A Little Too Much

Chapter 1

Fall 2015

First day of class at Franklin P. Sullivan high school in a little nothing town in New Hampshire. Nobody even knows the name of our town except longtime citizens of NH. The craziest thing about this high school was that over 200 students went to it. People think that New Hampshire has 200 people in it, but no we actually have much more than that. Approximately, there are 1.3 million people living in the state. But approximately two thousand live in this town. The town itself is small, but the county only services one high school and that happens to be Franklin, named after the dude who gave billions to fund the building of the school. The ironic thing about it all is that the town is named Franklin because of the rich dude who paid for basically everything.

 Then he died and nobody really misses him, apparently he was snobbish or something, but I mean really, does he think he owns this town? (I laughed really hard in my head while writing this go with it).

 So people all around my town go to this school, including my exclusive long time crush, Steven Harris. He is heart eyes, double tap, expand picture cute. Popularity isn't a real competition in Franklin because everyone in their own way is popular. There isn't domination or cliques. Everyone just kind of keeps to themselves. Steven Harris kept to himself, he had five friends total, and that friend list did not include me. Sadly. Girls in Franklin ranged, but mostly every girl respected each other. I had a total of 10 friends, but I didn't consider any of them my close personal friend. I had my dog for that. Maxi, she was a very loyal half wolf, half huskie puppy. I got her for my 17th birthday a couple months ago, she's now 6 months and growing so rapidly I almost give up on buying her a collar. Everyone in my neighborhood/town know she's my dog. And everyone who is (FINALLY) a senior in Franklin has grown up together.

 So I've known Steven since I was in kindergarten, his family moved here from New York (not NYC). I think I fell in love with Stevie (his nickname in elementary--middle school) in the 3rd grade when we were assigned a science project together. He wooed me with his charming tooth-gap and silly jokes. After the project we stayed friends. Stevie became my best friend all throughout elementary school; he watched movies with me, ate food with me, read books with me, organized my shoes with me, and did pretty much everything with me. Every memory I could recall had a glimmer of Stevie on it. Of course now, he pretends I don't exist. 

Our separation happened around the transition from 9th grade high school to 10th grade high school (theres a HUGE difference). He started hanging with guys who didn't take kindly to guys who had girl best friends. They started filling his head with this garbage that if he had a girl best friend that he would never find a decent girlfriend. Stevie broke my heart when he went to the 10th grade dance without me... he said that I needed to branch out and find my own friends. Of course he tried to be the good guy and stay in contact with me, outside of school of course. I wasn't allowed to be near him during school hours or anywhere in public just in case those losers came around and teased Stevie. Stevie slowly disappeared from my life. He became Steven to me. 

Stevie felt too personal. 

After that whole separation occurred, I found new friends. I didn't really like them as much as I had liked Steven, but I was really determined to not have another close best friend. So instead I befriended a couple of people and I smile and exchange friendly "hello's" to people in the hall, but not to Steven Harris or his group of bandits. So, it was finally my senior year, Stevens too, and I felt really good when the alarm buzzed and I woke up. My hair was a tragedy and desperately needed to be flat ironed, but I didn't want to waste my arm strength. Having curly hair really isn't a blessing. My mom has the same unruly hair I do so when I complain she just points to her mop of hair and makes a noise that can only be described as a donkey sitting on a cactus. I ran into my moms room and demanded she do that cool thingy she does with her hair and rub some magic potion curly hair stuff all up in it. She complied after I promised to give her a massage when I got home (I crossed my fingers behind my back). I really do blame her for every crappy feature I have. 

My mom likes to joke and say I am a carbon copy of my dad to which I point at my hair and all jokes cease. She named me Isabella Monet, but I always went by Bella, Moni, or Isamo (what my mom calls me when she's too lazy to say my whole name). 

 I'm not really one for clothes or for making a fuss, it's only high school, there really is no need to be so obsessed, but today seemed mildly important so I slipped on a school appropriate sun dress with a cardigan to hide my "enticing shoulders". It probably took me more time to decide on my shoes than anything else, but I went with my trusty old white converse. I looked like a 14 year old, but a very cute 14 year old. Steven would've approved. I shook the thought from my mind, it's really hard to not think about what someone who meant a lot in your life would think. I would really know about that.

"Alright mom I'm outtie" I yelled from the door, a car horn seducing me into my friends car.

"Bye sweet!" I shuddered slightly, I despised that name because Steven used to use it too. The door rattled behind me and I ran to the yellow bug that held my group of friends.

"FIRST DAY OF THE LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL!" they screamed as I got into the car, "geez you guys, calm down its only our senior year" I winked. The thought of going into that school was throwing me off, I knew I shouldn't be nervous but I really was nervous. This was it, the last year I would see Steven, the last year dealing with a small town, and the last time I would trudge through another year.