My Teen Movie
an excerpt

Liza was freaking out.

“We’re dead! We’re dead! My life sucked enough, and you had to punch Viola-freaking-Monroe in the nose! All I wanted to do was get through the next couple of years of high school intact and now I’m going to die. Why did you punch her in the nose? Her dad paid thousands to fix her deviated septum and now we’re going to pay the interest.” Her scream was muffled by the fist she stuffed in her mouth.

My temper was finally starting to die down and my voice was surprisingly cool. “First of all, Viola Monroe didn’t have a deviated septum. She had a hooked nose and a daddy with deep enough pockets that he’d pay for a nose job for her 13th birthday present. Second, she threw red wine on my dress. This shit is vintage! I can’t replace this!” Bullshit reasoning, but at least I was buying time. I punched Viola Monroe in the nose because I’ve hated her since 2nd grade and she called me a pig. A pig!

“And she called you a cow. You’re my best friend and I’m tired of the way you let them walk all over you.” Well, that was pretty close to the truth. I mean, it was the truth, but only a little bit of it applied to the nose-reasoning incident.

“Oh. My. God. She’s been calling me a cow for years. Hello, I’m fat! What else is a mental retard like Viola Monroe going to call me?

“Can we stop calling her Viola Monroe? When did she start warranting her entire Christian name? Look, its not going to be so bad. There was hardly anyone at the party. And there’s no way she’s coming to school with her nose bandaged up on Monday and by the time she –does- come back, she’ll have forgotten all about it.” There was no way Viola Monroe was going to forget about this night or her promise. She was as dumb as a box of bricks, but as nasty as a barrel of snakes. Or something like that. I don’t know how nasty a barrel of snakes was, but it seemed an apropos analogy.

Liza was not buying my lie.

“You are in denial, my friend. You better start figuring out what we are going to do about this situation, and don’t forget you owe me big time. Big time!”

The Time Machine groaned up to the curb in front of Liza’s house. She was right – again – but that didn’t mean I needed to admit it. But I did anyway. She was my best friend and I dragged her into this by falling for Theo’s stupid brown eyes and his stupid muscley arms and that stupid joke he told me and... God, I was so fucked.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I shouted after the closing car door. I think Liza shot me the bird in return, but it was dark and I couldn’t be sure.