UNDER THE BRIDGE, hope. <3

[+ Joshua Fisher]

There weren't very many places Josh enjoyed going to around the school these days. Not because he got bullied physically, but because he was.. kind of bullied mentally. He had the jocks on his side because a lot of them asked him to do their homework, but he refused. He wasn't about to do anybody's homework, so he always went to the one place that would be safe; somewhere no one would really expect to find him, and that was the football field. He knew there were no sports classes going on or anything and there was no football training, so the place would be empty. All he wanted was somewhere to sit and eat his lunch, and whilst a few people were dotted around the bleachers and the grass, no one was sat with Josh. He didn't mind. He had his iPod and he had his own thoughts to occupy his time, so what else did he need? Well, a little company wouldn't have been that bad.

He could have opened his phone and he could have invited anybody, but there was only one person he actually wanted to invite. They would hang out a lot of the time before, but now they hung out a lot more. And Josh was certain that anybody would find that suspicious; not only that they were friends before, but now they were friends spending a lot of time alone together. If they were more popular there would have been rumours all around the school by now, but because of their social status, no one cared. If they did something radical and amazing like they ended up being caught in the janitor's closet all cliché-like then people would talk. But right now they were just .. Josh and Hope.

Josh's parents didn't know about the fact the two of them were dating, and he wasn't sure if Hope had told anyone either. If she had then that was fine, but Josh was always nervous about the idea of relationships in general. Dating and the like wasn't something he was used to, but there wasn't really anyone else he would've preferred calling his first girlfriend other than Hope. Even if he hadn't really thought about it until it happened about a month and a half ago.

He eventually succumbed to getting his phone out and texting her. Of course, she could've been with her own friends. Just because Josh text her didn't meant she would drop everything just to see him, and maybe she was actually sick of him by now. Obviously there were peoples whose first-ever relationships weren't as cracked up as they thought they'd be, and maybe she was sick of Josh already. Maybe she realised she liked him as a friend but going that extra step was some huge mistake. The paranoid thoughts ran through the young boy's mind but he was too late to stop his thumb pushing the send button, messaging Hope about how he was sat on the football field, reading, and asking if she wanted to join.

[Hope Mallory]

The last 40 minutes had been hell to Hope in the most literal way she could imagine. Of all her skills, the one that lacked the most was her social skill and everybody knew this. Yes, she had a few friends and tried to be nice to everyone just 'cause but to actually dedicate time to socialize was a totally different matter. Lilly knew this, of course, but she still dragged Hope around campus as her wing-man (or wing-lady, actually) so she'd meet the new guys around and be just plain nosy. Hope was not interested at all in the new kids or what people did during the summer, it was always the same thing and she was in no mood to smile and nod like a puppet.

Well, technically this particular summer wasn't like every other to her, granted she did stay at home a lot, read more than the regular teenager and hung out with Lilly and Josh. But it was different, she wasn't just hanging out with Josh and to be honest she avoided her girl friend a lot so she wouldn't risk having her ask if Hope and Josh had finally declared their feelings. Which they did but nobody needed to know that, she didn't even know how to tell them or what to explain when they'd inevitably ask for details. So instead of risking being in an awkward position, she had been a little far from Lilly, who was also trying to socialize with the "it" crowd, but school is the one place she couldn't avoid her friend. Instead she decided it was best to do whatever as long as the Josh subject remained in the back of the closet.

Just as she was thinking how much she wanted to be far away and how the patterns in the cafeteria's ceiling were ridiculous, her phone buzzed in her back pocket and pulled her back to reality, almost surprising herself for being among over 3 people. She picked it up and smiled a little, glad Josh saved her without him even knowing. Using her hair as a shield so no one would read her text she quickly typed a capital "thank god" and told him she'd be there in a second. No point on making him wait, she didn't like games anyway and there was a pretty big chance Josh wouldn't see her quick reply as desperation.

Without really saying anything she got up, excused herself and made a bee line to the football field, bitting into her apple and breathing the fresh air. Maybe she was developing some sort of social phobia because she never noticed how heavy the air felt inside crowded places until now. As she walked she tried to think of any other symptoms she might have or not but decided it was best to just google it later. Less than three minutes later she spotted Josh and went to sit beside him, unsure if it was ok to kiss him or display any sort of affection since there were some random people here and there.

"Hey! You saved me, I was being forced into actually socializing and talking about the summer" she sighed heavily and tried not to sound whinny about it without much success.

[+ Joshua Fisher]

Whilst Josh had been thinking that Hope didn’t have to come if she didn’t want to, he was kind of hoping she’d appear anyway. He didn’t really spend much of his time with anybody other than her, because she was one of his best friends, and now she was more. If they hadn’t been dating then he would’ve probably spent more time with her than the rest of his friends anyway. It was probably inevitable that they’d start dating, and everybody knew that. Except maybe Josh and Hope themselves, until it finally happened. So now he looked forward to seeing her even more than he would’ve before, and he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as nervous. Before he was just confused, but now he was happy. And with any luck Hope was happy as well, and Josh wasn’t just dragging her mood down every time she saw him or heard him talk.

A few people on the field started throwing a football around, but that was because they were bored. Not that they were training. It wasn’t as much of a nuisance as an entire football team was, and Josh’s eyes just watched the brown ball as it flew back and forth. He had very little else to do, because his book was getting boring. He’d already read it at least twice, and every time his eyes hit the page he couldn’t help but look back up again to see if Hope was on her way. She was a lot more fun than reading, even if only four or five years ago Josh would’ve happily preferred the company of a book to that of a girl. But that was all a part of being a teenager, he guessed. Hormones and the like seemed to take over your mind and you suddenly wanted a girlfriend, whereas in the past Josh’s cheeks would’ve burnt up bright red and he’d refuse to talk if his parents joked about how just because he was friends with a girl meant she was his girlfriend.

