GJWHF (Billy Hargrove)

chapter 1

If there was something Dani hated more than anything in life, it was Monday mornings. This particular Monday morning, however, was something out of hell. The whole world seemed to be against her. She woke up late, throwing her entire morning off and giving her no time to eat breakfast or make coffee - which made her wonder how she was going to survive the rest of the day. She had barely made it out of the house and into the car on time after stepping in a giant pile of dog poop that Steve had failed to apparently clean up after Nicks, their german shepherd, had gone to the bathroom last night, right in the front yard, so she had to change shoes last minute and pray to the shoe gods that her mom could clean her favorite ones that were now very close to being tossed in the trash.

But the worst thing, by far the most terrible thing to happen to her in her short but dramatic life, was her walkman shitting the bed this morning. God himself could not calm the girl down that morning when she put on her headphones and they sent out a whirly sound instead of the beautiful loud music she hoped to be blessed with. After bashing it a couple of times, she came to the realization that it was just too worn out after years of having it, and it was time for a new one.

This led all the way up now, where she was sitting in the back of her older brother's car, listening to Nancy tell him, in the nicest way possible, that he was oh so pretty, but oh so stupid...well basically that's what she was saying.

"Do you think I should start from scratch?" Steve asked his girlfriend.

"No, I mean..." Nancy failed to come up with anything else.

"Here let me see that, I think I can fix it." Dani held her hand out as Nancy leaned back to give her the paper.

Steve saw her mistake before she did, "No, no, no, she's gonna-"

Before he could say anything further his paper was crumbled up and chucked out of the open back window.

"You know," Steve huffed and opened the car door, "that was uncalled for."

While her brother and his girlfriend continued talking about how terrible Steve's paper was, and as he uncrumpled it and picked it up from the ground, Dani stopped listening. She'd already talked to Steve about everything the nights before today. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, or if he even wanted to go to college; Nancy was here, and so was his sister, who was like his best friend, they'd become so close over the last few months that he was afraid moving away would create too much distance between them once again.

They began talking about going to Barb's parents for dinner. She was on the fence about it. Knowing what happened to Barb and lying straight to her parents' faces about the matter was hard. She wanted to say something, but she knew it would only cause more pain and unnecessary drama. So she didn't say anything.

The sound of a car engine revving and the Scorpion's Rock You Like A Hurricane brought Dani back to reality. "Who the hell is that?" Steve was the first to comment on the new car no one had ever seen in their school parking lot before, because there was no way that anyone wouldn't recognize a car like that.

"A reckless driver with a hot car and great taste in music." As exciting as this newcomer seemed, Dani had to get to her locker before the bell to make it to homeroom on time. Walking past the new kid who was now standing outside his car, she made sure to remind him of the obvious.

"Yo mullet, your car is still running, but I appreciate the music choice." Throwing up a peace sign, she continued on into the rundown building that was her high school, lowly muttering the chorus to one of her favorite songs,

"Here I am, rock you like a hurricane."

~

"Danielle, would you like to add anything insightful to this lesson or are you going to continue to stare out the window and ignore everything that I say?" Mr. Bruner, her history teacher and long time arch frenemy, interrupted her thoughts as she sat literally staring out the window of his classroom, ignoring everything that he was saying.