Short Stories (bxb)

Remake Pt. 1: Aiden Casanova

It started in the summer after eighth grade.

A new family—the Mendozas—moved into town. Karla and Emilio Mendoza had been close friends with my parents, Mary and Bert Busch, in college, and the two couples reconciled quickly.

So when Karla and Emilio began searching for work, causing them to be away from home more often than not, my mom and dad were quick to offer my help in watching their kids—free of charge and, of course, without asking whether or not I was okay with that.

Which I found as ridiculous as it was annoying, because the Mendozas had a son my age, Aiden, who seemed perfectly capable of doing that on his own. But after spending an hour with his six younger siblings—most of whom were under ten years old—I understood why Aiden would need an extra pair of helping hands. Those kids were bat-shit crazy.

It was supposed to be a one-, maybe two-time thing. I found, though, that I actually didn't mind doing it too much. As awful as the kids could be, they were also cute and sweet and fun to play with. Not to mention, babysitting them allowed me to get to know Aiden, since there was a certain type of bonding that came with taking care of little devils together.

    Watching the kids became a summer-long event—I would would go to the Mendozas' house nearly every day, and during those rare moments when all of the kids were asleep and not posing any threat of burning the house down, Aiden and I would sit in his room playing video games and watching old movies. We grew pretty close pretty quickly.

     As a matter of fact, I grew close with everyone. Abigail, Antonio, Allyana, Allison, Ace—even Ariana, who was yet to reach a year of age. Mister and Misses Mendoza, too, who often invited me to stay for dinner when they came home.

     They even offered to pay me at one point, once they found work, but I was enjoying myself too much to consider the babysitting a real job. And I was pretty sure they needed the money more than I did.

     Though they hid it well, I could tell that the family was struggling. Packing up and starting over was hard for any family, let alone a family with seven kids. They were all such nice people, it seemed only right to help them out. Besides, doing so just gave me an excuse to hang out with Aiden all summer, which was perfect for me since I, a week into knowing him, developed a Big Bad Crush.

     Fast forward two years, and we're starting the eleventh grade. Except we're not starting it together.

     Ever since Aiden first stepped foot into Bay Lake High School at the beginning of freshman year, it was as if the entire school just gravitated towards him. He was lucky, having come at the beginning of high school, when everyone was a new kid. He was never the weird transfer guy. He never spent a single day sitting at the lunch table alone.

     He got in with a group of popular kids, most of whom were upperclassmen. I never really understood why; maybe it was his outgoing personality, or the fact that he'd gone through puberty faster than most fifteen year-old boys, or his presence on half of the school's sports teams.

     Me? I stayed where I'd always been.

    The group of smart, privileged kids that stayed below the radar. We weren't your cinematically portrayed pimply, awkward losers that got shoved into lockers and made fun of in the courtyard. We weren't unknown or isolated or invisible, as the stereotype goes. We were just sort of there, friends with whoever we happened to sit near and approached every now and then for tutoring. We were your average teens with above-average IQs.

    As it turned out, our two groups didn't really mesh.

    It wasn't like we were the characters in some cheesy high school drama, where we stayed separate because it was some kind of social taboo for us to hang out. But Aiden's friends had their own style and their own lunch table and their own after-school plans, and my friends and I had our own—different—style and lunch table and after-school plans.