Throw It All Away

If you had told me a month ago that everything I am is going to change I would have smiled and kindly said that you're wrong. Afterall, I had the perfect life. Most popular girl in school, dating the football captain/quarterback, straight As, teachers that love me, and overall, I was a happy person. I had thought nothing would ever change.

I guess it all had started when my boyfriend, Chris, had wanted to go to a party. I'm not just talking about any party either, I'm talking about the back-to-school party that a senior football player throws every year. I lived in the small town of Loudon, Tennessee so everyone knows when a big party is happening. Everyone can hear it. It's always a really crazy night for anyone in town.

Prior to this year, I had never even given the party a second thought. Never considered going to it. It's known for alcohol, sex, and drugs so it's always been an off limits zone for me. But Chris really badly wanted us to go since it's our senior year, our last chance to go.

"Viola, I don't understand why you never want to go. It's suppose to be a ton of fun." Chris looked at me with pleading eyes, begging me to go to Chad's party (he's the senior running-back, first string and great friends with Chris).

I looked away from him and replied, "We never go." I then turned back to him and continued, "Chris, why don't we just go somewhere else? It's going to a long weekend so why don't we use the extra day and go on that mini roadtrip you've been wanting to do? Wouldn't that be so much more fun than any stupid party?"

"We can do that on our next long weekend, Vi. This party only happens once a year and this is our last chance to go."

I shrugged my shoulders and tried to come up with another way to convince him not to go. "My parents would never let me and I don't want to have to spend the evening alone when I know we could be doing something awesome together."

He takes a step closer, bends down and whispers in my ear, "Like that one thing I've been hinting at?" Sex.

I push him away. "No. I'm not ready for that and you know it."

"Viola, at this pace you'll never be ready."

"Yeah, I will. Just not right now."

"Then when?"

"I don't know, just not now."

Chris had been pressuring me to have sex with him for a while but I just wasn't comfortable with it. Secretly, I wasn't sure if I'd ever have been ready to have sex with him. Looking back, I'm glad I never had sex with him. He didn't deserve me and that would have been the biggest mistake in my life.

I don't want to have to torture you by telling you the entire fight but long story short, it wasn't pretty. He had mentioned prude, I had mentioned asshole. Whatever. It doesn't matter now. In the end, he had decided he was going to go to the party and I decided I was going to stay home.

I heard a lot about that stupid party and all the stuff that had happened. Lucy got high and fell in the pool fully clothed, Spencer was so stoned that she drove up to the police station and asked to stay the night, Ashley drank so much alcohol that she made out with the head cheerleader (who she hates), Noah dropped his pants in the middle of the room, Sarah went into the closet with a stranger, Andrew fell asleep on the front lawn, Chris lost his virginity. . .

But not to me. Boy, that had started a lot of rumors and obviously I got him to tell me the truth. He had said that he thought we were over at the time but that was a lie. We fought all the time but never had we "broken up". Sure, we had a pretty bad fight, but we've said worse to each other and stuck it out cause it was worth it.

Chris and I had been dating since grade school, elementary. We had been the perfect couple, we were perfect. . . but then he had to go and mess it up by sleeping with Mellissa. I just don't know what I'm going to do without him.

So I officially broke up with him.

That was when something popped inside of me. Everything about my life was just so perfect that the second something got put out of place, I popped. Sure, I was still really popular and I could easily have gotten a new boyfriend and have gone on with my life but then there would be no story.

So when my mom came to me, three weeks into my senior year of school, and said my father is being relocated to Las Angeles, California. . . Do you think I put up much of a fight?

So here I am, in my car, driving to California, two days behind my parents and all the moving trucks. "We're going to be huge in California," My father had said, "I'm going to be in charge of the new location in L.A. It's a miracle we are even getting this opportunity and we get to finally be together. No more commute, you, me, and your mother living under the same roof every night. This is going to be great."

My parents kept on reassuring me this was a good thing. They both thought I would go clinging onto my old life and all my old "friends" and Chris. Chris. . . we had been happy and then he had to go and ruin it. That idiot.

But I'm two days behind my parents. Want to know why? I changed myself.

Nobody in our neighborhood knew this, but my family was rich. I was able to just give all my old clothes away and go out and buy an entire new wardrobe. I was able to go to a fancy salon and get extension sewn into my hair. I was able to buy that expensive kind of make-up that all those weird scene chicks cake onto their faces. I was able to reinvent myself before moving somewhere new.

It's kind of weird to have long hair but I'll get use to it. The things that's going to be really weird are these clothes and the new attitude I'm going to have to project.

I was suppose to be in L.A. yesterday but I won't be there till late tonight. Tomorrow is my first day at my new school. Boy, are they in for a storm.