It just seemed natural, you know? His kiss, his touch, his breathe; like we were made for each other. I don’t mean to sound so sappy in the first lines to this story, but that’s just the way it was between us. It’ll get better, I promise. Whenever I thought about the future I would never think I would be one of those girls with a gorgeous boyfriend who adores you and a 4.o grade point average, well, I figured the second part. Whenever I pictured my high school career all that came to mind was studying. Brody didn’t come into the picture until the end of freshmen year. He was one of those jocks. The ones you would think that would just be worried about touchdowns, goals, and sex. I figured Brody was one of those guys, I was proven wrong. That’s one of the few times I was happy to be proven wrong.
We had biology together. We had gotten paired up for a project. Right then I knew he would probably do absolutely no work and would use his gorgeous puppy dog eyes to get me to do all of the work; basic jock behavior. We sat down at the library one day after school to start on the project. I was waiting for it. Waiting for him to use those beautiful, big, brown eyes to get me to do the project, instead, he proved me wrong. He had already taken some notes on the subject and wrote down the thesis to the report. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I, for once in my life, was flabbergasted.
“I have a confession to make” He said to me on the last day we were working on the project.
“What’s that?” I had grown accustomed to not looking directly at him while working those last couple weeks. I couldn’t concentrate when I looked at him. It was easier this way.
“I asked Mr. Flemmins to be paired up with you.” His face turned slightly pink. But he kept his cool, taking my chin in his hand so I had to look at him. Was this a trick? This had to be a trick. Some dare his football buddies made him do. Oh well, no matter.
“You really need this A, don’t you?” I whispered with a grin. I pressed print on the computer and got up to retrieve it from the printer while he sat there in silence. Definitely a dare. I thanked him for his time. Got my book bag and walked, more like ran, to wait for my ride.

“Serenity! I wasn’t done talking to you!” he busted through the doors, breathing heavy from chasing me down. I didn’t even know he knew my full name. no one knew my full name. Everyone just called me Ren. How did he know my name?

“Just tell your buddies you did it okay? You don’t have to do this” I looked around the corner for my mothers shiny red Envoy, but no car was coming.

“What are you talking about?” he walked closer to me, concern written on his face. He was a whole head taller than me. He had broad shoulders and a thick neck; his hair was slightly blowing in the wind and his eyebrows were knitted together in confusion.

“Why are you doing this, Brody? The jokes over. You’ll get your A, just leave me alone.” I turned around, seeing my mother’s car across the parking lot. I needed to get out of there before I made a fool of myself.

“I didn’t want to be your partner because I wanted a good grade, Ren. I wanted to be partners with you because…” but I didn’t let him finish. I jumped in my mom’s car before she was even stopped. Sure, it was a cowardly thing to do. But at the time, I didn’t think I had a choice.


I felt cool hands cover my eyes and soft lips touch the back of my neck.

“Guess who?” He softly whispered in my ear, making my entire body shutter with excitement.

“um, Zack? No, Greg? Trevor?” I giggled while trying to pull his hands off of my eyes so I could she his patient eyes look back in to mine. He spun me around so I was looking at him.


“You cant even remember my name, thanks Ren. I knew you never really loved me.” He said with a fake pout.

“Aw, im sorry Brock, I mean… Brody.” I put my arms around his shoulders and kissed him quickly on the lips. He pouted once more and came in closer to me, wanting more. But I turned my head at just the right moment. He opened his eyes slowly after kissing my cheek.

“Really, Ren? No love for the football star? I know you can’t say no to a sexy jock.” He wiggled his eye brows and brought my body in closer to him, breathing in my scent and laughing to himself.

“Brody! I have to get ready for my speech! You aren’t allowed backstage so we can make-out! You have to get ready for your speech too!” I pulled away from him and started to study my note cards once again.

“Fine, Good Luck babe. You’ll do great. You always do.” He gave me one more kiss on the forehead and went to the opposite side of the stage. Once the principle announced my name and Brody gave me a quick thumbs up. I walked to the center of the stage and bore my classmates with useless information about recycling and blah blah blah. Finally after pretty much putting myself to sleep with words so big im sure most of my peers had no idea what my speech was even about, Brody came out on stage. Shouted something encouraging about tonights football game. And ended with a cheer for our great mascot, Wally the Walrus! Lets beat those Lions! Then as Wally took the stage doing some silly little dance, Brody took my hand and led me off stage once again.

“So how long did it take you to fall asleep?” I whispered from the very back
of the auditorium.

“Honestly, you pretty much lost me at ‘its not what the planet can do for us, its what we can do for the planet’” He mocked my voice and tried hiding his low laughs.

“Hey! I never said that!” I shoved him to the side and crossed my arms tight across my chest.

“Oh? You didn’t? I must have fallen asleep before you even started talking.” He put his arm around me in a playful manner.

“Thanks for the support, Brody!” I tried to shove him away once more.

“Oh you know im kidding. I could listen to you talk all day. I love your voice. We’re like that one Disney movie! Yeah, the one with the mermaid.” He did it, he actually made me laugh. A little too loud actually. I took Wally’s thunder and everyone was staring at me. Brody quickly took my hand and led me to a
deserted hallway.

