"Key, don't do it." Sandra hissed, walking furiously beside me, tugging on my arm, "Don't make a fucking fool of yourself. Do you want to be the laughing stalk of the entire school? Please, you don't even know the guy. He's a jerk!"

I shook my head, determined. It was do or die. "I can't take it! What if I go my whole life, never knowing?? I'll think about it forever! I'll always think about it and regret it when I'm old and wrinkly. What if I get married but all I'll be able to thick about is Christian Thatcher? DO YOU WANT ME TO BE IN A LOVELESS MARRIAGE?!"

"Keep your voice down Key! You'll find better guys, I promise you." She grabbed me hard, but I pulled away.

"Thanks, Sand, I know you're just looking out for me, but this is something I have to do."

I squared myself, and then focused my eyes on Christian. He was with a bunch of his friends, but they looked pretty tense for some reason. I marched up determinedly to the group, and.... completely froze up.

Oh my god. What the hell am I doing? Where's Sandra! I have to get out of here. Oh no, they're looking at me! Even Christian is staring at me! Ooo, he's fine. That shirt really emphasises his broad shoulders. I love a guy with that swimmer physique. Hmm maybe that's why I'm such a supporter of the U.S. Olympic team. I mean, they're yummy. Especially when they win and take those stretchy shirts of and roar and ... Uh oh, what was I thinking about? Get it together-

Thankfully, my mind's confused rambling where interrupted by a bored, "Can we help you?"

Francise, a pretty redhead, looked me up and down, taking in my flared out black skirt and my tucked in lime green tank to my curly brown hair, messily clipped back with lime green bobby pins. She smiled, which made me a little nervous, since it eerily reminded me of the smile a teacher gives you before springing an essay.

"Did you want to talk to Christian?", she inquired?

Huh. How did she know?

"From how you're staring at him," she continued, "We should probably give you guys some time alone."

Oh. So that's how she knew. Damn, subtle is not my middle name.

She and the others cleared away, leaving me staring hopelessly at a pissed off Christian Thatcher.

"Well?" he asked, annoyed. "What is it this time, a singing valentine? A flying plane with a banner streaming behind it with "I want to have Christian Thatcher's babies"? Or do you want to give me a thong? Aw hell no, it's not another tattoo is it? Jesus, I know I'm new, but doesn't anybody at this school have anything better to do?"

Stunned, I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. "What else is a plane supposed to do? Crawl? Though I supposed that would wrinkle the banner," I paused, pondering what a crawling plane would look like.

I think I muttered something about the image in my mind, because a corner of his mouth twitched. "Fair enough. I suppose I deserved that one. Well kid, what do you want?"

I bit my lip, and summoned all of my courage. Which was not really a lot, if you've noticed anything about my personality. I'm kind of a "decide to go on a roller-coaster gal, and then freak out while I'm waiting in the 4-hour line". You don't want to see what happens when I actually get on the damn thing. Let's just say that I shout out warnings to all of the happy people waiting innocently in line. Warnings about never being stupid enough to go on the death trap, and how when they see my dismembered body, I hope they'll learn from my mistakes. Oh yes, the mummies of the crying children loved me for that one.

"I just wanted to say that I love you."

He stared at me, expressionless.

"And I know that you don't even know me, and probably think I'm a crazy stalker, but if I didn't tell you I would regret if for the rest of my life. Or for 15 years at least, which is what Oprah says is how you're supposed to measure if something is really important."

Christian Thatcher looked at me, an odd expression in his eyes. Then, shaking his head, he turned around and walked away.

I bit my lip, utterly mortified and turned around.

Only to run face first into a wall of Hollister. Otherwise known as Dean Wyatt.

He clasped an arm around my shoulders, and procliamed loudly. "Ahh, young love." Here he gave a dramatic sigh. "So beautiful and tragic. A shame that you two have split up so fast but it was good while it lasted. At least you'll always have the memories."

When he noticed that tears were filling my eyes, he immediately stopped and asked me if I was okay. I leaned into his comforting arms and asked him if there were many people around us who saw. Sadly, his answer did not cheer me up.

