Smile
“Give me a smile so I know you’re alright” she tells me. I look at her and fake a smile. A small grin, but that’s all she needs. She was off, my mom. Never looking back, she leaves me again, but this time, she’s not going to be coming back. She has left me in the past for a few weeks at a time, but never for good. People ask me why I can’t just stay at my dad’s, but little do they know that he died in a car accident when I was just a girl. I was 12; he was my best friend. My dad did all the work, he was the one who raised me. Now, my mom leaves me for good, and it is almost the beginning of my senior year. I am staying at my Aunt Lori’s house in a small town in Oklahoma. It’s going to be hard moving from the city of Boston to Red Rock, Oklahoma. What a great way to start off my senior year. I’ll be the new kid at a school where everyone knows everyone.
I sit by the front window. I see my mom get in her car, give her boyfriend a kiss, start laughing, and drive away. She didn’t look back once. I start to think about what I could have done wrong, and thought of what I did that disappointed her. The thought of my dad dying came to mind, but that couldn’t have been it. Just a couple of weeks after his funeral, she had a new boyfriend, different than the one she has now. I realize I am getting nowhere and stop myself. I walk up the stairs to unpack everything with Lori.
“Sweetheart, are you alright? I’m sorry this had to happen, but I want you to feel comfortable here,” she tells me, actually meaning it. I look up at her while I’m sitting on the floor going through one of my boxes.
“I feel more comfortable here than living with my own mom in our old house,” I tell her. She looks at me and laughs. She says she doesn’t blame me. My mom and she were never that close to begin with, but Lori has been here for me through everything. This is why I chose to come and live with her, even if that meant moving out of Massachusetts.
When we finish unpacking, make cookies, and watch a cheesy love movies, which never happen in real life. These movies are a joke to Lori and I. We sit on the couch the rest of the night laughing at the movies and yelling at the characters through the TV.
After a few days of getting school supplies and meeting my teachers, it is time to wake up at 7:00 and go to my first day of school. I drive to school at 7:45, it starts at eight. Lori told me I could use her car for school since she rides with her neighbor to work. I pull up to school and I see all the people outside running around with their friends. Slowly, I park farther away from everyone and turn off the car. I tell myself to take deep breaths and get out of the car, I’m going to have to face life. I close my eyes and open the door. Grabbing my book bag, I keep taking deep breaths. Once I’m standing outside my car, I look in front of me and close my eyes, thinking everything is going to be fine. I close the car door and start walking slowly up to the front doors. I keep my head down until I get to the doors. There are people everywhere and I can feel their eyes watching me from miles away. I ignore their glares and keep walking till I reach the doors. The bell rings for us to come in and I follow the group of people around me, trying to get to their lockers as fast as possible.
I find my locker, which the principle showed me a few days before. It even has my name above it. I like that, since all these lockers look exactly alike. I grab my stuff and pull out my schedule. First class of the day, English. Great. Stepping into the classroom before the bell rings is such a relief. There is no one in the classroom, besides the teacher who is sitting at her desk. I take a seat in the back corner of the rows of desk when some students start to arrive.

The students sit in their small group of friends and some freak out when they see their best friend walk in the class. Nobody has sat by me, but I’m not complaining. I take out my book I have been reading for the past few days until class starts. A few minutes into my book, the bell rings. I set my book down and look up front, noticing that the seat in front of me is empty. I see this kid sit down next to me, but she looks nervous and keeps glancing at me. Her glasses fall when she reaches to put her stuff under her seat. Since no one has taken this seat in front of me, I lift my right leg onto the seat and rest both my legs onto it. Right after I do, one person comes in a second late. He doesn’t look worried or scared at all. He looks confident. What a tool. The teacher just looks at him and says, “come on in and take that seat back there”. He’s points to the seat my feet are on.

The student takes his time walking back, looks at me, sits in his seat, and looks at me again.

“These are your assigned seats, don’t complain.” The teacher says. And with that, she tells us to take out a piece of paper and pencil because we are writing today. Yay, another writing class. The guy in front of me turns around and asks me for a pencil and for my name. I hand him the one in my hand and give him my name bluntly.

“Dana, and you are?” I ask him.

“I’m surprised you have to ask, but I’m Jay. Nice to meet you Dana; thanks for the pencil. See you around?” he says smiling at me. I fake a smile while saying “yeah, you too”, then I get back to work. Soon after, the bell rings and I skedaddle out the door.

I see Jay in a few other classes and pass him in the hall way a few times. He’s the only person I have talked too and it’s already been over a week. I’ve seen him at practice after school. Apparently he is the quarterback of the football team and has many college scholarships, but that’s only what I have heard in the hallways between classes.

It’s the end of September, I still have yet to find a friend or even just a person to sit and eat lunch with. I sit here in the grass by myself and eat every day in this same spot. I bring my book so I can read when I’m done eating and be one of those nerds since lunch is such a long period. My nose is buried in the book when I hear someone’s voice next to me. I look up and see Jay sitting down next to me.

“Hey,” he says with a smile, looking right at me. Should I say something? Why is he talking to me? We have only had those short, brief conversations during class, and it’s usually him asking me if I understand what we’re learning. I’m confused and say, “hey” with a concerned look on my face.

