Spring Fever
by
Alexandria Castillo
“Spring Fever”
Copyright 2011 by Alexandria Castillo
Smashwords Edition
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I don’t understand why Cerise High is so insistent on “equality” and “fairness”. I understand that being fair and equal to all is indispensable, now that we’re in the twenty-first century, but when it comes to school dances, is it really essential? I’m the type of girl that believes the boy should always make the first move. Chivalry and gentlemen-like behavior can’t be dead.
But by declaring that for this year’s Spring Fling the girl must ask the boy or else you won’t be allowed entry, well, that’s pushing it. If you wanted to go in a group with your friends, it wouldn’t be allowed.
This is all thanks to Marissa Eisenhower, who had the brilliant idea that by pressuring us to come with a date, there would be fewer to no groups of friends bunched together like scared little rabbits. In our defense, we still managed to have fun, boyfriend or no boyfriend. Apparently Marissa didn’t think so. I always knew she was bad news, ever since that day in the first grade when she “borrowed” my purple crayon and never gave it back.
I should’ve known….
It’s not even that I’m shy, so the thought of going up to a guy and asking him to the dance sounds absolutely preposterous. It’s not courage that I lack. Willingness would be the proper term, I suppose. I refuse to sink to the level of the majority of the girls in our class who grovel at the feet of boys like Jesse Heidelberg. It’s sickening to me. If a guy likes you, he should make the first move, not the other way around. Is that too much of me to ask?
Obviously, according to Marissa, it is. Yes, I will admit there is a certain boy I would like to go to the Spring Fling with, but I’m not exactly hopping in joy at the idea of having to ask him, which goes against everything that I believe in. I realize that asking him couldn’t possibly be that hard, and it would probably take about five seconds for him to say either “yes” or “no”. But I guess I’m just not normal, because the thought of asking Nathan Adams to the Spring Fling makes my head feel sort of fuzzy.
“Are you asking Nate to the Spring Fling?”
I snapped out of my thoughts and turned to face my best friend. I had first become friends with Jennifer Glade after all of our peers had turned on her for being a red-head in the third grade and I thought they were being horrifyingly cruel and unfair, so I befriended her. Now we’re both sophomores in high school and we’re still close as can be.
I never once critiqued her for her shade of hair. After all, was it really her fault that her genes were against her? No, it was not. And besides, what is so wrong about having red hair? In my opinion, it’s much more appealing than my plain old dark blond hair. Jen’s hair is long and curly, while mine is pin-straight. Do you see what I mean?
“You know that I’m against all of this crap about this girl-ask-boy dance.” I quickened my pace to my house. I didn’t want to further this conversation, because I was fully aware that Jen would find some way to convince me that asking Nathan to the Spring Fling was the thing to do. But it most certainly was not the thing to do.
Nathan and I were on speaking terms, alright, and we were casual friends. We were the kind of friends that would basically only talk at school. If we ran into each other, we would talk. It wasn’t small talk, but it wasn’t romantic, and we didn’t act like we would with our best friends.
It was a warm spring day that day, and it made me extraordinarily happy that winter was finally over. Although I was feeling very light-headed and upset over the Spring Fling dilemma, the weather has always had a large effect on me. If it’s really nice outside, even my crappiest day can begin to brighten just by looking up at the clouds in the sky that seemed to resemble bunnies to me, and feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays on my body. But if it was winter and it was a particularly cold or snowy day, my friends and family knew to stay out of my way until the sun came out, at the very least. I’ve always hated the cold. I’m not sure why. I’ve never really had a reason as to why. It’s just one of those things that just sort of… is. I never really questioned it.
As we inched closer to my house, I could see the birds nesting in my family’s cherry blossom tree, which thanks to the wonderful weather we’ve been having, was now in full-bloom. The birds chirped happily, and I could tell that even birds had one thing in common with Cerise High: they both had Spring Fever. I was pretty sure that I, in fact, had it, considering how giddy I was now that I could officially say it was spring. I’d been able to say that for a couple weeks, actually, considering it was May.