geeky theater kid who at every turn would make some obscure reference to a musical no one had heard of. And Constance was still... well, Constance. And when Constance had seen Johanna's change in appearance, she went slack-jawed. Mouth agape, Johanna looked her dead in the eyes and said, "Shut your mouth, you'll catch flies." and that was that.

Johanna found other friends... but not really. She had one friend, one real friend, Noel Gruber. Noel Gruber was not one to handle stupidity very well, which is why everyone was so surprised by the pairing of the two. But Noel Gruber knew something no one else did, Johanna was by no means an idiot. She was the opposite, she just pretended to be an airhead so that the people around her didn't expect much from her. It was her fucked up coping mechanism. She felt if everyone perceived her as this helpless, dim-witted bimbo then no one would think too much about who she was or what she'd been through. Not that she had been through anything absolutely traumatic aside from her mother's passing, but she just didn't want to talk about it. Not even Noel knew the circumstances surrounding the death of Lillian Davidson. Johanna and Noel would sit up in Johanna's room, watching foreign art films and silent films. Studying poetry in other languages that Johanna would translate for Noel. She was fluent in at least eight.

The summer going into her senior year, Johanna really took on that airheaded persona she had grown to love and did everything that was deemed a bad idea. She attended chaotic ragers where she'd get blackout drunk, she'd smoke marijuana at the many bonfires hosted by the various athletes who also had money to supply. She flirted with everyone, and by everyone, she flirted with everyone. Boy, girl, the in-betweeners as they were referred to as in the small municipality, old people, and people her age. It was playful flirting, nothing meaningful. But by doing so, she had built herself a reputation for being a "tease" or a "slut". Not that she cared, she had no intentions of settling down with anyone from Uranium City, or even settling down in Uranium City for that matter. She and Noel had a plan to travel across Europe and experience the things that the foreign films they'd watched over and over again romanticized.

When she wasn't partying or doing anything her mother would've deemed disappointing, she and Noel were driving around in her brand new white jeep while blasting Lana Del Rey, Marina and the Diamonds, Panic! At the Disco, and anything else that was popular on Tumblr at the time. And although the summer had officially ended as of that Monday morning, Johanna still sped down the winding road with her bass boosted on her way to Noels' house. Compared to Johanna's residence, Noel's house was a sight for sore eyes. Noel didn't grow up privileged like how Johanna did. Not money-wise anyway. It had gotten so bad that Noel had gotten a job at Taco Bell in the mega mall just outside of Uranium City. And god, was it so embarrassing to him. In petty arguments, that fact was thrown in Noel's face, and in return, he'd say something along the lines of "Yeah? Well, your mom's dead." and then they'd both laugh and hug.