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I hated being the new k.id. The constant stares made you feel like a sideshow attraction.
I entered the doors of Beleville High school and took a deep breath. Walking in the hallways was like being packaged in a sardine tin. As I bumped and pushed my way through the halls, I eventually found the main office. I went up to the front desk, where a student aid was sitting, talking on the phone. "Hi," I said, "I'm Gwendolyn Drake. I'm new, and I need my sched-" I was cut off by the at the desk, her finger in the air. She covered the reciever with her hand. "Excuse me," she said, "I'm on an important call here." she turned back to her conversation. "And she was all, 'well, I thought you wanted me to tell him.' And I was all, 'yeah, right, I definitely told you not to.' and she was all..." I sighed and waited, tapping my foot. The warning bell had sounded, and she was still talking. When the late bell sounded, I finally spoke up. "Listen," I said, "You are making me late. I just need a map and my schedule." She looked at me like I was crazy. "Oh, you need to talk to the lady over there." she pointed around the corner. Fuming, I stalked off to get the stuff I needed.

When I finally made it to my English class, it was half way through the period. The teacher looked up at the sound of the door bursting open. I stomped over to the teacher's desk and handed him a late pass and my schedule. "Okay, Miss Drake, why don't you have a seat next to Mr. Way? Gerard, raise your hand." A slightly chubby boy with short black hair raised his hand. "There you go, Miss Drake. We were just having a discussion on the Scarlet Letter. Now, class, what can you tell me about the symbolism of Pearl not recognizing Hester without the letter?" I sat down next to Gerard and immediatly took out my notepad to complete a story I was writing. I was so absorbed in my story, that I didn't hear the teacher call my name until Gerard nudged me. "Huh?" I asked stupidly. "Well, Miss Drake, I was just wondering if you could explain why Pearl, Hester's daughter, was so impish." I sighed. I'd already read the Scarlet Letter. "Pearl," I answered, "is the sort of product of sin, between the minister and Hester." several people gasped. "Oh, you haven't gotten to that part?" I asked, surprised. "Well, yeah, Hester had a baby with the minister Dimmesdale. Anyway, seeing as Pearl is the product of sin, it would make sense that she would be rather, in a word, evil. Also, she is a product of the scarlet letter 'A', which, of course, stands for ery. Seeing as aldultery is a sin, that just goes back to my former point of Pearl being a product of sin." I could feel the stares of everyone on me. I started to blush. "Miss Drake, Gwendolyn, were you in advanced placement classes in your old school?" "Well, sort of, I mean, I was in the IB program..." Even the teacher was staring at me now. "The International Baccalaureatte program, it has international standards..." I trailed off. "Well, Miss Gwendolyn, I guess that means you can just sort of drift off for the rest of class." I smiled, and went back to writing.


I know that there is not much Gerard time in this episode, but believe me when I say that there will be! This paragraph was to sort of introduce the main character.

love this
i was supposed to be in the IB
progam but only one school in town offers it
and i dont go there

Here's the next installment:

The day had ended, and I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Though that was rather hard, seeing as I had to go through the most crowded hallway to get to my locker. I sqeezed my way through the wall of people, and came out gasping on the other side. I opened my locker and started packing up my bag. While I was kneeling on the ground to get the books at the bottom, some loser pushed me over, and I fell right on my butt. "Ow!" I yelled in their general direction. "urgh...sonofa mother..." I grumbled. I skooched foward on my butt to my locker because I didn't feel like getting up. Just then, someone tripped over my leg and fell on their face, sending their books flying everywhere. The halls were now empty. "Oh my holy cheese!" I exclaimed. "Are you okay?!" He groaned, and then sat up. It was Gerard. "Oh, wow, I'm so sorry, Gerard, I didn't mean to. See, I was pushed over, and my legs were sticking out, and-" "It's okay," he said, "I'm fine." I started to pick up his books, crawling across the floor. I felt my head collide with something solid, and I fell back. Gerard did the same. "oops, sorry,"I said, laughing. "Anyway, here are your books." I stood up, as did he. I handed him his books, and he smiled at me. He had a really nice smile. "Well, see you around, Gerard." I said, and I picked up my back pack. "Yeah, okay." he said, and walked away. I sighed, and started walking home.


The next day, I trudged through the same boring routine of the school day. When I got to the last period, art, I was elated that the day was almost over. Gerard had this class with me, too, and normally he sat at another table, but today he sat next to me. I guessed that he and I, through an unspoken agreement, were friends.
Our homework the night before was to draw anything. The teacher told us to turn to the person next to us and evaluate their work. I took Gerard's sketchbook in my hands, and my mouth fell open. He was absolutely amazing at drawing. He had drawn a man in what looked like a black militaristic uniform. I felt extremely insignificant. I set the book on the table angrily. "Anything wrong?" Gerard asked, his eyes wide. "I should say there is!" I said. "You are too damn good at drawing. Leave some talent for the rest of us. Jeez!" he grinned shyly and handed back my sketchbook. "You are very good at drawing," he said. I snorted. "No, really, you are. You just need to work on your shading. See right here? You've gotten a bit sloppy, having the pencil marks going every which way. Just tighten it up here, and..." he demonstrated by filling in some gaps on my picture. It really did look good. I eyed him suspiciously. "You're not a wizard or anything, are you?" He just laughed.

