Still Title-less! Chapter Two!

For Jocelyn Taylor, men have always seemed to fail her, until...

 

Dustin: Chapter Two

“So, Jody, are you going to Marissa’s Christmas party this Friday?” Dustin Melua was asking me. I was tired of people asking me if I was going to stupid Marissa’s party. I didn’t like Marissa and Marissa didn’t like me, especially not after what happened...
      “No, Dustin, I’m not. I don’t do parties.”
      “Oh. Well I was wondering…?” I sighed. Dustin always had this way of beating around the bush, I’d noticed. Of course, I’d only known him since freshman year, but habits like his were easy to pick up on quickly. “What is it Dustin? Spit it out already.”
      “Oh,” He snapped back,”I was wondering if you’d like to do something after or before or something. But since you’re not going…” I considered it. Dustin was cute, but also tremendously annoying sometimes.
     “Well, Dustin, as tempting as this offer sounds, I’m going to have to say no. Sorry.” I smiled bitterly at him, raising my eyebrows; it was my trademark.
     “Oh, um, okay. What are you doing Saturday night?” I rolled my eyes. What did it take for him to get a clue?
     “Sorry, I’m going to the movies with Eppie.”
     “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t mind tagging along.”
     “Dustin, although you may not mind being there, I mind you being there.” He grinned a huge, wide, smile. I can’t imagine being turned down and then smiling about it. I felt kind of bad for him now. Why did I have to be so standoffish sometimes? Just because I got hurt once… doesn’t mean I can’t take another chance.
      “Another time, Dustin. Maybe.” I got up from my desk as the last period bell was ringing and winked at him. He smiled again.
          I walked out into the hall, which was already insanely crowded. I pulled my phone out of my purse and dialed Eppie. She had to be around here somewhere. I hated walking all over the school trying to find someone (usually Eppie) so I’d gotten into the habit of just calling them if I wanted to know where they were.
     “Bonjour?” Eppie’s happy voice said. You could always hear her smile over the phone.
    “Hey. Where are you?”
    “Oh, hey!” She said. “I’m in Holland’s room. I’ll be out in a sec if you want to meet me at my locker.”
    “Oh, okay. I’ll see you in a minute. Bye.”
    “Bye.” While walking to her locker, I considered telling her about Dustin. It wasn’t exactly a major event in my life. I’ve had plenty of guys ask me out. I just didn’t want to date or even go anywhere with them. I wasn’t gay, I just didn’t feel the need to date in tenth grade. And besides, it wasn’t like it was unusual for a cute guy to ask me out. I’ve been told I was pretty, cute, and pretty cute. Not gorgeous, not sexy, but more than okay. I was tall, sometimes taller than some of those short, petite, over-makeup-ed senior girls. I had dark brown eyes and even darker brown hair, and when it was wet it looked black. I had a fair skin tone, a good complexion, and rarely got acne. There wasn’t really a reason for a guy to not like me. I don’t say that because I’m full of myself but because it’s true. I certainly wasn’t one of the popular girls; I had my Eppie and that was really the only best friend I needed. Sure, I had school friends and church friends but Eppie Lawson was my best friend for life.
        “Jo!” Eppie called. “What’s up?” Eppie was tiny, with short, shoulder-length blonde hair, large green eyes, and a pointy nose. I always thought she was beautiful, but in a traditional girl habit, she always disagreed.
       “Nothing,” I said, answering her question. “Dustin Melua asked me out last period, but that’s all.” I wasn’t bragging about it, and after all, I’d turned him down.
      “Oh my gosh! What did you say?!” Eppie said excitedly.
      “First of all, when I say ‘asked me out’, I mean he wanted me to physically go somewhere with him. Not like actually date him.” Eppie’s face kind of sunk, but she quickly brightened when she realized I hadn’t told her whether or not I said yes. “Anyway,” I continued, “I said no. He’s kind of annoying, don’t you think?” Eppie immediately frowned.
      “Jocelyn Taylor!” She said. “You turned down Dustin Melua? He’s so cute! And really smart!”
       I laughed. “Dustin? Smart? I don’t really think so.” I said back.
      “Oh, Jody,” Eppie said scolding me, “You’ve never really seen him be smart. He’s really pretty intelligent. He just doesn’t act like it. He’s all into philosophy and psychology. You just have to catch him at the right moment.” Eppie smiled again.
       “Ep,” I said, “It doesn’t matter now. Let’s just get home.”
       Eppie was a grade ahead of me; therefore she was a junior and had a car. She had lived in the same neighborhood as me for as long as I could remember, and had always dreamed of moving out of our small town and going to live in a huge white Victorian house with a big wraparound porch and a swing in the middle of nowhere. Right now, in our small suburb, she was getting everything she hated. She disliked the perfect Tudor-style houses and the picket fences and the tree-lined streets. It wasn’t the kind of perfection she craved. Eppie was, well, Eppie, with a tattoo on her lower back and a small stud in her nose and a single piercing on the top of her left ear. She liked to be original, which was why when all the girls our age wanted to be fashion designers in New York living in 200,000 dollar apartments, Eppie wanted to be a humanitarian living in her big house in the middle of nowhere with a boy and a girl and a husband and two chocolate Labradors named Pip and Willow.
       “So why don’t you at least go to the movies with him?” Eppie was asking me now, as we were lying on her bed, her reading issues of Modern Vegetarian and me reading CosmoGirl!.
       “I just don’t want to. He’s not my type of guy.” I said back innocently.
      “Jo, no guy is your type of guy. When are you ever going to be satisfied with someone?”
       I was tired of the interrogation. “Eppie, why does my dating life have so much to do with you? Why can’t you just leave me be?” I was mad now.
      “Jo, look-“. I cut Eppie off. “Look nothing. Eppie, I have to go. My mom needs me.” I got up off her bed and grabbed my stuff and stomped down the stairs, slamming her kitchen door behind me. I marched down the street three houses and stormed into my own kitchen, where my mom was painting her nails and trying to talk on the phone at the same time. She waved at me as I walked in, then returned to her multitasking, which, frankly, wasn’t going so well.
    By the time I got to my room, I felt bad for getting mad at Eppie. I picked up my cell phone and dialed the oh-so-familiar number.
       “Yes?” Sometimes Caller I.D. was a good thing, other times, not so much.
       “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry for getting mad at you. I know you want nothing but the best for me. I’m sorry.” There was silence on Eppie’s end of the line, but then her chipper voice returned.
      “I know. I’m sorry for butting in. You don’t have to go out with Dustin if you don’t want to.” She was still trying to put the guilt trip on me, I could tell. I knew she meant well but sometimes she got on my nerves.  
       “Thank you for your blessing, Ophelia.” I said, laughing as I said so.                 
       “You’re very much welcome, Jocelyn.” She said back to me. “Well, hey, look,” Eppie was saying, “I’ve got Adam on the other line. Let me let you go, okay?” Adam was Eppie’s boyfriend. He was a pretty nice guy, and to me, perfectly Eppie’s type. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” I said.
      “Bye.”
       The next day in last period, Dustin was late to class. “Mr. Melua,” Our teacher, Mr. Hamilton, was saying, “If you can’t be on time to class, maybe you just shouldn’t come to class at all.”
      Dustin frowned. “Sorry, sir, my locker got jammed.”
     “Very likely story, Mr. Melua, but I’m not too sure if I should believe it.”
       “Mr. Hamilton,” Dustin said in a serious tone, “Please. I’m sorry.” Mr. Hamilton’s face looked vacant for a second as he considered letting Dustin slide.
      “I suppose you may come in tardy this one time, Melua, but do not, I repeat, do not make a habit of it. Understood?”.
      “Yes, sir. Got it.” Dustin said. He took his seat in front of me as usual.

