Beginning of My Next Story

I'm still not totally sure if I'm going to temporarily give up on "Going Nowhere Fast", but in the meantime, I've started a new story. Its about a woman, Danielle, who's life is basically screwed up. It starts going downhill when she's seventeen, and later in life she finds out that her assface husband is cheating on her and all kinds of other stuff. Its darker than my last story, but I'm better at dark, so I'm interested to see where this will go. So check it out and let me know what you think, I'm dying for feedback.

xoxo
Helen

I was seventeen when my life started falling apart.

I was young, beautiful, and well liked for God knows what reason. People were nice to me and it was said that I was a shoe in for Snowflake Queen at the upcoming winter formal. I'd picked out an icy blue dress and a hairstyle that would make it easy for me to wear a tiara. Everything was perfect. And then it happened.

I arrived at school fifteen minutes late that Wednesday morning. My hair drier had shorted out and I'd had to search for thirty minutes for my sister's. She had an unruly mass of naturally curly hair that somehow complimented her without the help of products or tools - which led to her hair drier being deposited on the floor of her bathroom closet and forgotten under layers upon layers of old towels and dirty clothes.

I slipped in the back door of the school from the student parking lot. I tried to walk quietly so not to attract the attention of school security, cursing myself for wearing stilettos on a school day. I rounded the corner to the hallway where my first period English class was, and breathed a sigh of a relief to see it free of any security officers or hallway patrol geeks. I got to my classroom and turned the knob, ready to offer Mr. Clint a reasonable explanation for my tardiness, and found the door to be locked. I peered inside and saw empty desks in the darkened room. How strange.

I looked over my shoulder to Mrs. Hobson's room, and saw that it was empty as well. I figured there must be some kind of assembly or safety drill. I turned around and headed towards the office - someone there would have to tell me what was going on.

I opened the door to the front office and was utterly shocked to find that it was completely empty. There wasn't a principal or secretary or parent volunteer in sight, just an empty room and abandoned chairs. What was this, some kind of alien invasion? I left the office and made my way to the auditorium, not bothering to walk quietly now. I was scared. Something horrible must be going on for the whole school to be so abandoned.

I heard a low of rumble voices as I headed for the auditorium. The voices grew louder as I approached, and I bit my lip. I was probably going to be in trouble for being late and for interrupting Principal Murphy during another one of his speeches about the slipping graduation rates. I didn't know how I was going to get out of this one.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. Silence fell over the room in a ripple. Conversations stopped and all eyes were upon me. I walked forward tentatively. Principal Murphy was on stage with a microphone in hand, staring at the ground. I looked around at the sea of faces seated around me, searching for one of my friends or a friendly underclassman to tell me what was going on. I made my way down the center aisle slowly, intent on taking myself straight to the principal and demanding an explanation. Something was very wrong. I had no clue what it was, but it was something concerning me, and it was bad.

Someone reached out and grabbed my wrist. I looked down. It was Marcie Clarkston, the school's number one attention seeker and the last person I wanted to speak to. She stood up slowly and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into an awkward embrace.

When she pulled away, she shook her head. "I am so sorry," she said. For the first time, I noticed the tears clinging to the rims of her eyes, and the trail of mascara dripping down her face.

"Marcie, what happened?!?" I demanded a note of panic in my voice. I was terrified, near hysterical, and I didn't even know what happened yet.

"You - you don't know?" She asked, her hands wrapped around my forearms, suddenly looking around frantically for someone else to tell me what she clearly didn't want to.

"What happened?!?" I nearly screamed. Marcie's boyfriend, James stood up and wrapped one arm around her shoulder and put a hand on mine.

"Its Erin," he said solemnly, not looking me in the eye. "He's dead."

Erin? My Erin? No, it couldn't be. I'd spoken to him the night before, he was fine. We talked about Linda Adler's horrible new haircut and the History test, and he'd told me he'd rented his tux for the Winter Formal. He'd said he'd see me in the morning.

I looked up at James, uncomprehending. This didn't make sense. It couldn't be. He said he'd see me in the morning. Erin wouldn't lie to me. He loved to me. He would never lie to me. He wouldn't tell me he would see me in the morning if he wasn't going to be there.

"No," I said simply, not believing any of it.

"I'm sorry, Danielle," James said, shuffling his feet uncomfortably. This type of news was best broken by a guidance counselor or a doctor, not a second string linebacker that you'd sat with at lunch freshman year. "He went out last night, and his truck was hit by a drunk driver. He -" he paused, sucking in a huge breath and shaking his head before he continued, "he was gone before the paramedics got there, there was nothing they could do."

"No!" I said, jerking away from him. "It's not true! Stop lying to me!" I yelled. I felt crazy, like I had left my own body, like someone had ripped out my heart and was twisting and crushing it before my very eyes. How could he just be gone?

Two of my girlfriends, Sabrina and Alice, came up behind me. Alice took one of my arms and Sabrina took the other, leading me out of the auditorium and into the hallway. We turned a corner and went into the girls’ restroom, where I collapsed to the floor, sobbing and choking for air, not caring what they would think of me or how filthy the floor was, or how scared the freshman girls who had been waiting out the assembly in the restroom were when they heard my mangled sobs. Erin was gone. He was just gone, and there was nothing I could do.

He was the only person I had ever wanted, the only person I had ever thought I could love. He was perfect for me. He was the love of my life, the man I was sure I was going to marry. But he was gone. What would become of me now?

To be continued?