rivers_bend

Title: Dear Diary
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: OFC, Sam, Dean
Words: ~3000
Rating: General
A/N: Thank you to sylvanwitch for saving me from my own ego and impaired judgment. This is for sadelyrate who was talking about her fondness for outside POV on the boys and thusly inspired this plot bunny to bite.
Summary: Mandy gets a new lab partner. He has long legs, a gorgeous smile, and a brother with a really cool car.



November 23, 1999
Dear Diary,
I must kill Heather. Well, Andrea. Whatever. (note to self, stop watching that movie before you lose all grip on reality and think it would work to blow up the school.) I'm so tired of being the biggest geek in my class. Andrea and Alana are determined to make my life hell, like they haven't grown up at all since we were in second grade and I got that bladder infection and peed my pants in front of the whole class.

I still have no lab partner in Bio, cos there's an odd number of us and no one wants to sit next to me. Everyone knows if they did, the As would make fun of them too, and it's not worth the hassle. Every day they turn around and giggle at me until Mrs. Warren makes them shut up.

Alex called tonight and he's coming home for Thanksgiving after all, some friend of his in Austin is going to Memphis and offered him a ride. It's out of his way, but it's out of everyone's way to get here. Butt-fuck Arkansas. God, I can't wait to get the hell out. Alex says college is different, everyone's new at college so it doesn't matter that our family hasn't lived here for like a hundred generations, and it's cool to be smart, and no one has to know anything about me I don't want to tell them. I'm gonna go a lot farther than Texas though. California or New York or something. I've got the grades and the scores, and physics club and stupid boring chess club. If Alex could get a scholarship, surely I can too.

November 30, 1999
Thanksgiving break was awesome. With Alex home, mom and dad were preoccupied with finding out all about college and they just left me alone to read and stuff. Aunt Mary brought the kids over for dinner on the day and Bobby somehow got his hands on a bottle of wine and got drunk and puked all over Mrs. Michaels' flower beds. Which she totally deserves, because she tried to run over Arch when he was a puppy, and I don’t care if it was five years ago, I'm not going to forgive her. Being back at school sucks though. Alana pushed Toni and made her spill coke all over my English homework, and neither of them said sorry and Mr. Moore yelled at me like it was my fault.

December 6, 1999
Dear Diary,
I finally got a lab partner!!!! His name's Sam and he's all bony elbows and long legs that hardly fit under the table. I thought at first he was annoyed to have been put with the class dweeb, cos he wouldn't look at me, but then I decided he's just shy. When I showed him how far I'd gotten with the frog dissection, he gave me a smile and a sort of sideways look from underneath his eyelashes. He's smart too; he labeled his whole diagram without even looking at the text book.

Of course, the As aren't happy. Alana stopped on her way out of class with the bathroom pass (which might as well say smoking pass, I swear) to make some bitchy remark, making sure the new boy knows where I stand in the social order just in case it wasn't obvious. He's not scared of her though, the look he gave her in return could have frozen a campfire. It was hard to tell in the way she flounced off if he'd just signed his social death sentence, or if she was looking at him as her latest challenge. If it was the latter, I'm pretty sure she has no chance, the way he muttered something about every school being the same. Andrea almost caught me grinning, but I hid my face in my notebook at the last minute.

December 8, 1999
Dear Diary,
I got marked down on my paper because of the coke. When I tried to complain, Mr. Moore said in the real world presentation is half the battle and I better learn that lesson now instead of getting fired at a later date. He's crazy. I'm pretty sure whatever job I have there won't be cheerleaders spilling soda on my work, but whatever. A B+ on one essay isn't going to bring down my grade, I guess.

We finished frogs today. I almost asked Sam if he wanted to go to the library after school to study for the dissection exam tomorrow, but I chickened out at the last minute. Then I saw him getting into a shiny black car as I walked to the bus stop, and I was totally grateful. The guy behind the wheel was wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, was about three days past needing a shave, and looked like one of those super-cool 60s movies guys, like Steve McQueen or something. If Sam's hanging with guys like that, he would never want to sit around the library with someone like me, for sure. He's still nice though, even if he's friends with older cool guys.