Sandra materialised next to us, and joined the group hug.

"Hey hun," she crooned, "don't worry about it. Let's get you home alright?"

Sniffling, I allowed myself to be pulled into Dean's car and driven home.

Hours of watching Disney movies (Mulan is my favourite. That chica actually does something for herself, instead of having everything practically given to her on a silver platter just because she's so sweet and pretty to look at.), and eating tubs of ice cream later – well not tubs. More like a bowl. If I ate the whole thing, I would have a mad mother on my case. Ooo alliteration.

What was the point of my sentence? Oh, right.

So anyways, a while later, after comfort food and friends I felt a little better. Enthusiastic even. I bounce back quick, what can you say. I soar to new heights, and sink to new lows, yada yada.

"So really," Sandra said slowly, " You think this afternoon has been a good experience?"

I beamed. "Well yeah, I mean, at least now I'll know. And it's not like my life revolved around him. He's just a man," I said loftily, "and I am an independent, intelligent woman."

"Tell that to me when you're sobbing over him in two seconds," muttered Dean under his breath.

"What did you say?" I demanded sharply.

"I said", he enunciated, "Tell that to me when you're sobbing over him in two seconds."

Hmph. My friends have no faith in me.

"Oh ye of little faith," I reprimanded, "I'm better than that. I'll find somebody someday... even if Christian's the only hot guy in our school, I'll make do. Uh Kevin from science is sort of cute" God, I pleaded, please don't strike me with karma over a little white lie "... and even if I'll never find somebody with such beautiful green eyes... or .. or ..."

And thar she blows! I was gone, sobbing horrifically into my cereal bowl.

Just joking! I'm not that bipolar. I just snuffled a little.

"Well," Sandra said a little too brightly, "at least you have the fair to cheer you up! You know how much you love the fair..." she wheedled.

I do love the fair. Although our town can be a little to stifling and quaint for my comfort, I really did love all of the events it hosted. I mean, who doesn't love more reasons to stuff yourself with ice cream and other goodies of the fattening variety?

Plus, I was helping out at this one, so I sort of had to go.

To fully understand how exciting the annual Fair is, I should probably give you some background information about my town. We're not exactly in the sticks but we're pretty damned close. Our population is small, and everyone knows each other. This can get pretty frustrating, since the number one hobby in the area is gossiping. I mean, how would you like it if everybody found out your mother's new smoking date before you did? Celine, a forty-something year old artist was your typical middle-aged gossiper. You know the type, wears plenty of makeup and always has a cloud of perfume and speaks with a cigarette-induced rasp. As much fun as she was, and Celine definitely knew how to have her kicks, she could get pretty irritating when she's describing your mother's new boyfriend's sculpted ass.

Which is what she was currently doing now. Somehow, I'm not sure Barney, her husband, would approve.

So my town is chock-full of characters, from the lovable ones to the "ohmygod-get-away-from-me!"s. However one of the major benefits was that everyone truly cared about another. Oh and we could throw a kick-ass party. Which brings us back to the upcoming fair. Our fairs are insanely, well, insane. I mean, you have your regular clowns, popcorns and booths kind of fairs. And then you have West Chuck fairs. (And yes, I've heard all of the puns on West Chucks, names. Don't get me started on the idiots who call it upchuck. So original) West Chuck fairs are on the calendars of circuses, people who rent out roller coasters, and performers who win grammies. Okay maybe not the last one, but it's an event. And we always have a theme. Last year it was "Biggest", and basically there was a competition to see who could make the biggest, well anything. There was a 10 foot big chocolate dipped pretzel. I kid you not. This year, along with the regular booths, dance tents etc, there will be a performance competition. Any kind of performance is welcome, except for sexual and air guitar. And yep, that's what it says on the flyers. Apparently, they were trying to stave off the kind of "biggest" comparisons they had last year. Although Celine was very happy when my mother's then-boyfriend had flashed the crowd, Old Mrs. Witherspoon had not. Hey, I told you are citizens were creative.

