This is the fourth chapter of my second serial novel, The Year of the Winding Road < click here to see the main page for the novel, read the other chapters if you missed them or have no idea what this story is about.
Note to readers:
While this story does have events in it that were inspired by true life and the people who made them happen, all of it is fictional and made up. The people, aside from the popular culture figures that pepper this novel, are made up using qualities and quirks I have observed in the people I have met in real life. The places are also made up. The popular culture figures are used fictionally, though I tried to remain true to them in my writing.
The emotions though are very real. High school is a time for angst. High school is a time for finding one’s self and learning who and what one will become. I tried to keep that ribbon alive in this piece of fiction.
The journal entries for the most part are real. I still have the real journal that I wrote in during my junior year of high school, and while I changed the timeline of some of the entries, I tried to keep it true to the voice I used as a seventeen-year-old writer. The journal, along with the literary magazine in which I was published and a number of my other high school memories reside in a box in my basement, making the moves with me through life.
Assembly
Assembly
Every so often, Mesa High School had some sort of assembly or another. One Monday late in September was one of those days.
Later in her life, Brianna could not remember much of why they had the assembly, but she remembered certain details of it. She remembered the way the stands looked. She remembered the way shoes squeaked on the floor of the main gym of the school and how the stairs creaked as the high school students found their seats in the bleachers. She remembered it was loud, as voices crashed against each other and echoed over and over again while the assistant principal reminded everyone repeatedly to “please find a seat quickly” and several teachers helped to usher the teens into the aisles and up into the bleachers. She especially remembered that she did not sit where she was supposed to.
Brianna was a huge rule-follower. Her parents had instilled that in her at a young age, showing their disappointment and displeasure should she break even the most minor of infractions. As a teen, she always felt as though something terrible was going to happen to her if she broke any rule. Like any kid, she did get in trouble for things when she was little, like forgetting to clean her room or do her chores or even get a perfect grade on a test. But she was very much a follower instead of an instigator, especially when it came to rules outside of her own house.
The juniors had a certain section of the main gymnasium that they were required to sit in, just as each of the other classes did. But since she had met up with Maisie on her way up for the assembly, she followed Maisie into the gym. But at the door, she had started to move to sit with the juniors. She stopped when Maisie grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” Maisie asked, talking loudly to be heard over the din.
Brianna stared at her and blinked. She looked at the junior’s section and back at Maisie, pulling her arm from her friend’s grasp. She thought it was obvious what she was about to do. But Maisie just stared at her.
“I’m going to sit in my section like I’m supposed to,” Brianna replied blankly.
Maisie laughed.
“Do you really think anyone will notice you sitting in the senior section?” she asked. “There’s over a thousand kids at this school, and there is no way on God’s green earth that the administrators can tell the grades of everyone just by looking at them. No one will even care. Come on.”
Brianna followed with a sigh, despite the small nagging worry in the pit of her stomach. Maisie found some of their group gathered a few rows up in the bleachers and climbed the stairs with a smile and a wave. Climbing over a few other students, she plopped down next to John and Selena. Corinne was also already there, as was Lindsey. Lindsey was also a junior, so Brianna felt a little better about breaking the rule about the senior section.
Soon, Seth and Patrick had joined them. Since Brianna was sitting at the edge of the group, there was an open seat next to her. Patrick sat down carefully and smiled.
“Hello, Brianna. Fancy seeing you in the senior section.”
Brianna ducked her head.
“I tagged along with Maisie. I’m not close enough friends with many of the juniors to sit in my own section.”
He smiled.
“Cool beans. I hope you don’t mind me sitting next to you.”
She returned the smile shyly as she felt her cheeks turning red and shook her head. She didn’t mind if he sat with her. In fact, just being near him made her giddy. She wondered if it was obvious she had a crush on Patrick.
Adelaide was climbing the stairs and the movement caught Brianna’s attention. She looked up to see that Adelaide was smiling at her, grinning at the fact that Patrick was sitting next to her. She winked and Brianna ducked her head again, her cheeks feeling even hotter. She just knew her blush was deeper now.
Just the day before, Brianna confessed to Adelaide on the phone that she had a growing crush on the young man. Adelaide had tried to get her to ask him out, but Brianna was mortified. Her shyness would never let her. Something within her told her that she would never be good enough for any boy, let alone Patrick.