December 9, 1999
I think I aced the dissection final. Mrs. Warren laid the test papers out before class so they were waiting for us when we sat down. It was half essay and half identification, which was kind of mean cos she didn’t tell us about the essay part, but she did say we should be prepared for anything. All our dissected frogs were in their pans on the counters around the edge of the room, and she called us up by row to march around listing organs in order of the numbered pins jabbed into the corpses. Marie Traub was ahead of me. She must have made her lab partner do the whole dissection because she was flinching at every tray. Sam, behind me, had the opposite reaction. At every station he took a careful look at where the pin was placed and then wrote the answer neatly next to the number. While waiting to go on to the next tray, he looked supremely bored. I probably would have felt the same, except I kind of liked getting a chance to watch him.

Sam finished his essay with twenty minutes of class left and used the time to finish his math homework. I started to wonder if he was an even bigger geek than me. He must have had something going for him though, because I caught Alana looking at him the way a hungry man watches a steak on the barbecue. Maybe once you get to high school being new works for rather than against you.

December 13,1999
Dear Diary,
We got our tests back today and I managed to catch a glimpse of Sam's before he shoved it in his bag. He got 100%. Not bad considering he missed half the frog unit. The guy in the hot car picked him up again after school. When Sam got in the car, the guy pushed Sam's hair off his face and my stomach totally flipped. I can't even tell if it's because I want someone to look at me like that or if I want to push Sam's hair off his face myself. The bus stank of tuna and I had to bite the skin on the back of my hand not to cry. Fucking hormones. Evil. But at least I won't be on the rag at Christmas.

December 15, 1999
This is like the best or the worst day of my life, I don’t even know.

Andrea and Alana cornered me at my locker after school, pretending to ignore me, but hemming me in so I couldn't leave. All sing-song like we're still in second grade, Alana asked Andrea who she was going to the dance with.

"Rick Johnson." Andrea answered, and then she laughed and leaned into me, like I was a wall or something, pressing me back against the combination dials.

Then, like maybe I forgot or something, Alana said, "Isn't he the captain of the football team?"

Andrea did that fake finger to her lips thinking pose and said, "Why yes, he is."

I pushed Andrea a little, trying to get her off me without pissing her off too much, but she got up in my face and shouted, "What's your problem!"

I'm such a dork, I actually apologized.

Alana got right up in my face and said, "Who are you going to the dance with, loser?" and I didn't say anything, just tried again to move out of the way, but Andrea poked one acrylic nail into my shoulder, which really hurt, and demanded that I answer her.

They already knew I didn't have a date, there wasn't any reason not to tell them.

Then Alana said the meanest thing. "Pity your brother went all the way to Austin. Maybe if he were still here you could get him to go with you. He's the only one who would." I so wanted to die. Apparently I am never going to be allowed to live down that time in seventh grade when mom got anxious about me going to the school dance on my own, so she made Alex go with me.

So there I am, wishing I could just sink through the floor, and I catch sight of Sam over Andrea's shoulder. From the look on his face, he heard what she said. My humiliation was complete.

Like they aren't even there he asks if he can ask me a question. The As turned their sly looks on him. I just about managed to nod.

"Want to go to the Christmas formal with me?" he said. Like I was just any girl and not the class geek who was, even as he spoke, being bullied at her locker.

Andrea got all incredulous and said he couldn't ask ME to the dance, like I'm a leper or something.

Sam didn't even turn his head when she said it. "What do you say?" he asked me, and did that smiling thing again.

I couldn't answer. I willed my mouth to open, for the words I'd love to to come out, or hell, I'd even have settled for my head to bob up and down, but I was flicking my eyes back and forth between him and the lay-you-out-dead looks the As were shooting me.

He didn't walk away though, or huff in disgust, he just angled between Andrea and Alana and said, "I think you girls are done here," and waited for them to leave. Once they were out of earshot, he met my eyes. He said something about how I didn't have to say yes, even though he was really asking, and he knew dances were lame, but maybe I wanted to go? Somehow I managed to say, "Yes. Please."

"Cool," he said. "Do you have to get tickets or anything? I don’t know how it works here."

I said I'd buy them. He rescued me from bitch one and bitch two, and he's taking me to the dance. The least I can do is buy tickets.

He walked with me to the bus stop and then peeled off to get his ride. I wonder if he said something about me to the other guy, cos they both turned to look at me before the bus pulled up. Sam's friend laughed and said something and Sam nodded. He waved as they drove past. It didn't really look like they were making fun of me, but I still had that sick flutter that maybe Sam was going to forget all about asking me.