So this year, I'm the emcee for the performances, and I'm also performing in a band with Sandra, Dave and Matt. We're an all-genres kind of band. We kick ass, but we're focused on making music and having fun, and not on making it big. We're not entered in a competition, but we're providing entertainment during the intermission, and also for the dance tent.

"...and when he walked away, child, I tell you, there was no jiggling, You know how I hate it when a man's butt cheeks flop together."

Blinking, I realised that Celine had been talking about Mr. Jericho, my mom's date and my English teacher (can you say awkward?) for the last ten minutes while my idiot friends had changing expressions of disgust or compete hilarity on their faces. I think whenever they looked at my glazed face, and the fact that Celine was talking about my mother's boyfriends ass crossed their mind their eyes crinkled in merriment, but when they realised they were talking about their homeroom teacher, they felt the urge to hide in a closet where Celine couldn't reach them.

"Celine," I scolded softly, "

"Oh tosh dear, Barney won't mind. He knows who I think has the finest piece of ass in the world."

I gagged on reflex, and she laughed. "Well dearies, time to set up for the Fair. I brought the van so you can load up all the instruments."

Celine was the co-coordinator of the event, which was supposedly the reason she had come to my house. However, I had a sneaking suspicion it was just to torment me with stories of my mother's men.

Though she has her flighty moments, my mum is one of my best friends. I think it helps that we are so close in age. She got knocked up by my dad when she was 17, and they got married. They were in love, and lived happily for a while. I don't really remember him, just piercing blue eyes, like the ones that I have, and a vague memory of a deep voice and sunlight. Sadly, he died of cancer when I was 4. My mom was really shaken up, which was why we moved back to West Chuck. We lived with my grandparents for a bit, so that my mom could be a sobbing mess in peace, but now we live in a ramshackle house that I love. Money's tight but I make some at my job at Celine's art store, and the gigs from the band also help.

My mum changes men like their Kleenexes. Something Mrs. White would approve of, but I have problems with. Usually she picks good ones, but once in awhile we get real asses. The problem is that I know she's still young and looking to find the same love she had with my dad, but she doesn't really realise that the men in her life are in mine too. The good ones leave in the end, and she's not the only one who misses them. Me and my mum give up pieces of our heart too easily. I hope my heart won't eventually only give out sharp-edged love.

Laughing and joking, Dean and Sandra carried the drum kit into her band. I followed them, catching wisps of their conversation that floated to me.

"Dude, what are you smoking? Jenifer doesn't love Brad anymore! She went out with like ten different guys. Didn't she just get out of a relationship with John Mayer? John fricking Mayer! She's totally over him"

"Oh Dean. Nobody gets over Brad Pitt. That girl will love that lying cheater till she dies. Sad, but true."

It's insane what my two best friends will get into heated fights over. They once argued for 2 hours, and got extremely pissed off at each other over the colour of – are you ready? - My eyes. And I'm not talking about just lightly annoyed. They get seriously, insanely mad. It's very uncomfortable being in between them when they're shouting "You little fuck they're sapphire!", "Open your eyes your idiot they're azure!" Especially when I'm between them squeaking, "Guys, guys? You're both right. They change colours."

The good thing is they get over these fights quickly. Along with having quick tempers, and the belief that they're always right, they also have short attention spans. If one little thing interests them while they're arguing, such as, I don't know, the interesting shape of a cloud, they immediately focus on that. Sadly, sometimes they end up arguing what the cloud is shaped like. It's a vicious cycle, but I love them anyways.

Well, the last addition of my inner circle of friends is Matt. Matt is the brains of the group. He's smart and serious, and soft spoken. However, when he talks, you listen to him. Otherwise, he tends to be overlooked. The four of us are extremely close, since we've grown up together. It gets to the point where we've all heard each other stories and are sick of each other. We love each other and we can't get rid of each other, even when they piss the shit out of us. Trust me, I've tried. Dean can be an ass sometimes.

A pounding on my door signaled the arrival of Matt.

I grinned wickedly. It was time for the Fair.