"Hey, um, Gwendolyn," "Call me Gwen." "Okay, Gwen, then..." we were walking home together. It turned out that our houses were just a couple minutes' walk away from each other. "Um, Gwen," he started again, "ar-are we friends, then?" He kept his head down as he said this. I looked at him incredulously and gave him a hug. He obviously was not ready for that, and stumbled. "Of course we are, Gerard!" I said laughing. "What made you doubt that notion at all?" He just shrugged.
We had gotten to my house first, since it was closer, and Gerard walked me to the door. "So, we're friends, then?" he asked again. I opened the door and smiled. "To the end." I said, and walked inside.

I'm glad to see that people like my story! I'm so excited! blaugh

~fast foward two years~

It was our graduation ceremony. Gerard and I had remained friends, and he had introduced me to his little brother, Mikey, who was a couple years younger than us, but extremely sweet. He and I had become good friends as well. We survived the remainder of high school by sticking close to one another, and watching each other's back. And now, we had to be separated. I had gotten a scholarship to go to the University of Michigan, and Gerard was going to the School for Visual Arts in New York. Mikey, being two years younger than us, was still in high school. After three years of sticking together, we were all going to be torn apart.
The ceremony was horrible. I was sitting next to Gerard, holding his hand. I was crying excessively and silently, and he was paler than normal.
After the whole thing was over, I invited the two of them to come over to my house for a "we're leaving one another" party. We popped popcorn, watched scary movies, and shared stories containing the phrase, "remember when..." There was a whole lot of crying, mostly on my part, but they cried a little, too. They stayed the night, and the next morning I was off to Michigan to get all my affairs in order. "Can't you stay for another week?" asked Gerard, giving me a huge hug. "I'm sorry, Gee," I said, hugging him back. "I can't. Those Michigan people are so uptight." I let go of Gerard, and hugged Mikey. "I'll miss you, Gwen." "I'll miss you, too, Mikey. Keep up your studies, okay? I don't want to hear that you've gotten a D or anything." He sniffled and said, "Okay." "Well," I said, stepping back to look at them, "This is it, I suppose. Call me, you guys, okay? I've given you the number." They just nodded. "Bye." I said, my voice cracking. I stepped out the door, got in my car, and drove off.

While in college, I got several calls from the Way brothers, but suddenly, in my Junior year, they had stopped calling all together. I eventually stopped crying and worked even harder in my studies. I wanted to be involved in the Cartoon Network coorporation, and at the end of college, I got my wish. I had got an internship at the Cartoon Network. My job was to do the dirty work of the big-shot executive people who decided what cartoons to put on Swim. I got them their coffee, organized their desks, told the people whose cartoons we didn't use that they were useless in the cartoon world. I was basically a secretary.

Two years after I got the internship, I had worked my way up to the top. I was now part of the board that decided whose cartoons we kept. We had recently got a promising cartoon by the name of The Breakfast Monkey. I had watched clips of the story boards, and had not stopped laughing or quoting it for a few weeks afterwards. They had not told me the name of the creator, but I eventually got it out of them, and when I did, I almost cried. It was Gerard, he sent The Breakfast Monkey in. That was the shock of my life. So he decided to persue his dream of being a cartoonist after all. The rest of the board agreed that we should call him in, interview him, and possibly ask him to draw for us. The scheduled date for him to come in was September 11, 2001.

That day, one of the greatest tragedies in American history hit. Two hijacked planes had flown into the World trade center. People in my building said that there was no reason to leave, that we weren't near the Trade Centers, but I left anyway. I didn't care if my pay was docked, I wanted to get to my family. In the streets, it was absolute chaos. People were running everywhere, screaming, covered in dust, yelling out loved ones' names. From where I stood in the street, I could see the buildings still collapsing. I fell on my knees and put my head in my hands, crying, because I had seen people jumping out the buildings. "Oh God, no." I sobbed. It took me a few minutes to stand up, and when I did, I took off my high heels and started running away from the twin towers.

Oh geeze.
The last part gave me chills.

And really I like your story so far, even if it's just getting started.

The newest update:

"Mr. Way, this is Gwendolyn...Smith, calling from the Cartoon Network. As I'm sure you've already assumed, we had to cancle our meeting yesterday because of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I'm calling to reschedule. If you're not busy tomorrow, we would love to have you come in and discuss your cartoon. Thank you very much, we'll await your arrival." As I hung up the phone, I wondered why I had lied about my name. Was it because I wanted to surprise him? Or was it because I wondered what he still thought of me? What had made him and his brother stop calling?

