What Happens in High School

Chapter One

Do You Remember Back Then When We Met?

Max’s POV

I heard my ratty old converse scuffing against the sidewalk as I made my way toward the music shop. It was a few blocks down the street and my best friend worked there. I’ve known Ray since we first met in preschool. The teacher sat us next to each other and we didn’t actually speak until three months later. One day in December I finally mustered the courage to say hello and our friendship just took off from there.

We spent weekends at the park and went over each other’s houses after school. As we got older and entered middle school, I feared our friendship would weaken. I had always heard that boys didn’t want to be friends with girls once grade six peeked around the corner. Luckily I was proven wrong; my and Ray’s friendship stayed as strong as it had ever been, in fact it only got stronger.

Middle school was a time when people really started to discover who they were. I found out that I was a tomboy who liked rock and roll and fun colors streaked through my long dark hair. I became a bit of a bad ass and didn’t take shit from anyone, but I wasn’t violent about it, not physically anyway. I eventually lost the hair dye but kept the take-no-shit attitude. I don’t think I’m mean but if someone’s going to give me sass, I’ll hand it right back to them.

I opened the front door of the music store to see Ray sitting on a bench facing the back wall. I knew it was him because he was the only person working that day and no one else was in the store. That, and the fact that Ray’s hair was his most unmistakable feature. It was light brown and curly, really curly. Saying he had a fro was an understatement, but he made it work, and it actually seemed to suit him quite well.

He was playing guitar, staring at the frets intently as he tried to find a chord he liked. I tapped on his shoulder and he jumped. He knew I was coming but sometimes he just sort of got into these zones and there was really no other way to get him out without startling him.

“What? Oh, hey Max.” I had been given the nickname Max when I was in the third grade. I hated my real name; Maxine Jennifer Banks. I thought it was too girly and I had always wished for a different one. My and Ray’s friend Gerard gave me the name and claimed it was because he was too lazy to finish my full name, but I didn’t argue. I loved my nickname and now it’s almost as if that was my real name all along; everyone I knew called me Max.

“Hey Ray, what’re you working on?” I asked seeing that he had his fingers positioned on the neck of the guitar in what I believed to be a C-chord. I didn’t play anything cool like Ray and my other friends. I was just another kid in the school band who played the French horn; actually I was the only kid in the whole school who played the French horn. I was always a little jealous of Ray because he was so good at the guitar. He and my cousin Frank both played and both were amazing. They and Gerard, along with Gerard’s younger brother, had started a band just a little while ago. They sounded awesome but would definitely sound better if they had a drummer.

“Oh you know, just messing around. I thought I had something but it’s no good.”

“Can I hear?” I always thought Ray never cut himself enough slack. He had been playing since he’d ‘found himself’ back in our middle school days and decided he wanted to learn guitar. He practiced nonstop and was the best musician I’d ever heard; but he never believed me.

He repositioned his fingers on the neck and held his guitar pick with just the first two fingers of his right hand. He started to strum making sure he had the right sound then picked up the pace a little. He slid his hand down the neck and changed the chord. I honestly didn’t know why he ever doubted his skills; it only took me thirty seconds to fall in love with his new riff.