“So, how have you been?” he asks, making himself comfortable. He looks nervous, but interested.

“Um, good, just being the new kid, and yourself?” I ask him, continuing the conversation.

“That’s good to hear, and I’m good. Thank you for asking. What’s so bad about being the new kid anyway? I bet it’s not that bad.” He says smiling and being very polite. Did he lose a bet or something and that’s why he has to come talk to me?

“Right, because being the new kid is so much fun,” I say sarcastically. “Not trying to be mean, but why are you talking to me?” I ask him, considering it’s the only way to find out. He looks at me and laughs a little. Then he notices, I’m being serious. He says, “we should hang out sometime soon.”

“I’d like to get to know you Dana, you seem like a great girl. I’m not the person you might think I am; I know you think I’m the most popular guy in school, but that’s not me,” he says. We are just sitting there, looking at each other with fake grins, and from that point forward, we eat lunch together in this same spot.

We quickly connect. After seeing his games and celebrating with him afterwards, we become close. It’s the end of November, and I’m sitting at Jay’s house doing homework on Sunday. We take lots of breaks because we end up getting off topic, but somehow, we always end up getting our work done. We tell each other a lot. I start to trust him more and more every day I’m with him. I tell him about my families past, and he tells me about his family. We learn each other’s secrets and learn each other’s weaknesses. After having these conversations, and later that night while I was going to sleep, I realize that he knows more about me than any of my friends from my old school.

I wake up to my phone vibrating under my pillow. It’s a call. Getting out my phone, I look at the time. Its 3:00 a.m. Why is Jay calling me? I answer in a whisper. “Hi.” I say, too tired to say anymore.
“Dana, I need to tell you something.” He says right away, but very calm, like he has been awake for hours.
“Is there a reason why you have to tell me at three in the morning?” I ask him right before I yawn. My eyes are still closed and I’m laying down just how I was.
“Yes.” He says, I don’t say anything and just wait for him to keep going. “Dana, from day one, right when I walked through those doors and saw you, I got nervous. I thought to myself ‘who is that beautiful girl sitting in the back by herself?’ I had a pencil, but I still asked you for one because that gave me an excuse to talk to you and get your name. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you and how desperately I need to see you now.” I sit up. Does he mean he wants to see me now? “I don’t care if you’re wearing no makeup and have to put your glasses on. I’m coming to pick you up right now.” He says. I tell him I’ll be ready.
I get up and put my slippers on. I grab the sweatshirt hanging on the hook by my door and walk slowly downstairs. I look out the front window and see a car pull up. I carefully unlock the door and walk out, quietly shutting the door behind me. I turn around and see him walking up to me. Next thing I know I’m in his embrace. He hugs me and tells me to get in the car because he has a surprise for me. He opens the door for me, then walks around to his side. I text my aunt in that time, telling her I am with Jay and everything is fine; I’ll be home soon. Jay gets in the car and we take off.
“Where are we going?” I ask him. He looks over at me and smiles
“You will find out.” he says in reply, glancing at me. I’m not worried. I just turn on the radio to wake me up. “Were almost there.” He tells me. I look over at him and then back out the side window. I have no idea where we are. We make two turns back to back and then we make a slow stop in a parking lot. We get out of the car and end up walking on a pathway. To where, I don’t know. Then I see, right in front of me eyes, a huge waterfall with flowers all around it and blue water flowing from it.
“This is beautiful!” I tell him. “Why are we here though?” I ask him in an unbelievable voice. This place is unreal.
“I brought you here because you told me you have never seen a waterfall before, and I thought this would be the perfect time to tell you this.” He says looking at the water fall then back at me. I look at him with concern, asking him what he has to tell me through my eyes. “I know this might be crazy Dana, but I think I’m falling in love with you. Scratch that, I do love you Dana. You know everything there is to know about me. I like that you see the real me, not just some football player. I can be myself around you.” I know this may sound cheesy, but now I know how they feel in those love movies. It’s true. They love each other, even if they aren’t an official title in a relationship. I know how they feel, and I feel that way towards you. I love you Dana, and I think we should give ourselves a title.”
He tells me we should give ourselves a title and then he laughs. He laughs because he knows how stupid that just sounded. Even though that was the stupidest thing I have ever heard, I loved it. And it was from all those cheesy love movies, but I agree with Jay. I love him too. I haven’t said anything yet. I’m thinking of the right words to say. He grabs me and I fit perfectly in his arms. I look up at him, and he doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at me, waiting for something. I look back down at the ground and over at the water fall.
“Give me a smile so I know you’re alright.” He says. I automatically look up at him meeting his eyes. I smile. My mom said that exact same thing to me, and I faked a smile. For once after this whole time, I didn’t fake a smile. It is real, uncontrollably real. He isn’t like my mother who said that and left, he said this and stayed. I think to myself that this, right here, is real love.
“I love you too.” I finally tell him. We stay at the waterfall for a few more minutes. In that short time, I smile. A true, real, meaningful smile that only my father, Aunt Lori, and Jay have ever seen.