Charlie's Story ~ My Eighth Grade Dilemma ~ Book One

The Monte Carlo

Lawrence and I have broken up, but he still talks to me like we're best friends.  Which makes me feel like a total bitch because I'm the one who broke up with him.  And it's just my luck that the school's advanced choir and symphonic band, including BOTH Lawrence and Ethan, are going on a trip to the Monte Carlo hotel to watch the Blue Man Group live in concert and eat at a buffet.  Sure, I should be happy that my mom even considered letting me go because of my good grades, but it's going to be awkward.  Very awkward.  I just know it.

A few dull, ordinary weeks passed and finally, the day has come.  I wake up, really quite excited about what might happen, but scared at the same time.  I can feel my schizophrenic side clawing at me underneath my skin.  But I ignore it, after agruing with myself for several minutes before I get up and change.  I wear a grey button-down collared shirt with jeans and I fold the dress I'm going to wear on the trip.  It's black with a sheer bottom (there is fabric underneath to cover me up) and it has a low neckline, slightly plunging, until it meets a silver bow that is sewed on and stops before the back starts.  I really didn't need to fold it, because I just stuff it in a green bag anyways, but I do it anyways because I can't keep still due to my slight ADHD.

What seems like hours later, I finally get to school and I meet Destany in the cafeteria.  The day before she kept asking me which dress she should wear and I told her to wear the blue one.  But when I got to school, she packed the black one.  Why do you hate me so much, Destany?  I TOLD you to wear the BLUE ONE! Ugh whatever.  Shut up and keep walking, Charlotte.  I think to myself as I walk, nearly skipping, to the table where we usually sit.

After pleading her to let me borrow her mini cardigan for my dress because of the plunging neckline, I take her arm and pull her outside.  She complains about the cold, as usual, and I deny her entrance back into the cafeteria, as usual.

I watch as she sprints back into the lunch room after I give up fighting her, mostly because the quad was nearly empty, and walk alone.

Surprisingly, I managed to get through the day without having a nervous breakdown because Lawrence was being too nice, even after that note he wrote back to me.  The note said something about him being content with us breaking up and how he "knew" it was going to happen sooner or later and how he couldn't compete with the "competition" aka. a guy named Collin Reynolds who used to like me in 5th grade and is now going to my future high school and Ethan Nigma, the closest guy in our school to being his best friend aside from Noah Olivio.

We all meet in the band room to drop off our stuff and leave to get dressed (I got dressed during my lunch period).  When I walk in the door, Ethan and Noah are wearing the same shirt.  A blue plaid, long-sleeved, button-down polo.  The shirts are almost identical aside from the fact that Ethan's buttons; I wish I could unbutton them and start making out with him, have a quartz finish and Noah's are plain navy blue buttons.  But they wear the same denim jeans.  But, as usual, Ethan is the sexiest guy in the room.  Ethan and Noah are watching something, probably on youtube, so I walk over there, letting my dress sway from side to side along with my hips.  What the hell am I doing? I think to myself as I walk.  Noah stares my way once he realizes I'm walking towards them.

Noah Olivio.  He can get really creepy, he's not a virgin (he was molested by his cousin), but he can also be really awesome.  The jokes he makes are either slightly dark or really perverted, which I actually enjoy listening to.  Unless he cracks another one of his "Hey lets trap Charlie in a corner and gang bang her," jokes.  That's when I back away as quickly as I can and sit with other band guys that WON'T think of ganging up on me.  He has dark skin, he's scrawny, brown eyes black hair, and he wears braces.  Usually, he wears jeans along with his camo jacket and black dress shoes.  Noah claims he has a huge dick but I just think he always has a boner.  I don't find this strange because he's a 14-year-old boy going through puberty, not an assistant principal over 36 who checks out girls three times younger than him.   These are the kinds of people I'm always around.  This is the kind of person I am.  I nearly facepalm myself.

I sit down near Ethan and Noah, to find that they're watching HowToBasic on youtube, as I suspected.  I'm relieved to know that Ethan and Noah know that I'm watching with them so when I laugh, it won't seem like I'm creeping up on them.  I'm really close to Ethan, I realize.  It sends electric shocks through my side, like Ethan's a magnet pulling me towards him.  I wish I could pull him into a passionate kiss.  It's the perfect moment for one.  But I'm too afraid of how he will react, and strongly believe he will reject me so I get up and skip to Destany, Mya and Zugey (I call her zoo-gee even though it's zooh-way).  When Mr. Jackson had us plan our teams (since the class was so big, we were to choose teams of 11 or 12 then separate them into mini teams of 3 or 4, and were assigned a chaperone), I got Ethan's small group to join mine.  Unfortunately, I knew he would be happier with his friends, so I put together his small group of four guys: Noah, Lawrence, Joel, and himself.

We all walk out the door together and get on the bus, guys in the seats behind the driver, girls on the other side near the door.  Luckily, Ethan and I are sitting in seats across from each other, both in the aisle, Destany sitting behind me and Noah behind Ethan.  A few minutes later, all three buses (2 for choir, it was originally only their trip, and 1 for the band) depart for the Monte Carlo hotel.