Chapter 1

Aw Christ, are you kidding me?

I was sneaking back into my house. I’d just decided to walk over to my friend Sakeena’s, but then I remembered she was in Jacksonville. Damn spring break. So I’d turned around when I was halfway there. But as I was crossing the street to get into my neighborhood, I’d heard a car pulling up over the street. I looked over my shoulder to glimpse the unmistakable black and white of a cop car. I quickly ducked down and busted ass over to the side of the street and huddled behind the closest bush. (It was about 2 o-clock in the morning – just a little past curfew…which wasn’t against the law or anything.) I watched the (stupid) cop car drive past and turn left at the light. Only when I couldn’t hear the rumble of its engine anymore did I get up and start walking home… with a little more speed than before. I’d been caught out past curfew more than once, and that definitely didn’t bode well with my parents. We were constantly on edge with each other. Didn’t talk much though. But I was cool with that, as long as we didn’t talk, we couldn’t fight about anything, and I wouldn’t get kicked out.

But what I was “aw Christ”-ing about was that my window was shut. There’s no way it fell shut, that thing was so old it was practically rusted together at the seams. I never closed my window. Damn brother (Brad) must’ve tried to get me caught again. He was always trying that, to no avail. I was way smarter than that dumb kid. He was a 12-year-old, addicted to video games and anime, and a little too overweight for his own good. Being 5 years older than him didn’t help bridge our gap. Let’s just say it drove us apart, and my contempt for most of humanity didn’t help either.

I walked around to the back of the house and popped open the screen door. I still had another door to go though. We have a pool, so there’s this enormous screen around it. Isn’t good for much except keeping the squirrels out though. I pulled back the edge of the doorframe on my bathroom window and waited for my hidden extra key to fall out. I heard it clatter on the cheap patio floor and I bent over to pick it up. I unlocked the door and quietly pushed it open. There was suddenly this huge bang smash as I remembered that I had a curtain rod in front of my door because there was a window in the door and I didn’t want people seeing me in my bathroom. Apparently it had fallen all over my bathroom. I rolled my eyes and quickly dashed inside, and made like I was going to the bathroom.

Right on cue, thirty seconds later, I heard a crazed knocking on the door.

“Paige, what the hell was that?” My oh-so-loving mother (Cyndy) screeched.

“Mom! I’m going to the bathroom what do you want?” I replied like I was sleepy.

“I want to know why there was a huge bang in here at 2 in the fucking morning!”

“I don’t know! I came in here to use the friggin bathroom and then that thing crashed down. It’s frikkin retarded don’t act like it was my fault!” I yelled back.

“Ok, whatever. But why are you in the bathroom at this time of night?” That woman never stopped.

“Cuz I’m on my period?” I volleyed back. That would make her shut up.

“Oh, well. Try not to make so much noise.” She sounded defeated. Score.

“Ok Mom. Goodnight, Mom.” I could play perfect little daughter (even if it was limited to about 30 seconds in length).

Wow, I couldn’t believe I got off on that one. Must be cuz it’s so early. Whatever. Parents are so retarded. When you’re actually lying to them they believe you, but when you’re telling the truth they think you’re bullshitting them. It’s like, what the hell, make up your mind.

I waited about another minute, and then went back into my room. I was right, there was a distinct odor of my brother in here. Namely dirty socks. I went back to my window and pushed it back open, feeling the beautiful night air hit my face. I changed into my pajamas (black pj bottoms and a super-slutty tank top) and slid between the cool covers of my bed. I reached over and un-paused my CD player, letting the distorted synthesizers and guitar riffs of Action Action lull me to sleep.

I woke up the next morning at about noon. I rolled over and the first thing to hit my eyes was the excruciatingly bright sunlight streaming into my window. So some people like seeing the sun come in and wake them up. I’m not one of them. Cursing, I rolled out of bed and threw my curtains across the window. Like I said, I never close it. I laid on my floor, tangled up in my covers, for just a few more minutes, waiting for my mind to start fully functioning again.

I ended up falling back asleep for another half hour. This time I was awakened by the humming of my vibrating phone. I twisted around in my blankets trying to find the location of the damn thing. I finally figured out that I was basically sitting on it, and I fished it out from under me and flipped it open.

“Hello?” I said groggily.

“Hey!”

“Oh hey Diana, what’s up?”

“Not much I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today.”

“Uhm… sure,” I replied. Damn, how long had she been awake?

“All right. Well what do you want to do?” She asked.

