FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE

CHAPTER 1: DOUG'S FIRST DAY

Doug Heffernan was sitting in his room just as the first rays of the morning sun had come through his bedroom window. He wasn't exactly looking forward to the events of that day because it was going to be a day of hell. Doug had just moved to Queens with his family from Rome New York where they had lived throughout most of his childhood and he was already missing the friends that he had been forced to leave behind. He knew the reason that his family had decided to move to this place and it had not been because they had wanted a better life for him. His father had been given a new job opportunity and that meant relocating the whole family to a place that would be closer to where his father would be working. As Doug looked in the mirror that morning to fix his hair he wondered just how long it would take him to make the new friends that his parents had been talking about during their long drive to this dismal neighborhood. Doug had always been quite shy when it came to talking to the kids that were around his own age and his parents had been hoping that this would be a habit that would be easily broken before Doug had gotten out of school.

That morning when Doug had arrived at his new school to start the seventh grade he had not been thinking much about the things that he would be going through or the fact that he would quite possibly end up meeting the girl that he would one day find himself married to. All that he could really think about as he wandered up to those big metal doors of his new school was the fact that because of his parents he was being forced to start over. He was no longer the most popular kid in school as he had been at his old school. All of his classes would have different teachers now and there was the fact that none of his friends would be there to help him deal with the homework that he would be getting for all of his new classes. That had been the one thing that Doug had been dreading when he had gotten up that morning to make his way to his new school. The rest of the kids that he would be going to school with now had been attending this school since the very first day and he was starting about two weeks after the school year had officially started. They had all grown up together and they knew which kids were good to be friends with and which ones weren't. Doug had ended up wishing that his parents had waited until he had at least graduated from high school before something like this had taken place. At least that way he would have still had all of his friends around him and would have had some kind of support during a time when he was really and truly terrified about how the kids at his new school would react to the way that he had been since the day that he had basically learned how to walk. His parents had tried to let Doug know that despite the fact that he really did not know any of the kids that he would be having classes with that this was definitely a chance for a new start and that they were hoping that the shyness that he had felt during the time that they had been living in Rome would somehow just melt away. That shyness had been a big part of what made Doug special as his grandparents had once told him and that he should never be ashamed of the things that made him the person that he was. Doug had only wished that during that time his parents would understand about why he had always been so shy about certain things but they had always tried to push him into talking to someone and try to make friends in some way. Doug however had always found a way of making friends that had not involved him having to walk up to someone and start talking about the stupidest things that may have been quite obvious to anybody who had just been watching Doug for a little while.

It had been during the first day at his new school that Doug had noticed the prettiest girl that anybody in the world would have died for a chance to talk to her and ask her out on a date. He had not realized that during that time there had been many boys that had tried to ask her out and had been turned down even during a time that there was a school dance. Carrie had never accepted a date with any of the boys that were in any of her classes and it had caused some of the kids in the school to start talking about her. Some of the boys had even taken the chance to start making bets as to which one of the boys Carrie was going to turn down next because they had all gotten used to the way that she was. Carrie knew that most of her friends had liked the fact that they would be able to go out on their first date which in most cases would be to the school dance but for her she was just never really all that interested. Sure there had been times when she had ended up having her share of school crushes but she would never have taken any of them all that seriously only because of the fact that she knew that a time would come when that relationship would come to an end. There would always be something that would happen that would cause a loving relationship to end by the time many of the girls had finished high school and Carrie had not wanted something like that to happen to her. Carrie had been living at home with her parents and had seen just what could happen if too much strain was put on a relationship and that was definately something that she would make sure would never happen to her. Arthur Spooner and his beautiful wife had been married for ten years when Carrie had surprised them by coming into the world. Arthur could not have been happier and even in later years Carrie had always remained Daddy's Little Girl. Just like most father's Arthur had hated watching his little girl grow up and drift further and further away from him but he knew that eventually a time would come when Carrie would end up having a life of her own. Nobody had expected things to happen the way that they had and it had surprised everybody especially Carrie when she had found herself falling in love with the new boy that had started attending her school. Doug had felt so nervous that first day and the first thing that he had happened to notice was Carrie who had been in most of the same classes that he was. He had heard that there was a dance at the school that he was now attending. Part of him had thought that this might be a chance for him to ask Carrie out which was something that he had been wanting to do since he had gotten to the school but he had heard so many stories about how Carrie had been turning down most of the boys at the school that he had wondered if he had actually stood a chance with Carrie at all.

When the school day had ended Doug had watched as Carrie left to return to wherever she had been living with her father. That day Doug had been very tempted to follow Carrie home but knew that she would most likely think that he was stalking her and that was the last thing that he had wanted her to think. At the same time however he wanted to see if she would at least talk to him about the dance at the school. He was pretty sure that when that time came that it would surprise everybody that the new boy had ended up with the prettiest girl in the whole school as his date for the dance. He had absolutely no idea that Carrie had fully intended on not attending the dance at all but at the same time had kind of wished that there was someone around that would be willing to ask her to the dance. She knew that everybody was going to the dance and that this was one of the best things that had happened to the school ever since she had started school that year. When she had seen Doug earlier that morning she had wondered just what would happen if Doug had found out about the dance and if he would even consider asking her to the dance once he had found out.