Up in the Air

Chapter 5

Dedicated to writerbug44 because I read Little Miss Perfect in one sitting and it was awesomesauce.

Chapter 5

"Do you guys think I'm boring?"

It was Thursday night and I was staying over at Jenny and Allie's so we could finish our AP Math problem set together. Right now, we were taking a break.

Jenny and Allie looked at each other. "Where's this coming from?" Allie finally asked.

"I've just been thinking."

Both of them didn't say anything. I sighed.

"I mean, I don't do all the regular teenage stuff – the partying, the dating. When I'm not studying or hanging out with you two, all I do is read," I paused. "Doesn't that seem kind of ... boring ... to you?"

Jenny smiled. "I still don't see where you think that. You're one of the least boring people I know. I mean, you're smart, funny, really great to talk to -"

"Yeah, plus parties are overrated anyway," Allie continued.

It was easy for Allie to say that; she'd been to a few parties. And while Jenny was never a fan of parties, she had Louis so she had the whole dating thing going for her.

"Yeah, but -" I began but Jenny shook her head at me.

"Well, we still have one year of high school left. It isn't too late to make up for lost time," Jenny said.

"The dance tomorrow is a good start," Allie offered.

I would have talked about it for longer. I would even have told them about what Julian said and confessed about how ridiculous I felt for even giving it this much thought.

But I had a pile of homework to go through and no matter what evil little thought Julian Pitt planted in my mind, I could not ignore my schoolwork for the life of me.

When we stepped into school on Friday, I tried to keep my ears open for gossip. I figured that since Allie partied and Jenny dated, I could gossip – or try to, at least.

I gave up after ten minutes.

Most of what I picked up was about clothes, dating, sex ... Though there was an interesting conversation between a couple of football players about who had the best ass in the school.

They weren't considering me – duh – but they had an actual criteria for it and that was what interested me. It appealed to my not-so-inner nerd.

The general flavor of high school gossip seemed boring to me. I would have to find something else to make me more like a regular teenager, then.

The ones who weren't talking about clothes, dating and sex talked about the Opening Dance that was happening later tonight.

The guys briefly talked about who they were taking and the girls took too much time describing what they were going to wear. The theme, depressingly, was 'So Long, Summer' and a couple of girls were complaining that they couldn't wear bikinis.

Speaking of, Becca hadn't even shown me my dress yet but I already kind of knew what it would look like.

Becca has always lovingly categorized the dresses I wear to school dances as 'Granny Chic'. I don't show up looking like an actual grandma but the dresses I pick out always hit my knee, let me breathe and did not sparkle.