ONE

My life had been pretty normal until that point.  I went to a private high school in LA, where I lived with my adoptive parents.  I did pretty decent at school, especially for someone who didn’t try very hard.  I had awesome friends, and an okay boyfriend, I mean, I thought he was great at the time, but a lot of people saw him as a jerk, but whatever… Boy!  Was I wrong?

That day, I woke up and then spent probably the next half hour scanning through my closet.  On a normal day, we would wear the school’s uniform, but the school principal gave us a free pass that day, since we had a field trip.  As long as we were dressed in what he considered decent, which was code for boring, we didn’t have to wear the school’s uniform.

I went downstairs, grabbed something to eat and walked out the door, getting in my Audi R8, that I had just got for my birthday.  It took me forever to talk Kelly and Andrew, my adoptive parents, into getting me that car.  They had the illusion that I was going to drive some kind of SUV!

Andrew and Kelly were great.  They pulled me out of foster care when I was about to turn four years old, so they were like my real parents; the only parents I knew, but when it came to safety, they were a little over-protective.

So… school field trip!  Who would have thought that would mess up my so-called normal life?

***

We weren’t at that silly museum but for a couple of hours.  And then, my boyfriend Justin pulls me aside from the class because he wanted to talk.  Like he couldn’t talk at any other time of the day, right?

So I followed him into one of the rooms along the hallway and just as soon as I got the hint that he was trying to break-up with me, I turned things around on him.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you too,” I said.

And then I jumped right into what I wanted to say before he could break-up with me first.

“This isn’t working out, Justin.”

He seemed surprised at first and then he just looked totally pissed-off.

“Well, glad you agree, because I have been kinda dating your friend Ashley too.”

Okay, minus one on my awesome friends list.  Lucky me, I could put on an act.  Not showing any reaction I looked into his eyes and said, “Good.  You two are perfect together.”

Justin turned around and stormed out of the door.  What did he expect me to do? Cry and beg him to stay?

Needing a moment to get myself together, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  I was good at putting on an act, but that didn’t mean that wasn’t hurtful.  Okay, I had only been dating Justin for about a month, but Ashley had been my friend for a long time.

Point was… that tough act, was just that, an act.  Yes, I was just 16, but I had already learned how to hurt people before they could hurt me.  That was my own defense mechanism.  I would break-up with boyfriends, (not that I had many until now, I mean, I was only 16) as soon as I thought they were about to break-up with me.  I would end a friendship as soon as I saw a friend get closer to someone else.  It just made things easier.

Ashley kinda caught me off-guard though.  Ugh, I hated when that happened.  I was furious and I really hoped that my two other friends, Jess and Emily didn’t know about it. 

Right away I knew I would have to get to them before Ashley did.  Ashley could have Justin all to herself, but I wasn’t going to sit and watch her take my two best friends too.

Unfortunately, me knowing that I needed to find Emily and Jess as soon as possible, wasn’t enough to make me rush out of there.  I ended up hanging out in that room for a while.  Not because I found anything interesting in that room, on the contrary, it was all a bunch of junk… but I used my time alone to check my text messages and totally lost track of time.

I took another deep breath and just when I was getting ready to walk out of that room and go try to find the rest of the class, I heard a noise from the room next to the one I was in.  I was afraid that whoever that was had heard Justin and me earlier, and would go on to spread rumors around the school.  I instantly thought that rumors were the last thing I needed, although that was inevitable.  Still, I couldn’t help myself from going into that room to find out who that was and how much he or she had heard.

I walked in there and at first I didn’t see anyone.  I heard someone sobbing, but that was it.  I took a look around and in the back of that room, behind this awful old looking desk there was a girl hiding.

“Umm, hey.  Are you okay?”

The girl turned around and it was clear that she was looking scared.  I assumed she was probably lost.  She looked younger than me…. probably about twelve years old, and I felt sorry for the girl, because whoever shopped for her clothes was in deep need of a visit to the mall, or maybe some fashion magazines. 

The girl didn’t say anything.

“I’m Kayla.  What is your name?”

“Carolyn,” she said, still sobbing.

I was trying to rush; I really had to catch up with the rest of my class…

“Are you lost, Carolyn?”  I asked.

She nodded.

I looked out in the hallway, and saw a tour guide.

I turned back around to face her and let her know someone who could help her was on the way, but the girl was gone.

“Okay then…”

The tour guide approached me. 

“Need help finding something?” he asked.

I told him about the girl and he said he would take a look around.  There had been a couple of other schools there that day.  Then he used his walkie-talkie to find out where my class was.

So, I had missed the entire field trip.  Not that I really cared… 

Outside, everyone was already getting into the school bus.  I saw Justin and Ashley, all over each other, but what I was pleased to see were Jess and Emily as far away from them as they could have possibly been, and they both looked disgusted.

I noticed that a couple of people stopped what they were doing when they saw me walking out of the museum.  It was one of those moments when you feel as if everyone is watching your every move.   They were probably trying to catch my reaction in seeing Justin and Ashley together, but I just lifted my head up, smiled, and walked toward Jess and Emily.

They both waited until I got there and then, Jess whispered, “What the…”

I quickly interrupted her.  “I dumped him.  He must have seen it coming because apparently he had been with Ashley for a few days, I guess…Oh well!”

“But…we didn’t know you were thinking about breaking up with him,” Emily said, sounding disappointed.

“Sorry guys, I kinda wasn’t sure about it at first, I wanted to be sure it was definite before I told you.”

Emily sounded more cheerful now.  “That makes sense.  Well, it looks like you made the right choice.  I just can’t believe that skank would go after him like that though.”

“Eh… I guess they are kinda perfect for each other in a skanky kinda of way,” I laughed.

Jess, Emily and I got in the bus to go back to school and face a day that was about to get weirder and weirder.