Krista Voth

     Okay, here is the story of my life.  I am walking down the street and I see something I want, it doesn't matter what it is, a cute guy, a pair of shoes in the window of a department store, or even a coke, and well, I go for it but it just disappears.  Of course this is somewhat of an exaggeration but it is not too far off the mark.  The point I am trying to get at, is that I NEVER GET WHAT I WANT! See, I can't even make my point without getting caught up in the logistics of saying how much I never get what I want.
     The reason I am telling you this now is beyond me.  I have been struggling with this rejection for a long time- nearly 16 whole years!  Right now though, it is the worst it has ever been, I am having a real crisis.  I am currently not speaking to my parents, my best friend and even my dog, he is just so stubborn.
      Three weeks is a long time to be silent, especially for me, but that is when this whole mess started.  I was riding my bike down Maple, in a rush because I was late, as usual, for my piano lesson.  Pedaling hard and breathing heavy, I was so distracted that I forgot about the crack in the sidewalk the size of Montana, right in front of the Johnson's house.  Well, needless to say, I hit it at full force and landed in their yard, sprawled out like I was making a snow angel or something. I sat up slowly, and held my head in my hands.  Ughh, that really hurt.  I shook my head back and forth, making sure no brain or any other slimy stuff was coming out of my ears.  I reasoned that although my brain obviously hadn't been working when I missed the crack in the first place, it was none-the-less still intact.  I examined my arms and legs to make sure nothing was broken.  I decided I would only have a few bruises and that I best get going before my teacher gives me a few more.

     I leaned forward on my knees, and was starting to get up when a hand reached out to help me.  I squinted up towards the shadow, bathed in the heavenly sunlight.  Was this my guardian angel?  I wanted to ask him where he had been last week when I had toilet paper hanging off my shoe at school.  He pulled me up and asked if I was all right.  Yes, I answered, happens all the time. He laughed.  If only he knew how often the ground and I met.  Well, to make a long story short, actually I was in such a daze, I don't really remember the details: his name was Eric and he was new in town.
      He was talking to me, telling me about himself.  He was sixteen and he wanted to be a professional basketball player.  He just got a car because his mom and dad felt bad about making him move to a new town in the middle of the school year.  His dad got transferred and his mom wanted to finish her master's degree at the college.  He just kept talking, I was looking him over. He was gorgeous!  He had dark brown hair and was pretty tall.  He moved from California so that explained the tan.  I was looking at his muscular arms, which were even more sexy because of the cut off gray, t-shirt he was barely wearing, when I happened to glance at his watch.  Oh boy was I going to get in trouble!  I had completely missed my lesson.  I told Eric I had to go and said I would see him in school the next day.
     I felt really bad about the lesson but I could only think about Eric and his gorgeous green eyes while my teacher lectured me about promptness and the importance of music in one's life. Whatever. I just wanted to get out of there and tell Jamie I had met the boy I was going to marry.
     Jamie and I had been best friends since the second grade when we had met in the nurses office.  She was trying to get sent home sick because she hadn't done her math homework and I was in with one of my million bloody noses.  Neither of us got to go home that day but there was a lot of business for the nurse: cold and flu season plus a lice outbreak, so we had plenty of time to get to know each other.  We had been friends ever since.
     We spend so much time together that most kids think we are sisters or something.  When she's not at my house, I am at hers.  Her parents are so used to me, I never knock when I come over. I even know where they keep the secret house key, not like anyone wouldn't notice a plastic gray rock under the bushes.  Sometimes I even call Jamie's mother, "mom."  She says I am her favorite daughter she never had.  
     That day I was so excited to talk to Jamie I just ran in the house and up to her room, pausing only to say "hi" to her mom who was watching her soaps.  I burst in the room- "you will never guess what happened!"  I immediately put my hands on my hips and keeled over at the knee.  I was breathing heavy from taking the steps two at a time.  She looked me over, the hair a mess, grass remnants on the shirt and a fresh tear in my jeans.  "Ummm, you fell?"  "Very funny," I said.  "Well, yeah I did but guess who picked me up?"  I told her all about Eric.  She laughed because she knew me so well and knew that I always had a new crush.  
     "What happened to Matt?"  she wondered.  I laughed my sarcastic fake laugh because there was no way you could even count Matt as a crush.  It was more like a friend thing, maybe a mini-crush at most.  She sounded just like my mother.  Both my parents thought I was a hormone-crazed teenager.  They let my nineteen-year-old brother do whatever he wanted when he was my age!  They hardly let me out of my cell.  Actually, I think I am kind of grounded right now anyway for sneaking out of the house last weekend.