“I don’t care,” I mumbled.

“Paige, are you tired?”

“Yeah I actually just woke up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been up since seven, I had to go to temple.” She was a Jew. It was Saturday. Ergh.

“Yeah well. I was up till like two last night. So excuse me for being tired.”

“Oo, Paige, sneaking out again are we?” She knew me well.

“Yeah. I almost got caught this time. I should be more careful.”

“Yeah you should. So, do you want to go ice skating?” She was almost as random as me.

“Uhm… that sounds fun. Are you online?”

“Yeah I am.”

“Well then I’ll get on in like, half an hour, ok?”

“Ok, just make sure you get on. I’m so bored. And my stupid mom left all the windows open. I gotta go close them.”

I didn’t even answer that, I just snapped shut my phone and laid back down, groaning. Why was it so bright?

A few minutes later I managed to get up and stumble out of my room. I kicked the power button on my computer with my toe and lumbered into the kitchen to find some form of breakfast.

Five minutes later, I was standing in front of the fridge, my mind disengaged, the door hanging open, and the cold air leaking out in smoky tendrils. I could vaguely hear the sound effects to my brother’s video game, but I was tuning it out. I finally shut the door and threw open the cabinet to search out some Pop-Tarts. I pulled the box out of the very back (I had to hide them the moment they entered the house) and pulled out the shiny silver package. I pulled out my toaster and plugged it in as I munched on the corner of one of them. I went over to my computer and clicked on my name, which said “Raindrops On Roses” and had a picture of the head on my guitar. We had Windows XP, which was a party, let me tell you. I went back over to put my Pop-Tarts in the toaster, and I settled into my computer chair for the wait.

When the Pop-Tarts flew out of the top of my (dysfunctional) toaster, I went over to get them, burning myself in the process. I did that every fucking time. Disregarding my scorched fingers, I clicked on the AOL symbol on my desktop. Yep, in today’s world with high-speed Internet access and such, we still had dial-up AOL. Pity me. As I waited (all I ever seem to do is wait around here) for the screen name sign in screen (say that 10 times fast) to pop up, I chewed on my delicious brown-sugar-cinnamon piece of heaven. I typed in my password, pressed enter, and sat back to watch the long, slow, intricate process of dial-up. I hated the little dialing sound. Combined with the woosh and kksshhh of computer talking, it made for one annoying arrangement. Who created dial-up, anyways? They should’ve skipped that and gone straight to cable connections. But finally, the little “you’ve got mail” dude came on, informing me that I did, indeed, have new emails, and that AOL had finally loaded. I clicked onto my buddy list to see who was on. Thankfully, Diana was still on. If she wasn’t I would’ve had to kick her.

DontBotherAngel: hey paige!

Loversxandxliars: hola

DontBotherAngel: so do you still wanna go ice skating

Loversxandxliars: uhm sure

DontBotherAngel: ok well the closest one is at rdv sportsplex

Loversxandxliars: and i know where that is…?

DontBotherAngel: no well heres a link :

Loversxandxliars: alright.

Loversxandxliars: ok i see where it is. uhh when can we go?

DontBotherAngel: well tonight its from 7-950

Loversxandxliars: k.

Loversxandxliars: lemme go see if the rents are even home. if theyre not then ill just say its a yes for now

DontBotherAngel: k

Loversxandxliars: there not home. lazy bums. so yeah what time do you wanna meet there.

DontBotherAngel: lets just say 7ish.

Loversxandxliars: thats coo.

Loversxandxliars: so wat else is up?

DontBotherAngel: not a lot. just myspaceing.

Loversxandxliars: haha of course. who isn’t?

Loversxandxliars: well me actually

Loversxandxliars: i need to go check mine

DontBotherAngel: lol

Loversxandxliars: :D

DontBotherAngel: brb

DontBotherAngel is away.

Loversxandxliars is away.

So, that was it. We were going ice-skating tonight. Exciting. I just hoped I wasn’t going to die. I used to ice skate. Back in what, 5th grade? That was definitely … six years ago.

After only half an hour on MySpace (which has got to be a record for anyone) I got up and walked over to my bathroom. I dropped the wrapper from my Pop-Tarts into the trash can and flipped my dyed black hair over my shoulder. It was so retarded looking. Frizzy and wavy, it hated the humidity almost as much as I did. Damn Florida weather. I dragged my straightener out from the mess of junk under my cabinets and plugged it in. I washed my face as I waited for it to heat up, and then I brushed my hair. Which is actually a bigger accomplishment than it might seem. I picked up my straightener and clamped it onto the piece of hair closest to my face, and proceeded to spend another hour of my oh-so-precious time stuck to that thing.

