“Bite me!” I yelled from my room to my red-faced dad. My picture frames rattled against the wall threatening to fall and shatter as I slammed the door. I was grounded yet again because my principal decided to call my parents about my “disrespectful behavior toward teachers.” Apparently, calling my history teacher a useless imbecile is considered “disrespectful.” I blew my purple bangs out of my face and fell on my bed with an annoyed grunt. My black chipped fingers reached for my phone from my paint splattered nightstand. My heart skipped a beat when they came back empty-handed. I had forgotten that my dad had taken away my precious baby. What am I supposed to do now? I let out another frustrated sigh and closed my eyes.

About an hour later, I was awoken by an annoying tapping sound emitting from my window. Clink! As I walked toward the window to investigate the mysterious intrusive sound, my reflection in the window caught me by surprise. My day old black makeup had accumulated under my eyes causing me to resemble a deranged panda. “Great,” I said sarcastically. After unlocking the window, I cautiously stuck my head out and looked into my backyard. There Grayson, my boyfriend, stood under our tree holding a few pebbles from my mother's rose garden.

“What, exactly, do you think you are doing?” I hastily whispered to him.

“Oh Quinn, Oh Quinn. Your beauty is beyond compare. Please let down your hair,” he whispered dramatically. If I had rolled my eyes any harder, they would have fallen out of my head.

I replied with an equal amount of drama, “Although this is adorable, your rhyming is horrible. I am grounded, Grey, and this is too cliche.”

“There is a movie showing at the drive-in theatre. Come with me. We haven’t been on a date in weeks,” he replied.

“And how exactly do you think I’ll be able to get down?” I said with a hint of sarcasm. As soon as the words left my lips, I knew exactly what he was thinking. Grayson winked at me from below and lifted his eyebrows toward our tree.  “Nooooooo. You and I both know that I am the clumsiest human to ever walk this earth,” I matter-a-factly stated. A worried expression formed on my face as his smile grew wider. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

“I. Double. Dare. You,” he said slowly and painfully.

Grayson chuckled as I glared daggers at him. He knew that I couldn’t resist a double dare. After quickly going through every excuse in my head, I concluded that the only way for me to not appear as a pansy would be to climb down. I slowly and carefully placed my foot on the tree. Inch by inch, I gradually shimmed down the large truck.

Grayson started to whisper, “Quinn! Quinn! Quinn!” It wasn’t until I became airborn that I realized turning around while climbing down a tree probably was not the best idea.

I would like to say that Grayson caught me in his arms but I would be blatantly lying. In reality, I fell, and we both went down groaning in pain. My head was awkwardly rested on his chest, and our arms were tangled together. As we slowly recovered, time stood still and I savored the moment of freedom. 

But of course, Grayson had to interrupt it. “Hey, Quinn?” he said.

“What?” I replied.

“You look like a panda,”  he stated.

“Shut up,” I replied hiding my smile.