     They always say I am grounded but luckily that doesn't usually include Jamie's.  Plus, when I give them the silent treatment, which I am doing these days, it makes them feel really guilty so I can pretty much do whatever.  See the thing is, I never would have been grounded in the first place if they had let me go to the party.  It was the first girl-boy party I had ever been invited to and I knew Matt (my friend, of course) was going to be there so I had to go, I just had to!  But, the girl's parents weren't going to be there so my parents said no.  Well, it just would have been too embarrassing to not go and I knew that Sarah had a thing for Matt so what could I do?  Well, to make a long story short: I got caught, I got grounded and I did not get Matt.  Typical.
     "But this is different," I argued to Jamie, "he doesn't know me!"  She shook her head, the long curls bouncing back and forth.  She just didn't get it.  How could she?  She was gorgeous.  She had a line of guys halfway around the block just waiting to go out with her.  How could she understand that I had found "the one" when she had a different "one" every week.
     I was deep in thought as I pedaled my way home.  I  was trying to figure out how I could talk to him again.  When my brother was home last weekend, he gave me some good pick up lines that work for him at college but I didn't think Eric would really appreciate (or understand), "Hey, what's your major?"  No, I would have to take a different approach, show him how cool I really was.  I needed to prove that it was some kind of cruel joke, that as cool as I was, I really was living in this little town.
     I turned onto Maple really slowly.  As I neared his house, I concentrated really hard on looking like I was deep in thought about something that was waiting for me down the street.  I kept my gaze straight ahead until I got directly in front of the house and then I quickly turned my head for a second to look, then snapped it back.  Bummer, he wasn't outside anymore.  The garage door was shut and all the empty boxes were piled at the curb.  As I continued home, I wondered if he was inside and what he might be doing in there.  Maybe he was thinking about that retarded girl that wiped out in front of him today.  Never mind, he was probably just watching TV or something.
     When it started to get dark that night, I decided to take another pass at trying to see Eric. I put the leash on the dog, who was still panting from the two mile walk my parents had taken him on an hour earlier, and headed out.  I walked as fast as I could, feeling in the pit of my stomach that I needed to get there because he was outside at that very moment, but the dumb dog had to stop and smell absolutely every tree, bush or stump along the sidewalk.  I was getting mad and I tried to pull him but he wouldn't budge.  He had found something that he felt he needed to identify and then he had to make his own mark on the tree.  "Come on," I pleaded with him.  "We have to go.  I'll give you a hundred Milkbones when we get back, I promise."  Obviously he didn't believe me because he just kept sniffing along.  It took us twenty minutes to get to Eric's house and he, of course, was nowhere in sight.
     I was getting ready to turn around when I happened to glance up at the second floor, just as a light was turned on.  I was breathless as I watched Eric come into the room.  He was shirtless and was holding a basketball in one hand and a soda in the other.  He was dripping with sweat and seeing him was making me pretty thirsty too.  He crossed the room towards the window.  Ahhh, I panicked, looked for a rock to hide under and finding none, took off running as the shade went down.
     The next day at school, I saw him first thing when I walked in the door.  He was standing against the lockers, one hand in his pocket, he looked like Dylan on 90210.  Wow, he was cute and every girl that walked by was noticing too.  I started to hurry past, thinking he wouldn't remember me but as I passed he grabbed my arm.  "Hi," he said, "Remember me?"  Of course I did but I answered nonchalantly, "yeah."  He said, "I was wondering if you were ever going to get here."  He had been waiting for me!  My heart was beating a thousand times a minute.  Then it dawns on me, he doesn't know anyone else in the entire town, let alone the school.  Duh, I should have known it was too good to be true.  My heart slowed down to a dull thud but then I realized I am the only person he knows in the entire school!  That is a good thing, if only I could make sure he doesn't meet anyone else- ever!
     I showed him around the school and left him at his homeroom.  I ran to mine, and slid in to the seat next to Jamie just as the late bell rang.  I whispered over to her, "He loves me."  She just laughed.
     After school, he was once again waiting by the lockers as Jamie and I were leaving.  He asked if I wanted a ride.  Sure I said, but I'm going to her house, I nodded in Jamies direction.  I introduced them.  She smiled and batted her eyelashes.  He glanced her over.  I felt the excitement I had when we first walked up drop to the pit of my stomach like a ton of bricks.  My head fell to my chest and I sighed heavily.  I had seen this way too many times.  
     I pouted all the way home.  Of course I had to sit in the back and since I was being ignored by the lovebirds up front, I had plenty of time to stew.  Another one bites the dust.  He was her next victim.  Why does she have to be so pretty and flirty?  She knew how I felt about him.  Can't she just leave this one alone?  I NEVER GET WHAT I WANT!