Now though, he was still afraid to tell them. Not because they’d have said he was too young or that they’d have laughed, but because he just thought they’d poke fun at him for it, and overall they’d just brought that on themselves. By making fun of him in the past he anticipated it for the future, so he was severely reluctant to bring Hope up in conversation with anyone in his family. He looked up as he saw someone walking closer and smiled as he recognised Hope, watching her sit beside him on the grass and he knew she was as unsure as he was as to how they should’ve greeted each other. He knew very few people would be fazed if they saw a girl kissing a guy, because it was so normal for the majority of people there. If their friends were around then they actually had a reason to be unsure, but clearly it wasn’t the best idea to do anything if Josh was thinking so much into it.

He just decided to smile to her as she sat by his side, watching her talk and then laughing a little. “Oh God, not socialising. But you know, by talking to me you’re still being social.” Josh poked her in the ribs as he collapsed to the ground, lying in the grass and letting all of his books fall down to the ground. He didn’t need to read anymore, unless Hope decidedly jumped up and ran away. But the fact she’d shown up was actually proof that she would’ve preferred being with him rather than.. well, with whoever it was she’d been in before. “How’s the rest of your day been?”

[Hope Mallory]

For two seconds or more Hope felt a little bit like a cliche, she had come so quickly to be with Josh she never even noticed there were people actually playing some game in the field, she felt a little as if she were in one of her mom's books. That feeling was quickly gone when she heard Josh laugh at her situation, apparently it was funny in the eyes of someone that wasn't in it so she just playfully rolled back her eyes and bumped her shoulder to his in a weak sign of reprehension, she watched Josh lay on the grass and let her own weight on her elbows, not sure if she wanted to have grass on her hair. "It doesn't count, it's you. And you're not asking me 'How was your summer, Holly?'. That doesn't even remotely resembles my name. So yeah, not a single thing has changed in high school, thank you very much." she shrugged a little as she said. She wasn't annoyed that people didn't know her name or anything, she was a lot more annoyed she'd have to put an effort not to be rude to them and just going "You don't know my name, what do you care?!".

The brown oval shaped ball some kids were playing with hit one of them hard and Hope flinched, remembering how she would never understand why someone would willingly put themselves in that sort of situation so she turned to Josh and smiled almost automatically. "Anyway, I guess my day wasn't one of the worst days in history. How was yours?"

Vanity wasn't a big trait in Hope, she wasn't too caught up in it like most girls her age. Yes, she liked having her hair look pretty and getting home made manicures from her mom and all, but she wasn't the kind of girl that would be too worried about how her hair looked all the time or even go to the bathroom to check on her look during breaks.But lately she was a little more worried about that, she didn't want to be one of the boys or anything and just do whatever and at the same time she knew that the reason of all that resulted into one word: Josh. It was stupid because he has even seen her in sweatpants, which according to typical teenage movies was a cardinal sin, right next to eating carbs which obviously Hope did anyway.

Shaking her paranoia a little off and reassuring herself that she didn't have to find reasons to be awkward around him again - they had too much awkwardness already - she threw most of her hair to the side and laid down, shielding her eyes from the sun a little and picking up a book in between them." Why are you reading this again?" she was a little puzzled but not os much to take the subject too far, instead she laid the book to her side and wiggled her body to get close to his.

[+ Joshua Fisher]

“Today’s been pretty boring.” But Josh never really did have many exciting days, now did he? He might have sometimes wishes he woke up one morning and had super powers, but that was never going to happen, so he wouldn’t have his own team of X-Men or fight the Green Goblin or anything. The biggest surprise of his day was going to be a pop quiz in biology, which he’d breeze through as easy as... something.. that was easy to breeze through. He was too hot to think right now. It was still – kind of – summer. So it was hot. Not too hot, but he’d lost his train of thought and his mind had gone blank and the heat his him suddenly. So he tried to just refocus on Hope, to take his mind off of things.

Hope asked him why he was reading the same book again and he laughed as she moved closer to him as they laid on the grass. “I was only reading it because I needed something to do whilst I was waiting for you to show up.” Josh rolled onto his side to face Hope, and he couldn’t have cared less about just who saw them. People would spread rumours, but he decided so what? Rumours weren’t that bad when they were true. If someone was bored enough to start talking about two of the quietest students in the school then they had less of a social life than Josh did, and that was saying something.

“So do you wanna come round to mine or something later? Mom’s taking my brother out to some soccer thing and dad’s working, as always.” Josh didn’t mind Hope coming over when everyone was in the house, but he hated being confined to his room. It wasn’t that he was afraid of them finding out.. well, actually it was. He didn’t want them poking fun at him because he was dating someone. Well, not just someone: Hope.

[Hope Mallory]

"Aww." Hope playfully overdramatized her response to Josh admitting he was just waiting for her and traced her index finger as if she had a tear running down her face. She was actually very glad they could be this honest, she was pretty sure that it went against everything teen magazines thought about relationships though. She laughed a little and let her hand rest down on his. If he didn't mind neither should she. especially considering there really was no one paying attention that closely.

As Josh invited her to come over again she though, as always, about the day she punched him and was immediately ashamed in her own mind. Granted it had led them to where they were but punching someone is never something to be proud of. Unless you're a boxer. "Yes, but I still don't wanna get near the Wii.". They probably wouldn't really just play Wii but she wanted to make sure that was very clear. Until she could control her motor skills better she figured it was best to stay away from potentially harmful situations: videogames, PE and the kitchen.