Edited for length.
Chapter Three
Good-bye Forever
This is it, my last day at Adams High School. I pictured a dramatic exit, where everyone came up to tell me how much they liked me and how I was such a good friend, even if I didn’t know them. I could almost see people giving me their numbers so I could call them from my new town and dish about all the cute boys, how few there may be. I thought Cameron would buy me flowers and candy and wouldn’t leave my side for the entire day.
That would have been the ideal last day. This is what really happened.
I woke up on the floor, exhausted and sore from all of the packing I’ve done in the past week. My father is renting a moving truck to take all of our furniture and boxes down on Saturday. He and Bailey are taking the Expedition filled with boxes and I’m driving the silver Volvo my father bought me for my sixteenth birthday.
My father was in his office looking through papers. Bailey didn’t have school today, so I let him sleep on his little sleeping bag. His bed had already be disassembled along with everything else, and packed away in the truck. My father was nice enough to leave out leftovers from the day before for me for breakfast. I didn’t need to lie about not eating, the eggs looked alive and the bacon was as hard as a rock.
When I got to school and no one was standing by my locker, or even putting little notes in it. I thought that perhaps all of my surprises would come later.
I had to go to each one of my classes; I even had to take a quiz in Algebra II. I got a peck on the cheek from Cameron, it’s almost like he forgot that today was my last day. Could the whole school have forgotten?
So I decided out of frustration that I would remind everyone. “What are we going to do?” I asked Cameron during lunch.
“About what?” he replied shoveling a hand full of fries in his mouth.
“Do you think long distance relationships really work?”
He swallowed before answering. “Would you give it a rest, Genna? We all know you aren’t moving,” He said, pointing to all of our friends at the table.
My body froze. He thought I was lying.
My friend Jessica, who must have overheard, said, “Genna, lying isn’t a very attractive trait. Maybe you should work on that.” She added a smile then went back to her mindless chatter with the other girls.
So, the jerks all thought I was lying. I could feel my face burning up. I stood up and walked out of the cafeteria. Right out of the school.
My heart was pounding a hundred times faster than I wished and the tears were falling faster than I wished. The student parking lot was deserted, save the idling cars. I couldn’t see very well because of the tears that just kept bubbling over. It was so hard to see, I almost missed the group of kids standing close to my car.
A flush of relief washed through me. I thought that maybe it was all my friends with presents and they would all say this was all just some stupid joke.
I was painfully wrong. They were just a bunch of pot heads skipping class. To everyone this was just a normal day. One of those pot heads was my old friend from middle school. She started hanging around with the wrong crowd when we got to high school. Her name was Monica and she saw me looking at her. I started swiping at my eyes.
She has a pixie hair cut with blue and pink streaks. She is tall and very skinny. She would have been so pretty without the heavy eyelids due to some killer party the night before. I never understood how even though I dress like her and probably listen to the same music as her, she is such an outcast and yet I am popular and have a lot of preppy friends. I wondered if she liked her friends as much as I hated mine.
I was close to my car now and she left her crowd to stand by my door. “So I hear you’re leaving town.” She said.
I put the key in the door. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
Monica nodded, “Nice weather, huh?” she said with a sheepish grin.
“Was there something you wanted?” I almost spat at her. I wanted to leave as soon as possible.
She gave a short nervous laugh, “I guess this is going to be really weird, but now that I know you are leaving, I just wanted to tell you that I’ve missed being your friend, and I hope I’m forgiven for kind of ditching you the first day our freshmen year.”
I smiled. This is what I’ve been waiting all day for. “Of course all is forgiven. I just wish this could have happened before so we could have been friends.”
She laughed though it sounded a little forced. “I highly doubt any of your friends would like that very much.”
I rolled my eyes and looked over to the cafeteria. I couldn’t see in the windows but I bet at least that someone was looking. “They are all assholes and I couldn’t care less what they thought.”
She smiled again. One of her friends called to her. They were probably looking at me as if I was the devil. No, they would probably like me if I were the devil. “Hey, look if you ever come back here, call me or something.”
“Okay,” I said. She went back to her friends and I got in my car.
It took a lot of willpower to start the car and drive away. I wanted to actually get Monica’s number; I wanted to punch Cameron in the gut…along with all of my friends. Instead, I went home and dealt with my father. He was mad because I skipped school. But I insisted that there was nothing for me there. It was all a thing of the past now.
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Beaufort Manor was a lot bigger than I could have imagined. There was a long driveway leading up to the house before splitting to the side of the house where there is a two car garage and a small garden. I parked next to the Expedition in front of the garage. The moving truck was in front of the house.
There were a few stone steps up to the porch and then the large wooden front door. The stained glass in the door had strange patterns in it. All of the windows matched the pattern of colorful swirls.
When you pass the foyer the ceiling shoots up and to a hanging chandelier. It must have been part of the renovations. On the left was a stairwell that leads to the second floor, but on the right is a living room. That’s where I went first. The hardwood floor was covered in a Persian carpet, as is the rest of the house. In the middle of the floor was an old fashion couch and love seat surrounding a glass coffee table. Our television stand was already in place against the wall. What would Daddy do without his big screen?
Off of the living room were double doors. I tried to open them but they were locked. I walked around the living room to the hall to another entrance, but those doors where locked too. On the other side of the hall is a library. That’s where my father was. There were already a ton of books on the shelves, but he would find room for more. There was no wall, only shelves. In the middle of the floor was a desk that had boxes open and books scattered.
“What’s that room across the hall?” I asked. He was on one of those ladders that are attached to the book self. That’s different.
“Not sure. I have a key to every door in the house that locks except that one.” He picked up a stack of books and started putting them on different shelves one by one. “I’ll call a locksmith to take a look at it later.”
I nodded. “Do you think they have any locksmiths in town?” I asked jokingly.