Mr. Hamilton bored everyone the rest of the period, and gave us the last five minutes to ourselves. Dustin turned around and looked at me seriously.
        “Yes? May I help you?” I said. Dustin smiled. He had such perfect teeth!
        “Actually, yes. I want to know why you won’t go out with me.” He said. As I opened my mouth to speak, I couldn’t find words. Why did I not want to go out with him? Sure, I’d told Eppie he was annoying, but I couldn’t think of a time where I really just wanted to wrap my hands around his throat or something. Whenever he turned around, he just wanted to talk to me. There was no harm in that, right? Maybe we could just be friends.
        “I- I don’t know.” I stuttered. Crap. That sounded really intelligent. “I just don’t think I want to be with anyone right now. I’m sorry.” I frowned.
        “Jody, now come on, you’re going to let that creep from last year ruin the rest of your life? You have to move on; you can’t let that jerk keep you from going out with a great guy like me.” Dustin smiled. I turned to stone. I did not want anyone to mention last year to me. Last year was the absolute worst time of my life.
         “Don’t you ever talk about me or him like that again.” I said harshly. “Ever.” Dustin looked taken aback. I’d hurt his feelings. The final bell rang and I quickly stood up, letting everything around me fade away.

Author's Note

I still need a name for my story/book/whatever. Help?

Reviews

[James Watts]

Not bad work. Seems to flow very well.

[Lyndie Bolt aka JustRac..]

I've read both your chapters on here. I think chapter one needs to be a much later chapter, or you need to give in more depth to be a prologue. The flow of this chapters dialogue is much better than the first one. You do need to get the reader to see and feel what Joce is seeing and feeling. Some how you need to get us involved and concerned about the characters. As it is written, the reader feels like an outsider watching the dialogue. It needs more action and active verbs with movement decriptors. Also stick with calling Jocely with only one nick name... ie: where does "Jody" come from? At first I thought you were introducing a new character.

Where is this story going? You have Dustin dead in the first chapter and now he is alive but not yet Joce boy friend? This can be confusing.