By now, it was about 2:30 in the afternoon. And I still hadn’t done anything. Wow, I was an accomplishment at life. Not.

I went into my room and looked around. I loved my room. It was beautiful, with its posters and junk everywhere, which meant I was constantly surrounded by my music no matter what. The bits of wall you could see were painted a beautiful crimson red (not a stupid clichéd black. I was cooler than that) and, best of all, my guitar was in a place of honor. Granted, it was by the door, but still, it was in the only place in my room that it couldn’t get swamped in all my crap.

I picked it up and sat down on the edge of my bed, pulling the body close to mine. It fit me so well. We conformed to each other and it was the only conforming I let myself do. I strummed out a few chords, warming up my fingers, before breaking into some random riff my mind barely remembered but my fingers knew by heart. My fingers flew over the frets, the pick pulling out different strings and creating different melodies and sounds and chords. It was incredible, this release, what it did for me (god I sound like a lovesick puppy). At the end, I held the final note for a few more seconds and then I slid my finger down the board and ended it with a scratchy sound. Sighing, I placed the black-and-white-solid body-American made-Fender Strat on its holder and wove the pick in between the strings. I stood up and stretched back and cracked each and every one of my knuckles. I was constantly warned that I was going to end up with some wicked arthritis. But fuck that.

I opened my closet and stared despairingly at the clothes hanging inside. Sighing, I pulled my favorite jeans out of the dirty laundry pile in a deep dark corner and pulled them on. I closed my eyes and grabbed randomly for a shirt and put it on. It was pink. I closed my eyes in irritation, but it didn’t magically change. That would make life too easy.

I flopped down onto my bed and grabbed the closest book. There were plenty of them laying around, but it was too hard to make a decision which one to read. Easier to just take the closest one. I flipped open to one of the many dog-eared pages and began to read.

A few hours later, I heard my phone ringing again. Dammit, I’d left it on the kitchen counter. I flopped my book down and went crashing through my door beads (Did I mention I have door beads?) and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Heyyy,” came the answer.

“Hey, Neda. What’s up?” I answered.

“Not too much, how are you?” I loved her accent, it was so pretty. She was from Bulgaria.

“I was reading… super exciting.”

“Oh cool. Well I was wondering what you were doing this Spring Break.”

“Absolutely nothing as of now, how about you?”

“Well today I’m hanging out with my mom and tomorrow I’m going over to Angelica’s but I wanted to hang out with you this week.”

“Oh that’s cool. I’m going ice-skating tonight.”

“Ok. Well do you want to hang out on Monday?”

“Sounds good.”

“Ok well I’ll call you then.” Click.

I mentally calculated … so if today is Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday then I have nothing to do tomorrow… better write this down. If anyone else calls I’m totally going to end up ditching them.

I put my phone into my front hip pocket and looked at the clock. It was 5:00. I was going to have to eat sometime soon. I heard my parents talking outside so I went to the screen door and asked what time dinner was. They said we were eating at 6:30. I told them I was going ice-skating at 7 so I had to eat earlier than that. They said no, dinner is family time, and I had to eat with them. But I left with a ‘whatever’ and went back to the computer (nope, I hadn’t signed off).

I wasted away another hour of my life on that little box they call a computer, reading stories, MySpaceing, IMing, all the rest of the things people do online.

At six, my mom pulled me away from the computer to help grill the hamburgers. I swear I mean to go vegetarian, but burgers are just too damn good. I’d never be able to give them up. So we ended up eating at about 6:20, because I, of course, am a master griller. I basically wolfed down my food at the table, and got up before anyone else was even half done.

“Where are you going?” Asked my mom.

“… I told you, I’m going ice-skating.” I answered in a semi-polite voice.

“Not before we’re done eating.”

“Mom, I have to go. This place is like half an hour away. I can’t ditch her.”

“Oh, and who are you going with?”

“I’m going with Diana.”

“Have I met her?”

“Of course you have, she was over here like, yesterday or something.”

“Oh, ok. I like that girl.”

“Well yeah, she’s my friend, she’s pretty chill.”

“Mhm.”