“The Little Mermaid” I giggled into his neck as he held me close.

“What was that my dear?” He pulled me away from him slightly.

“We’re like The Little Mermaid” I finally whispered.

“Yeah! Youre the beautiful mermaid and im the handsome prince you save from a terrible fate. You’re obsessed with me, naturally,” he gleamed his perfect smile in mock arrogant ness. “So you sing to me and I magically fall in love with you. The End.” He kissed me once more, still smiling.

“But in the little mermaid, she loses her voice and the prince magically falls in love with some other chick just because she has the same voice. You men are shallow.” I said with a laugh.

“Well maybe you need to lose your voice and become best friends with a crab to prove your love for me. you know, because I’m so shallow.”

“But if I lose my voice, I will never get to bore you all with my useless information!” I threw my note cards up like confetti, making them fly everywhere.

“Yeah well that’s okay because some other chick with come around with a voice just like yours, us men are shallow you know.” a huge smile crossed his face and I had to smile back. No one could see Brody’s big gleaming teeth and frown. Nobody.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt but the assembly is not over!” Ariel came around the corner, her blonde hair gleaming in the lights.

“What a coincidence Ariel! We were just talking about The Little Mermaid!” Now im not one to blurt stupid things, but I guess this was my
moment of weakness. I’m just stupider than I seem. Brody rolled his eyes at me and gave an apologetic smile towards Ariel,

“We’ll be right there, Ariel.” She blushed slightly and slowly backed away from us and towards the auditorium.


“poor girl” I muttered once she was out of sight. But before I knew what was happening, Brody picked me up, newlywed style, and carried me off to the janitors closet. What the h*ll was he doing?

“What are you doing you freak?” He set me down with mock abomination on his face.

“Do you remember the day you confessed your undying love for me?” one of his famous smiles spread across his face, forgetting I had just insulted him.

“Undying love? That’s not exactly how I remember it, Romeo!”


It had been a couple weeks since he tried to tell me that he liked me. you know, when I drove away in the middle of his sentence. He stopped talking to me and I just figured that since we were done with our project there was no need to talk anymore. We got an A and that was the end of it. But whenever I saw him after that I felt this knot in my stomach. We had unfinished business to take care of but I was too chicken to admit it to myself. And I never found out if it was just me, but every time our eyes met in class or in the halls, I saw grief and embarrassment wash over him like cold water on a summers day.

So finally I got the nerve to confront him. I found his address in the phone book and walked the three miles to his house. I was not an easy going person. I was determined to fix what I had started.

“Hi…Brody…” I said through my deep breaths. It had been a very long walk and I had never wanted a drink of water so much in my entire life.

“Hi Ren? Wait, did you walk here? How do you know where I live?” He looked around, trying to figure out of this was some kind of joke. I couldn’t answer him right away because I was still trying to catch my breath.

“I came here…I needed to…you see…I mean….oh screw it” after trying and failing many times to tell him why I was at his front step in the first place, I gave up at using words and used something I thought he would realize what I was trying to say better. I kissed him. right there in front of God and everyone. It was my first kiss. Well, besides that weird kid couple blocks down from my house who tackled me one day and planted a sloppy one right on my lips when I was ten. But I still pretend that was my first kiss. The best part of the whole thing was that he kissed me back.

And we’ve been together ever since.


“I don’t think that quite counts as spilling my undying love for you,
sweetie.” I ruffled his hair with a laugh.

“How bout we just pretend it went down like that?” He sat down on the floor, dragging me with him.

“Whatever you say, handsome.” I yawned.

“Don’t you remember when you kissed me on my doorstep and Ariel came to my house at that exact same second to bring me some mail that was in her mail box? You were so embarrassed your face turned bright red. But I pulled you close to me and introduced you as my girlfriend. Wow I was such a stud” He laughed out loud. “That’s what reminded me of all that, when Ariel came out in the hallway.” He pointed towards where we had just come from.

“Yeah, I remember she always had a huge crush on you.” I said to the floor.

“What? Really, hmm, maybe I’ll give her a call.”

“I’m so glad I always know how much you really love me, Brody.”

“Anything for you, babe” He said kissing the top of my head, I guess Brody never learned the art of sarcasm.


“You know I’m just messin’ around with you, right? you do realize how much I love you, don’t you?” He put my face in his hands so I had to look at him.

“I guess” understatement of the year. We had been going out for more then two years. The best two years of my life by far.

“Ren…?” Then the bell rang and I got up from the ground to get up to go to our last class of the day. He followed me up and kept the door closed as I tried to open it. He turned me around slowly and kissed me just as gentle and sweet as our first kiss but with much more ease and passion. He pinned me against the
door and started to kiss my neck with lust in his eyes.

“The bell rang, Brody. We have to get to class.” I said through his kisses. I wanted to stay. I really did. But we needed to get to class.

“fine” he put his arms down from the door in defeat and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” I lifted his chin so he had to look at me. “meet me in the woods behind my house after the game, okay?”

“Yeah, okay” He looked a little less defeated with a small smile creeping through his teeth. I kissed him softly on the lips and we walked out the door one at a time to not raise suspicion. I blew him a kiss as I walked away and practically skipped to seventh period.