Adelaide had stepped up to the row behind them and climbed over the kids that were seated along that row until she was directly behind the group. There was a space there that she sat down in.
“Hi, Maisie. Hi, Patrick. Hi, Brianna.”
She had said Brianna’s name with the tinge of a tease in her voice. Brianna looked back at her with a glare since she felt exposed. She was sitting next to the young man she was crushing on and her best friend was teasing her about it. But she was met with a knowing smile from Adelaide and a thumbs up. She took a deep breath and turned to watch the assembly unfold in front of her as she pulled her unfinished math homework out of her backpack.
She had meant to finish it the night before, but she had got annoyed with Matt for one stupid reason or another that she had forgotten about. As a result, she decided to not bother asking him for help. Now she wished she hadn’t been so rash, since she was hopelessly lost.
The dance team had taken the floor and were in position, waiting for the music to start. There were several girls on the team, but what made this year’s dance team so extraordinary was that there was a solitary male there too. His name was Phil and he loved to dance. He was a sophomore like Matt and had made waves when he tried out for the team, even making the local newspaper in doing so. Brianna remembered how her mom had huffed about a boy being allowed on the team. Dad thought it was a great idea though.
“Think of it this way, dear. He gets to hang with all of the girls!”
Phil had made the team based on his skills and not because he was just a guy Brianna noted. And when the team began to dance, he demonstrated those skills. He was a great dancer, even better than some of the girls on the team.
After the dance team had finished, the principal took the floor and began to talk. Brianna listened to him drone on and on as she tried to focus on one of the problems.
“You moved the wrong variable over,” Patrick whispered into her ear.
She looked up at him with confusion.
He pointed to her paper.
“You need to move that a over here to cancel it out,” he said.
She took the eraser end of her pencil and cleared her mistake. Writing in the correction, she figured out how to solve it.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him.
He smiled back as he stared into her gray eyes with his dark brown ones.
“You are welcome.”
Her heart did a little flip as she sat there, staring at him and feeling like a complete idiot over how much she really, really liked him. She realized she was staring and quickly turned her attention back to her math, trying to act nonchalant.
She finished the last few problems with Patrick’s occasional help as the assembly went on. She stuffed her work back in her backpack as a popular boy band’s song played, dismissing the assembly.
“Thanks for your help, Patrick,” she said as they filtered out of the gymnasium and started to walk towards their next classes.
“You’re welcome. Math isn’t your strong suit, is it?”
She shook her head.
“I like to write and read better. I can do the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division easily, but once you start adding letters, my mind starts getting confused. My brother can do these problems in his head, so it kind of intimidates me that I can’t. He helps me with this stuff when I ask, but sometimes….”
She trailed off.
The corners of Patrick’s mouth turned up in a smile, showing a little dimple in one of his cheeks that Brianna had not noticed before.
“You don’t want to ask?”
“Exactly,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, my brother is better at writing than I am. It used to intimidate me, but then I realized I’m not in competition with him, despite what he may think. So I don’t let it bother me anymore.”
“I wish I could think that way,” Brianna muttered.
He chuckled as they came to his class.
“Maybe one day you will. Thanks for walking with me. See you at lunch, Brianna!”
She smiled at the way he said her name.
“Bye.”
She continued to her Spanish class with a big grin on her face. Maybe Patrick liked her as much as she liked him. She could only hope.
That afternoon in Health class, Mr. Ramirez talked about what had gone on in the assembly earlier that day. It was then that Brianna realized the assembly was on friendships.
“Something to keep in mind as you get older,” Mr. Ramirez said. “The friends you have now won’t be the same friends you will have as you grow up. Most of them will move on, as will you. I am only about six years older than most of you and I don’t have ANY of the friends I had in high school anymore.”
Brianna let what he said sink in, but she knew he was wrong. Maisie and Adelaide were her best friends ever and had been now for years. She was never going to lose either of them as a friend. She was determined not to.
She owed it to her friends to try and keep their friendships as long as she could. She didn’t realize then that maintaining any sort of relationship had to be a two-way street in order to be successful at all, even if the streets were winding roads.
Click here to read the next chapter – Homecoming (live on 16 August 2025)
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction written by K. S. Wood, and thus is copyrighted 2025. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author. All rights reserved.If you enjoyed this chapter, please share it with others. Every other Saturday, there will be a new chapter posted for your reading pleasure. The entire story can be found on this page – The Year of the Winding Road
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