Franca was living the full, productive and fun
life of a teenager. Not boring or
mundane by any means, there was always something happening in her life, good or
bad. Upon reflection, she couldn’t
really tell you whether what happened to her was good or bad. That was largely a matter of how her friends
and classmates at school viewed the individual events of her life.
Franca’s busy teenage
years included meeting her high school sweetheart at the age of 17. She met Byron at the beginning of Grade 12 at
Applewood High School. Byron was a free
spirit, so to speak, and when he met Franca, he was certain he could charm her
into doing whatever he wanted her to do.
He did not feel that there were any boundaries in his life. These two were instantly attracted to each
other and after they met, there was very little that they did not do
together. They seemed to belong
together.
It did not help that
Franca was just an innocent, naive young girl who had never before gotten involved
with a boy like Byron and had no idea how manipulative and conniving he could
be. She would find out very soon. A girlfriend of Byron’s could not leave him -
ever; he would leave her if and when he was so inclined.
At
the time, Franca was on the cheerleading squad and the track and field and
gymnastics teams. When she wasn’t actively
involved with athletics, she was either singing in the school choir or
participating in school musicals. Franca
had been in the school performances of “Aida”, “High Society” and “The Little
Shop of Horrors” within the last 3 years as an extra. She enjoyed participating in these highly
successful musicals because she loved to sing, but was much too shy to be a
soloist. Nevertheless, Franca was
outgoing and vivacious with lots of friends.
Byron, on the other
hand, was very much a loner. He was not
a member of any school team nor did any of the other senior students, in
general, know him well. He was the only
son in his family (there was a much younger daughter too) and his parents doted
on both kids. Byron was a very handsome,
tall guy with short, dark-blond hair, brown eyes and a drop-dead gorgeous
smile. He had been somewhat spoiled due
to his upbringing, so nothing interfered with his ability to live life on his
own terms. Young teenage women tended to
be attracted to him and he liked to encourage them as often as possible; he
loved the attention. If his parents ever
told him that he wasn’t allowed to do something, he would just go ahead and do
it anyway and later on explain his behaviour to them. For some reason, they never took any real
action to discipline him. He was allowed
to come and go as he pleased, without responsibilities or boundaries.
Despite the significant
differences between them, all was going relatively well with Franca and Byron
until she met another young man named Scotty.
He was a tall Scottish fellow with short, jet-black wavy hair, regal
features and a truly beguiling smile.
Like Byron, he was also very attractive to the opposite sex; however, he
ignored the young women who followed him around – except for Franca. He was taken with her blonde, pageboy-style
hair, blue-green eyes and a smile that lit up the room whenever she saw
him. She, likewise, was taken with his
spectacular good looks, muscular build and magnetic presence. They started to hang out together whenever
Byron wasn’t around, mostly in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Byron always went home for lunch because he
lived right around the corner from the high school, but Franca had to take her
lunch to school every day and eat in the cafeteria. It was inevitable that Scotty and Franca
would run into each other on a regular basis.
They enjoyed each other’s company a great deal.
When Byron found out
that Scotty and Franca were hanging out together at lunchtime every day, he
became furious with her. He told her she
was not allowed to date anyone else because she was “his”. She asked him what he meant by that remark
and he told her that she had better stay away from Scotty for her own good. Byron warned her, “If you have any intention
of dating anyone else, no matter who it is, I will make sure that the new guy
in your life thinks that you’re just “trash” – a slut with no morals who will
sleep with any guy, any time.” Franca was
totally shocked by Byron’s statement. He
sounded to her like he owned her, like the owner of a dog.
After Franca heard Byron
make this pronouncement about who she could date or just see and who she
couldn’t, she likewise became furious with him.
She vowed to herself that he was not going to be able to control who she
saw when she wasn’t with him. She would
make sure that he was never the wiser.
To this end, she resolved to keep seeing Scotty (and dating him if it
came to that) as often as she liked.
Byron’s needs were going to be secondary from now on.
One day at school, Byron
and Scotty ran into each other in the hallway.
Byron said to Scotty, “You know, Franca only wants to see you because
she wants to get even with me for something annoying that I said to her. She doesn’t really want to go out with
you. After all, she’s my girlfriend, not
yours.”
To which Scotty replied,
“Franca and I are friends. We like each
other a lot and like to spend time together.
It’s too bad if that’s a problem for you.”
To which Byron replied
tersely, “If you insist on going out with Franca, you are both going to regret
it. I’ll make sure of that. Ask her yourself if I will.” With that retort, they each went on their
way.
A couple of weeks later,
Scotty asked Franca out for an official date and she accepted with
delight. She told him, “You know that
Byron and I have been dating each other for a while, don’t you? He does not like the idea of you or
any other guy asking me out. However, I
decided that if you asked me out, I would go anyway and I would be very happy
to do so. Where do you want to go?”
Scotty replied, “I’d
love to take you to the movies. There’s
a good movie on that’s just come out called ‘The Change-Up’, starring Ryan
Reynolds and Jason Bateman, playing at the Cineplex Odeon theatre at the
mall. I could just order two tickets
online at the Cineplex web site, print them out and away we go! What do you think? Will you go with me?”
Franca looked at Scotty
with stars in her blue-green eyes and said, “I would love to go to the movies
with you – any time! I don’t give a sh*t
about Byron anymore. He’s always acting
like a control freak with me anyway and won’t ‘allow’ me to see anyone he
doesn’t approve of. That includes any
guy, especially if he’s good-looking, like you.
As a heads-up, I suggest we go to the matinee instead the evening
show. That way, I can just tell Byron I
went shopping at the mall. It would not
be a good idea for him to know right now that we’re together somewhere. Trust me on this.”
Franca, upon reflection
of her recent interaction with Scotty, began to realize that she had a far stronger
personality than Byron thought she did.
All she knew for sure was that if she did not go out with Scotty now,
she might very well end up married to Byron or someone like him and that was
not a future that appealed to her at all.
A guy like that was extremely selfish and only cared about what he
wanted. Her needs were never going to
come first with him.
Scotty, on the other
hand, was a kind and caring guy who showed sensitivity to her needs and
actually listened to her when she talked to him. Because of that, she had discovered that
there was much more to a relationship than a sexual attraction. Scotty was someone she both wanted and needed
to spend time with from now on.
The afternoon that
Scotty and Franca went to the movies would change her life completely. The next day, she told Byron that she was
through with him, his chauvinistic, macho-male attitude and his deemed “ownership”
of her. It had occurred to her that she
finally believed that she deserved a much better boyfriend than Byron, and
Scotty was the boyfriend she both deserved and wanted to have from now on.
Evidently, Byron could not stand the
thought of “his woman,” Franca Franca
copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
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