Don't Tell Him, I Want To Know

T H R E E

Andy was skating down the hallway, and saw the party at the bench in the middle.
Each of them was holding a cupcake, Angie grabbing Wyatt's.

As Andy approached the bench, she slowed down and kicked her board up, catching it with her gloved hand.

She wrapped an arm around Angie and smiled at the group.
"Hey, what are you guys talking about?"

Angie threw the girl's arm off of her shoulder and finished her cupcake before stalking away from the group.

Andy looked down at the boy expectantly and scooched in between Wyatt and Dante.
She discreetly wrapped her arm around Dante's shoulders, making his eyes dart to her.
"Oh, we were just talking about the uh... the history project." Wyatt nodded.

"History project? What history pro... oh shoot I haven't done that yet!"
Andy pulled her arm off of Dante shoulder and carefully held the small object hidden in her hand.

"Oh, I brought... uh..." Dante dug through his book-bag, looking for the last cupcake he brought for Andy, while she stood up from the bench.

"I know." She held up the cupcake she snatched from his bag, smiling at him. "I already got it."
She hopped on her board, but before she could ride off she bumped into the familiar sloppy kid.

Luckily they didn't actually hit each other today.
"Oh hey Phil."

He nodded. "Philbert."
"Can't I just call you Phil?" She asked rolling slowly next to him while he walked to class.

He nodded and smiled with a disconcerted expression.
"Okay." He shrugged. "can I call you... uh..."

"You can call me Andy. It's already a nickname."
She told him. He looked shocked.

"It's a nickname? What's it short for?"
She stared at him in disbelief for a second before cracking a smile at his charming stupidity.

"Andrea. But no one calls me that."
"Can I call you that?" He asked.

"No."
"Why?"
"Cause no one calls me that."

She thought about it. Was that the only reason? She didn't hate Andrea, but she's just always been an Andy. Her whole life she's been Andy.

"Sure... why not." She nodded, stopping at her locker and kicking her board up into her hand.
The two kids' presence made Clean-Cut Maggie immediately slam her locker shut and evacuate.

"Alright, see you Andrea."
She smiled and opened her locker. "See you Phil."

><*><*><*><*><

"C'mon, c'mon, go, go!" Andy whispered, tapping harshly on her keyboard.
Behind her someone knocked on the door and she heard it open.

Her Aunt came in and started moving stuff around behind her, probably looking for the batteries that always wound up in Andy's room.

Suddenly her screen lagged, and the portal to the next room wouldn't change from green and pixelated.

"What's up?" Her aunt asked.
"I'm waitin' for my porno to load." She sighed, laying back in her high back chair.

Her Aunt dropped something behind her and charged to Andy's desk.
"You're what?!"

"It was a joke." Andy rolled her eyes, repeatedly clicking the save and refresh buttons on loop.
"My brain's going to freakin' explode."

Aunt Cassie sighed returned to the spot behind Andy, picking up a discarded pack of half empty batteries on the floor, buried under piles of dirty clothes.
"You need to do your laundry."

"I need to hit the road." She said, standing up and grabbing one shoe from the bottom drawer of her desk.
"It's nearly 8 o'clock, where are you going?"

Aunt Cassie reached into the dirty clothes pile and tossed her niece, her other shoe.
"If I don't do some kind of physical activity today, I'll be uncomfortable all night."

That was only half true. She really just didn't want to sit at home waiting for Conqueror of All World to stop being stupid.

"Well that isn't really such a change," Aunt Cassie smirked, while Andy searched for her skateboard. "If you weren't totally stir crazy, your life would be in utter chaos."

Andy smiled and shrugged. "Freaking out is just... it's my 'okay'."
She crouched down and pulled her board out from behind her head rest, pulling it up from her bed.

Her Aunt blew her a kiss while she sprinted out her door, running down the stairs and out the front door.
It was cold outside; breezy and crisp.

It made her arms shiver up in goosebumps and her cheeks flush red.
She loved how chill it was.

Her skateboard clattered on the sidewalk leading up to their front door, and she hopped on.
Being outside was something she liked.

She liked being cooped up with her computer more, but sometimes she needed to be out here.
When it was cold and dark, and there were no people outside.

Her wheels clicked at they hit every line on the road, and Andy hopped over the edge of the curb, riding down the center yellow lines of the desolate road.

Daventry Hills was a small town. Nobody was out past 8 o'clock.
So that left her alone in the middle of the road.

A big smile spread across her face and she opened her arms wide, the wind flapping her baggy sleeves like flags.

She used to worry about the frayed edges of her pants getting caught in the wheels, but they never did. It's like her feet were made for the board.

Everything about it felt right.
The way her sneakers scraped the sandpaper top or how the edges had permanent grooves from her steering; she was born for skating.

At some point she realized she had looped around the block because her house came back into view a couple blocks in front of her.

It was easy to spot because her house had a weird red light coming from the downstairs bathroom on the left.
Her aunt put that in for some reason, she liked the ambience.

Andy got up to her house, and hopped back up on the sidewalk, ready to be confined to her computer for the next 3 hours.