I really, REALLY hope he doesn't.

December 16, 1999
He totally didn't forget. He came to my locker after second period and asked if he needed a tux. I totally babbled at him, about how he could wear a suit or anything he wanted really, just not jeans, but I was thinking, oh, god, all the guys will be wearing suits, and if my date isn't wearing one it will just be something else to make fun of Mandy Bishop about, but then he said he had a suit and it was gray and was that alright? I totally could have been suave and cool and smiled and said that sounded lovely, but no, I blurted out, "My dress is green!" like a big old doofus. He was totally nice about it though and just said, "Great, I'll see you in bio," and then ran off cos the tardy bell was ringing.

We had a movie in Mrs. Warren's class, so there was no pressure, or chance, to talk. I don’t think he caught me looking at him in the dark. I didn't see him after school. I even almost missed the bus stopping to buy the tickets, and by the time I got there he was gone. The dance is tomorrow, and we haven't talked about where we're meeting or anything. I don’t have his phone number, and I don't even think he knows my last name.

December 17, 1999
(after school entry)
Sam's going to pick me up, IN THAT AWESOME CAR! It turns out the Steve McQueen guy is called Dean and he's Sam's brother, and he must be like the best brother in the whole world if he's letting Sam borrow his car. It's a 1967 Impala, Sam says, which, I didn't even know what that was, because all the cars around here are stupid, but they're supposed to be classics. Whatever, it is way, WAY cooler than Rick Johnson's stupid Ford pick-up truck. Sam even asked me about corsages, but there isn't any florist around here, and we don’t do them. It was nice of him to ask though. He's like the sweetest guy who ever lived.

Mom's helping me curl my hair and loaning me her black bead necklace.

(after the dance)
Oh, my god, that was like the most amazing night ever. Even though Dean chickened out at the last minute about letting Sam borrow the car, but he drove us to the dance and picked us up after and held the door for me like he was a real chauffer and everything, except in jeans and his leather jacket, but not his sunglasses, obviously, and wow, he has these amazing green eyes. They aren't the same as Sam's at all, his are more golden green, but Dean's matched my dress. Sam looked so good in his suit, I pictured a sort of silvery gray when he said, but it was more charcoal, and it made him look really grown up. His tie was kind of ugly, but all the guys were taking off their ties right after pictures, and so I didn't have to look at it that long.

He didn't do that thing that guys always do, where they get you there and then ditch you to go get drunk, he like actually danced with me. Slow dances and everything. Alex warned me that sometimes guys get a stiffie when they slow dance, and I totally shouldn't laugh at him, but Sam was a total gentleman all night. I wouldn't have minded if he wasn't, but he does hardly know me, and he is shy, so I can't expect him to jump me behind the bleachers.

We talked about this book he's reading about astronomy and about how he dissected a cat at his last school, which is way grosser than a frog, cos they have all this fat, and how he likes history better than math. The As shot daggers at me all night, and Alana tried to make me cry in the bathroom, but I just totally ignored her. Her date only danced with her once the whole time.

Dean did this grand bow when he opened the door for me after the dance and Andrea practically SPUTTERED when she saw him. I will never forget that feeling as long as I live.

Sam walked me to the door, and I hoped he might kiss me goodnight, but he just gave me a peck on the cheek, and then said that Dean was waiting so he had to go. I asked if maybe he wanted to do something over break, but he has to go to Louisiana with his dad and brother. He said he had a really good time though, and he hoped he would see me after break. I don't know where he thinks I'm going. Oh, god, I'm never going to be able to sleep.

Best. Night. Ever.

January 3, 2000.

Sam wasn't in class today. I hope he's not sick or, god, what if something bad happened in Louisiana or something.

January 12, 2000

I guess Sam isn't coming back. Maria moved to Detroit, and so Mrs. Warren made Lance my new lab partner. She said she didn't know anything about Sam. I wish he'd come back, but Lance isn't so bad. He talks to me at least.

Alex invited me to come to Austin for spring break. Dad's not sure, but mom said I could go. Sometimes I think she trusts Alex more than she should. Since it works to my advantage, I'm not going to argue.

…

April 14, 2000

I GOT INTO STANFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
California, here I come.

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