young [styles au]

one

High School.

"The best four years of your life!" ...so they say.

Maybe for the jocks and the cheerleaders and the popular kids who do nothing but get drunk and high with their friends on the weekends, but not for me.

It could be much worse though. I mean, I bet life is miserable for the computer geeks and the math nerds who get made fun of constantly simply for expressing their true passions. Not everyone strives to be popular or finds happiness in alcohol consumption. Some people actually want to amount to something in life, like me.

Yes, maybe I like to stick my nose in a book every once in a while, but however, I don't quite fit in with the nerds. Unlike them, I actually have to try hard to get good grades, and I wouldn't exactly choose the pythagorean theorm as the topic of conversation during lunch.

I wish I could be like the drama kids... outgoing and unafraid to express myself both physically and verbally. But instead, I'm a wallflower. Shy and awkward with nowhere to fit in.

So I do what the rest of the wallflowers do. I write.

-

Believe it or not, I used to be a cheerleader. I was completely against cheerleading my entire life until my best friend Jess convinced me to try out freshman year when she told me all the perks that came with it. "You automatically make friends and all the upperclassmen guys want to ask you out," she would squeal. "Plus you get invited to all the football parties! My sister says they're the place to be."

Well, to my naive fourteen-year-old self, that sounded like a blast. If I could go back now I would have never gotten myself involved. I did enjoy cheering at the football games and getting to wear the cute little outfits, but I never really fit in with the girls on the team. Jess did, though.

She fell right into the trap and got sucked into the peer pressure involving partying, alcohol and getting with older guys. She did a complete 360 in a matter of months, and sadly, high school does that to some people. Unfortunately, my best friend was one of them.

Well, my ex-best friend.

She was right about everything she had said... if the party scene was your cup of tea. She was extremely right about the attention from the guys, though. That was the only perk in my opinion. If I never joined cheerleading, I wouldn't have met Ben.

Well, we had met before since we were in the same grade, but I never expected him to give me the time of day. Football players go for the cheerleaders... stereotypically. Yes, he played football, and yes, I was a cheerleader. But I was a cheerleader who was an english nerd deep down, who only joined cheerleading because her bubbly best friend convinced her to. Totally your typical couple...

I was confused, to say the least, when he asked me to be his date to the victory party when they won their first game of the season. But, I accepted his invitation. Surprisingly, he was okay with the fact that I didn't want to drink, and he didn't force me into anything. I was happy.

We took things slow, and I began to learn more about Ben Radley... I found out what was hidden within the walls of the star quarterback and the most popular kid in school. I learned that he was smart, and wasn't failing nearly all of his classes like the rest of his teammates. But nobody really knew that about Ben. Except for me.

So, he was the non-stereotypical quarterback and I was the non-stereotypical cheerleader. It was kinda perfect.

"I love that you're not like the rest, Shay," he said with a grin, taking my hand in his. "You're adorable, you're funny, and you're a closet nerd, just like me."