“Mom! I gotta go! Love you, bye.” And with that, I hugged her, grabbed my shoes, my keys, a hoodie, and I was outtie (teehee I rhymed). I revved my car to life, and turned on my iPod. As I backed out of our 90-degree angle drive-way (which I’m sure some suicide bomber wrote the blue-prints for) I scrolled down my Artists and chose The Used. I was kind of pissed, I needed something that invoked emotion. I called Diana as I was getting onto the interstate, and asked her what streets this place was off of. She gave me better directions, and I, being the uber-cool one, just figured I could find it. Luckily, I did. But it took me about 10 minutes to find the right entrance. I ended up looking for Diana’s car, which you couldn’t miss, because she’d painted it hot pink. I pulled up next to her car and screamed along with the best part of the best song (Do you want a song of glory? Well I’m fucking screaming at you!), and killed the engine. Stepping out of the car, still humming to myself, I hugged Diana as she got out of her car.

“Let’s do dis,” I joked, as we walked inside.

Now let me describe this place to you. It was fucking huge. It had an indoor swimming pool or two, two ice rinks, multiple tennis courts, a workout gym, and god knows what else. We went in, paid 10 for tickets and a hot pink wristband (“It matches my car!”) and went to go get our skates. As soon as we walked into the room with little rubber mats on the floor for people to walk on when they were wearing skates, I registered a distinct locker room smell. Gross.

“It smells like poop,” commented Diana.

“Yeah I’d definitely have to agree with you on that one,” I replied.

I walked behind her, as she went to get her skates. (Random thought: Did I mention I was bi?). I got some too, and we searched for a bench to sit down on. We finally found one that wasn’t overcrowded with either middle school-ers, scene kids, or an intricate combination of the two, and attempted to put our skates on. It took us both a good 5 minutes to finally get them tightened. We’d also both forgotten to bring enormous dorky socks to protect our poor ankles from the chafing effects of rental skates. Oh well.

We hobbled out onto the ice, me feeling like the new kid in school, Diana looking like it. After a few glides on the ice though, I felt better. I was almost at home again. She, however, the little gifty who was also hilarious and not a nerd, seemed to have an enormous mind block about it.

“Have you ever been ice skating before?” I asked.

“Yeah, just like five times though,” She shouted over whatever music was blasting through the loudspeakers.

“Nice. I took lessons when I was in fifth grade, I was kind of good.” I told her.

“Ha, lucky.” She answered.

We didn’t talk much more because I had a killer cold where I couldn’t talk if I strained my voice (which was a major inhibition, let me tell you. I talk more than your average cheerleader), and the stupid music was too loud for us to hear much.

A few more laps around the frozen rink, and I decided to speed up. So call me a speed demon. I drove the same way. I went around a few times before I started looking for Diana again. I had to run into the side to stop (I had fully lost my hockey-stopping skills, ergh), and I searched for her black and white striped sweater and curly brown hair. I looked over to the other side of the rink just in time to see her fall spectacularly – pin-wheeling arms, spinning, wobbling, crashing, the whole deal. I laughed my ass off before skating over to go find her and laugh in her face about it. Luckily, she was laughing too. Otherwise I could’ve been perceived as bitchy.

I slammed into the side again, breathless from laughter, doubled over, barely looking up in time to see her copy her beautiful fall again. My god, that was hilarious. I just hoped I wasn’t going to be next.

Luckily, I wasn’t. But I did end up earning some massive blisters for all my efforts to skate. Ouchie. We had left the rink again and were sitting on a bench. I pulled off my skate to see this ugly, gaping, mammoth blister forming on my heel. “Sonofabitch” I breathed, and went to go find some toilet paper to cushion it. I got some for Diana too, who had some nasty ones forming on her ankle. Will people never learn to make rental skates that don’t totally wreck your feet?

When we went back out though, I couldn’t last long. I did last longer than her. I left her again cuz I wanted to go fast and she couldn’t, so I took off. I wove between the people, feeling all expert and hip (does anyone even say hip anymore? Well now I do) and cool, until I heard the strains of a familiar (but that doesn’t mean comforting) song. As the threads of Predictable by Good Charlotte pounded through the loudspeakers, I grabbed my head in agony and screamed for it to stop. I swear I ripped out some hair. And started hyperventilating. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING? THEY CAN’T PLAY THIS SHIT! O MY FUCKING GOD I’M GOING TO DIE!!” That’s what I scream when someone forces me to listen to GC at loud volumes when I have way too much adrenaline flowing through my body. I continued to circle the rink, my head in my hands, mumbling to myself, randomly screaming obscenities in the hope the music would just STOP. It finally did, a whole three minutes of misery later. I stumbled to the exit and wobbled out. The biting pain in my blister was back, and I seriously couldn’t take it any longer. I searched out Diana again (in line buying a slushie – I commissioned her to get one for me too) and sat down next to my hoodie and my shoes (which she had gotten out of our fifty-cent locker) and scrabbled at my skates, attempting to remove them from the mangled mess that was my feet.

