#FreewriteMadness: Sophie's First Teen Disco

aislingcronin (60)in #freewritemadness • 5 years ago

Here is an update on Sophie's story! I've written about all of the adult characters using the third-person perspective, but when it comes to Sophie, I have found myself wanting to write in the first-person perspective. It feels like the best way to really capture her essence: her voice, her mindset, her beliefs about the world around her. It is the best way for me to catapult myself back into that place within my mind that will forever be an awkward pre-teen girl, more terrified of being perceived as a 'loser' than anything else in the world.

––shudders––

I would not go back to being that age for any amount of money in the world. Poor Sophie ... I feel such compassion for her.

___________________________

Modern Mom

I feel so bad about lying to Dad. I know he'd be really upset with me if he knew I was going to the disco, but what else am I supposed to do? This is my only chance to avoid being known as the school freak. He called Jessie's mother the other day to check that it was okay with her for me to come on a sleepover – I texted Jessie to warn her just before he called, so she could answer the phone and pretend to be her mother (she's really good at putting on a deep voice) and bring it into her room so she'd be out of earshot of her actual mother. She told him a load of crap about how, yes, we were just going to watch movies and have some pizza and she'd keep an eye on us the whole time – no problem at all.

After the call was over, she told her mother that the person on the phone was me, and we were just talking about homework. Jessie's mother knows we're going to the disco, but she isn't as strict as Dad, so she doesn't mind. She's going to drive us there and collect us straight after, and we'll probably get a big lecture about not drinking or doing any drugs, but that's okay.

Dad is driving me to Jessie's right now: chatting to me about his training, and how he hopes he won't have to go in as often after the Italy game, and how he'll have more time to spend with me and Luke.

'I love you, sweetheart.' He glances at me, smiles and squeezes my hand. 'And I hope you have a nice time with Jessie. Make sure you call me if there are any problems, alright?'

'Yeah. Thanks Dad.' I squeeze his hand back, even though I'm feeling a little bit annoyed. He talks to me like I'm such a kid sometimes, even though I'm clearly not. Luke is a kid, not me.

Once we're outside the house, I quickly get out, yell, 'thanks for the lift, Dad, byeeee!' and run to the door. I don't want him to follow me and end up talking to Jessie's mother and finding out about the disco. I already texted Jessie to tell her we're nearly there, so she's standing there, ready to open the door straightaway – she waves to Dad, shouts, 'bye, Sophie's dad!' and quickly closes the door.

She turns to me, grinning. 'Okay! Let's see your outfit for tonight. And I have loads of makeup. Aaaah! So excited ... let's go up to my room.'

✮ ✮ ✮

We all arrive at the disco early: me, Jessie, Yvonne, Cara and Stephanie. The boys are all standing at one side of the room, while the girls are on the other. The lights and music have only just started, people are still arriving ... but I already can't wait until it's over.

'Hey look, Soph,' Yvonne yells, winking at me, 'there's Rob!'

'Yah, whatever,' I mutter, staring down at the floor. He's the last person I want to look at.

'Ask him will he meet you,' she urges me.

I'm so horrified by this idea, I feel like I might faint. 'Oh ... I feel like that would be really weird. He'll think I'm a weirdo –'

'Do it!' Cara screeches. She and Stephanie dissolve into laughter.

'Oh my God, Sophie, don't be such a wuss,' Jessie hisses at me. She pushes me forward. 'Just ask!'

So I turn, and I walk across the hall. Even though I would rather die than speak to him.

When I reach him, I glance at him and smile awkwardly, then stare straight down at the floor again. 'Hi.'

'Hi.'

'How are you?'

'I'm fine.' He's looking at me all weird – I feel like such a freak right now. But the others need to see me talking to him, or they'll never let the subject go. I glance around – they're all staring at me, whispering and giggling – so I'll just pretend I asked him about meeting.

'Oh, um, I forgot...' I announce to him, just saying whatever random crap comes into my head, 'I have to ... go talk to my friend about something. Sorry...'

'Uh ... okay...'

Rob is looking really confused right now. My face feels like it's literally on fire as I walk away. He already thinks I'm a loser: now he'll just think I'm an even bigger one.

'So? What did he say? Did you ask him would he meet you?' The others are all eager, all excited, when I come back to them.

'Yeah....' I make a disappointed face and stare down at the floor. 'He said no.'

'Awww...'

'Why would he say no?'

'Whatever,' Yvonne declares. 'He's a loser anyway. You know who you should be meeting, Soph? One of those secondary school boys over there! How cool would it be to get one of them?'

My face blazes when I hear this. If Yvonne thinks I'm going over to ask a bunch of secondary school boys if they'll meet me, she can forget it. I really would rather die than do that.

'I'll ask,' Yvonne says confidently. 'Stephanie, you come with me.'

The two of them stride off across the room. They come back real quick: like, way quicker than I expected them to. Yvonne has her arm around this really cool-looking guy with black hair cut in this really edgy way. And he has his lip pierced and everything.

This is Michael,' Yvonne tells me, pushing one of the other boys forward. 'He says he'll meet you.'

Wow ... Michael is really skinny. It scares me a bit. Like, is he okay? Is he starving to death? I don't know. He's way taller than me too. And really spotty. Yvonne has brought enough boys with her for each of us: the second-best looking one starts dancing with Stephanie. Jessie told me earlier that people only dance for like, a few seconds or something before they start meeting, so I'm expecting that to start really soon. Yvonne is already meeting her boy. It's kind of disgusting, watching their tongues go everywhere, and all the spit already forming on Yvonne's chin ... I can't look anymore. Oh my God, this is going to be totally gross. I don't even like Michael.

The others all pair up, so I'm stuck with him. I don't really know how to dance in front of people – when I'm alone in my room, I dance all the time, but I know that my kind of dancing doesn't look cool enough for other people to see – so I just kind of sway around. He moves his arms a bit: just kind of, like, circling them around in the air like he has no idea what to do. I can't look at him while he does it, or I'll laugh in his face.

After a few seconds he leans in and yells in my ear, 'wanna meet?'

I shrug and nod. Trying to look cool, like I don't really care one way or the other. 'Sure, whatever...'

Oh God. Eeeeew. This is even worse than I thought. His tongue feels so weird. And he's moving it so fast. So this is meeting? Why does everyone think it's so great? And he's so tall, I have to really stand on my tiptoes to reach him. My toes hurt. I'm going to get a crick in my neck. Oh my God, worse than that: I'm totally going to puke in his mouth if he doesn't stop...

I push him away. 'Um, I'm thirsty, I need to, like, get a Coke or something...'

He looks confused by this. 'Oh, right. Well, come back when you have it, and we can keep meeting!' He says this like it's so much fun and in my head, I'm all like, ew, no, but I have to just smile and nod at him because I don't want to look like I amn't cool.

___________________________

That latest bout of writing gives me 1,310 new words. When added to the 1,955 words I wrote earlier, this gives me a total word count of 3,263 for today – my highest daily word count yet! Go me. I seem to have recovered from my recent slump. 😀

I want to end this post by giving a shout out to everyone else who has signed up to the ~~fit of absolute lunacy~~ invigorating creative challenge that is #FreewriteMadness. 😇 Make sure you go and support their work too! I have limited voting power (damn my not-quite-plankton but not-quite-redfish status 😉), but will upvote as many posts as I can per day.

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