The next day, Gerard came in. He had gotten skinnier, and his hair grew out. He looked really good. I was so ecstatic to see him again that I almost tackled him. Almost. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with black jeans and converses. Evidently he didn't feel like dressing up. We all shook his hand, sat down, and began the meeting.

After the meeting, in which we said that we would get back to him, I hurried out the door and into the hallway to chase after him. "Mr. Way? Hi, I'm Gwendolyn. I just wanted to say that I really love your cartoon. It's one of the funniest I've seen." He smiled. "Thank you, Gwendolyn." he said in a politely detached voice. I sighed. "You don't recognize me, Gee?" He stopped in his tracks. "What did you call me?" he whispered. "Gee, it's me! You don't remember, do you?" He just shook his head. I sighed again. "In the tenth grade at Belleville High School in New Jersey," I began, "A g.irl by the name of Gwendolyn Drake threw the door open of the first period English class halfway through the lesson. This was at the beginning of the second sememster. She sat next to you, and was too distracted by her writing to hear the teacher. You nudged her to pay attention, and she gave a rather excellent analysis of the Scarlet Letter, if I do say so myself." Gerard's mouth fell open. "Later that day, she accidently tripped you, and, by a weird string of events, the two of you became friends. Now I'll say it again. Do you remember me, Gee?" He started to shake. "Gee, are you okay?" "I-I think I n-need to sit down." I helped him into a chair in the waiting room, and waitied for him to calm down. When he finally did, he looked at me for what seemed forever. He then shouted, "Gwen!" and hugged me. I hugged back, and started to cry. "Oh my God, Gwen! What are you doing here?!"
"I got an internship here, and finally made it to the top!"
"Oh, wow, you're doing so much better than me!"
"How so?"
"I frickin' live out of my mom's basement and draw comics."
"Really? But you went to college, right?"
"Well, yeah, but there's not that many jobs that you can get with a Bachelor's in Fine arts."
"A Bachelor's? Oh wow! I'm so proud of you! Hey, how's Mikey?"
"Oh, he's okay. He got a job at Barnes and Noble, then an internship at Eyeball Records."
"He didn't go to college?"
"Well, he dropped out."
"I'm going to kill him..." I trailed off. He grinned. "What?" I asked. "After all these years, you still act like he's your little brother." He shook his head. "That's 'cause I care about him. I care about you, too, Gee. But I have a question." "Okay," he said, "I have a question for you, too." "Let me ask mine first." "Okay, then, fire away." I paused. "Um, why did you two stop calling me?" He paused. "That's rather hard to answer..." He paused again. "I can wait." I said, and sat patiently. After a few minutes, he answered. "We stopped calling because Mikey and I were going through some..rough times. I had grown depressed. I take Wellbutrin now, by the way. Because I had grown depressed, he grew depressed. We stopped having contacts with one another, with everyone. I'm sorry." I shook my head and hugged him again. "It's okay. Are you okay now?" He immediatly brightened. "Now that I've seen you!" He smiled his brilliant smile, and it felt like everything was alright. "Now for my question." he said, and I readied myself. "Gwen, why did you lie about your last name?" "Oh, I wanted to surprise you, and do that whole, 'in tenth grade...' thing." He chuckled. "You always did have to do everything with pizazz." he said. We were now walking out on the street. It was still covered in dust, and we watched the street sweepers go up and down the roads, trying to clean up some of the rubble. We made our way to my apartment, and walked up the stairs to the door. "Are we cool then?" he asked. I turned to face him, and gave a questioning look. "Are we still friends?" he clarified. I smiled and touseled his hair. "To the end." I said. "Hey, Gwen, can I come in? I just wanted to talk some more." "Oh, actually, I have a boyfriend and he's the jealous type. I'm gonna break it off with him tonight, and I don't think you wanna see that." He grinned, seemingly elated. "Nah, I don't think I'll stick around for that. I'll see you tomorrow, then, okay?" I grinned back. "Okay." I went inside my apartment.

That night, I kicked my boyfriend, Will, out of the apartment. We got in a n.asty fight, but I eventually booked him a room in a local hotel so he had a place to stay. It was around 11pm when he finally left, and the apartment looked big and lonely. I picked up the phone and called the number Gerard had given me.
"Hello?" it sounded as though he was still sleeping. "Oh, sorry Gee, did I wake you?" "Yeah, but i's'ok. Wassup?" "Um, could you come over? I feel kind of..." I trailed off, but he understood. "Yeah, okay, give me a couple of minutes, and I'll call a cab and come over." "Thanks. You're a good friend." "Welcome."

A half hour later, he was at my apartment, and we were talking. That night, he slept on my couch, and didn't leave for two weeks.

i love this!