Chapter One

I used to wake up every morning and live the same day over and over again. Go to school, come home, do my homework, eat dinner and sit around until I fall asleep. Only to wake up and do it all over again. I hated how life was just passing me by and I was doing nothing to stop it. I would lie in bed each night, dreaming of a life that was actually worth living. Dreaming of a life that was great and exciting.

            I dreamt about this all the way up until my senior year of high school. Until one dark, cold November day when that dream came true.

 

            My locker was jammed yet again. It always seemed to happen right before seventh period, causing me to be late to pre calc almost constantly. I sighed in defeat as I unsuccessfully tried to yank the metal door open. I slammed a balled up fist against it, sending a vibrating pain down my arm.

            “Ow,” I uttered in frustration. I sighed, trying to dial in the combination one final time. The locker swung open this time. “F*****g finally,”

            I traded my English book for my pre calc one and quickly slammed the locker shut and hustled off down the nearly empty hallway. The bell rang a good ten seconds before I reached my classroom though, causing me to be late yet again.

            “Lindsey, how nice of you to join us,” Mr. Englehart said in that sarcastic tone teachers use to feel superior.

            “Sorry, my locker was jammed,” I murmured back, bowing my head as I walked to my seat.

            “I’ve heard that excuse before. I’ve let you off with warnings, but I’m not going to tolerate you being tardy so often.” He gave me this reprimanding look, as if he expected me to start apologizing and begging for his forgiveness.

            “Ok,” I said softly instead.

            His eyes narrowed at me. “Which means I’ll be seeing you after school today in detention.” The smug look on his face was almost too excited. It was as if he got off on the fact that he was able to punish me for such a minor thing. Someone must have had a bad high school experience. Now he got to dish it out on everyone else to try and make himself feel better.

            “Great,” I remarked flatly. I’d never had detention before. Not that I was too upset about being sentenced to it today. At least it would give me something to do after school.

 

            It was 2:45 and I was seated in Mr. Englehart’s classroom, counting the number of tiles on the ceiling. The boredom of detention was brutal and I almost found myself wishing I was at home.

            I glanced to my left at the only two other people who were in the room with me. Ryker Wilson and his friend who I didn’t know the name of. Both of them were pot heads. Extremely attractive pot heads. I wondered what they were in here for. Probably something badass like rolling blunts in biology or snorting coke in English. I doubted it was over something as lame as being tardy to class because they were too dense to know how to open their own lockers.

            Ryker turned his head and caught me staring at them. I instantly blushed and looked away. As if this didn’t make me staring at them even more obvious and embarrassing. Good job, Lindsey. Way to be nonchalant about it.

            “What are you in for?” Ryker asked me in that deep, raspy voice of his.

            “I was late to class too many times,” I replied, ashamed of my weak answer. “What about you?”

            “Mr. Dupree overheard me and Ben talking s**t about kicking some dude’s a*s. It was really f*****g bogus,” he said. So his name was Ben.

            “Oh…uh, yeah…that sucks,” It was clear that holding a conversation with someone wasn’t one of my strengths.

            “It’s straight. Not like he can stop us from kicking a*s outside of these prison walls.” He was very accurately referencing our school.

            “Yeah, Jamie’s still gonna get fucked up. I know where that douchebag lives,” Ben added.

            “Why do you guys wanna fight him so bad?” I asked. S**t, was that too invasive? Maybe I should just back off and mind my own business.

            “The dude owes me like eighty bucks and refuses to pay it back. That’s the last time I do any favors for him. Either he has the money up front or there’s just not gonna be a sale at all.” I assumed he was talking about dealing drugs. I doubted he was selling wrapping paper for our school’s bullying awareness fundraiser.

            “Oh wow, that’s s****y of him.” I tried my best to sound like I totally understood where they were coming from. Like I totally had a marijuana plant growing in my backyard and totally dealt it. Or like I’d totally even been in the presence of weed before.

            “Hell yeah it is!” Ryker agreed. “Hey, what’s your name again? Lizzie…?”

            “Lindsey,” I corrected him.

            “Oh, my bad.”

            “It’s cool! You were close enough.” He flashed me an impish smile that made my heart race. That was a flirty smile. That was most definitely a flirty smile.

            “You seem pretty chill, Lindsey,” he told me.

            “Well thank you,” I smiled back at him. “So do you,”

            “Thanks,” He glanced over at Ben who was texting vigorously on his iPhone. “Yo, did you ask Haley about that extra ticket yet?”

            “Yeah, I did. Her cousin can’t go because she can’t get off work on such short notice.” He didn’t even glance up from the screen of his phone when he replied.

            Ryker turned back to me. “What are you doing this Friday night?”

            My jaw fell open slightly. Was he actually going to ask me to hang out with him? “Nothing,” I replied a bit too quickly. Wonderful. Now he would know that I have no life.

            “Well would you like to be going to see Bassnectar instead?” he asked me. Now Ben looked up from his phone.

            “Wait, what?” he demanded. Ryker ignored him.

            “Is that a yes?”

            I’d heard of Bassnectar before. He was some techno dude that a lot of the pill poppers at my school liked. “Yeah, sure. That sounds like fun.” I tried to act as if being invited to things was a regular occurrence for me. On the inside, I was about to burst with excitement.

            “Solid,” he replied with a grin. “We have an extra ticket so you can just use that.”

            “Wait a minute, why are we giving our extra ticket to her?” Ben questioned.

            “Well you just told me Haley’s cousin can’t make it and the show is this Friday. I don’t think we’re gonna find somebody else to go with us in the next two days.” My heart sank just a little bit. I should’ve known I was just a last resort for him. “Plus Lindsey’s a cool chick. We’ll have a good time.” And there my mini heart attack was again.

            “Whatever, man,” Ben replied, clearly giving up on the subject.

            “Let me see your phone,” Ryker said to me. I followed his directions and handed him my cell phone. He typed something in and handed it back. “Now you have my number and I called myself so I have yours. I’ll text you tonight with the details.”

            “Cool, sounds good,” I smiled to myself, a million thoughts racing through my mind all at once. What would I wear? What if Ryker offered me drugs there? What was it about me that even spiked his interest at all?

            I would figure these things out later though. For now, I was just going continue to be overjoyed about the fact that I had finally made plans to go out on a Friday night. And not plans that involved me going through a Taco Bell drive thru and renting a Redbox movie for myself. Actual plans with actual people who had actual lives. I was already able to tell that this Friday was going to be the beginning of a great new chapter in my life.