Well, ok, they weren’t mangled. But they sure as hell felt like it. When I put my shoes back on, I felt all misplaced and short, because I could actually walk, and without causing unnecessary volumes of pain when I walked across the room.

When Diana was returning her skates, she’d complained about how they said to tuck in the laces but there wasn’t a sign. When I went to go turn mine in, I definitely pointed out the enormous, hanging-down, in-your-face sign that said, “Please tuck laces into skates.”

She just said “Well a bigger sign then, dammit!”

We walked out of the little skating section and went next door where it was just an entryway room kind of thing. There was this stairway in the middle (that definitely didn’t lead to anything… just an empty room) and we went up and sat at the top. We hung around up there for a while, eating our slushies (and starting to talk like we were drunk because those things numb your mouth like no other) and chucking pieces of the Styrofoam cups at people.

It was at about this point in time when I mentioned that my shoes looked homeless.

“Dude, my shoes look homeless.”

“Paige, what the hell! They’re shoes!”

“Yeah, so? They still look homeless.”

We ended up debating about the homeless qualities (let me just say that one more time for good luck: homeless!) of my shoes for another ten minutes, when I looked at my phone and realized it was 9:30. Technically, my curfew is midnight on non-school nights, but I figured we should pretend to leave soon or we totally wouldn’t. And anyways, I was pretty sure Diana’s curfew was like, 11. Lame.

But we ended up walking outside and wandering around the…grounds, I guess you’d call them. I walked out into the middle of the street and laid down. I loved doing this, and streets are a lot comfier than I bet you think. Diana whipped out her camera phone (lucky bitch) and took a picture of me lying spread-eagled in the middle of the street.

“Dude, Paige, get up, you’re going to get hit.”

“What, by all the cars?” I said, quoting The Notebook. She just laughed. But then I heard the purr of an engine and we ran screaming onto the other side of the road just as a car whizzed by. I so could’ve almost died.

We walked back out to the middle, and I was just persuading her to do it, a cop car pulled up to the side of the intersection. With one glance in its direction, I took off back towards the Sportsplex.

Diana was jogging behind me, yelling at me for just running off.

“Dude! It’s a fucking cop! Jaywalking has a ticket of 75!”

“Well he just turned in the opposite direction. You’re lucky.”

“Oh my god. Sorry, freak out moment.”

“It’s cool.”

It was at this point when we sat down on the curb. I lay back, and stared up at the stars. I friggin love nighttime. The sky is beautiful, the air is beautiful, the way it makes you feel is beautiful… it’s absolute perfection captured in a moment.

We just sat that way, not talking, for a long time. I finally rolled over and got up when everyone else poured out of the building (it must’ve been 10:00, that was when the rink officially closed). Diana got up too, and we walked over to our cars. I casually leaned against mine, and stared off into space.

“Well, sorry Paige, but I gotta end this thrilling conversation and go home.”

I laughed and leaned over to hug her goodnight/goodbye. She climbed into her (hot pink) car and pulled away. I quickly followed suit. This time on my iPod I clicked The Faint. I wanted to chill out to something delicious.

I drove back home, barely speeding at all cuz I was so mellowed out. I pulled into our driveway and disconnected my iPod and killed the engine. I walked up to our front door (it was like, 10:30, everyone in my house was probably dead to the world) and dug through my enormous key chain, looking for my house key. I finally found it connected to Hello Kitty and unlocked my front door and crept into my house with practiced quiet. One more year and I was so outta there.

I finally entered the sanctuary of my room, and collapsed onto my bed. God, my heel hurt. From just one blister. My pain tolerance must be going down. Hm, I needed to do something about that. I rummaged around in my bedside table combination desk until I found a safety pin, and scratched my hip a bit, just to see if it hurt. It did a little. Shrugging, I put the safety pin back in the drawer and stretched out on my bed. I groaned as I remembered that I still had to get back up, change into pajamas, wash my face, etc. And I had to work tomorrow. Enormous mental groan. I rolled over, snapped off my light, and quickly fell asleep.