Embrace Yourself

As Brady Fields walked up the stairs towards her room she couldn’t help but be glad it was finally the last day of school. Even though she skipped school today (and yesterday) she was happy just to know that she had reached the end of her high school career. Brady was never one for school, and whenever she skipped she went to the convenience store down the street with her friends to hang out until it was time for her to go home. She would stand outside of the store and would have the occasional cigarette with the people that she had been hanging out with since freshman year.

Brady went into high school thinking she was going to be determined to get her work done and to get out. But what she turned into was completely different. She quickly got mixed in with the wrong people who were now her friends, and who also were the people that got her into trouble. They would invite her to go drink with them and to go to parties that she shouldn’t have been at, and soon after her sophomore year they got her into smoking weed and cigarettes.

She didn’t think there wasn’t anything technically wrong with her behavior, but her mom and dad disagreed with every fiber in their being. Whenever Brady was caught by the police or by a friend of her parent’s, she was dragged home and then locked in her room until her parents told her it was okay to come out. But what they didn’t know was that Brady would sneak out nearly every night to go hang out with the troublemakers she called friends. She was young and she wanted to have fun, and that’s what she was trying to do.

Once Brady got into her room she tossed her bookbag, which contained plenty of unfinished homework and tests with terrible grades on them, on the floor and plopped down on her bed. She sighed to herself as she grabbed her laptop from her bedside table and opened it up before she began surfing the Internet to see what everyone in the cyber world was up to.

After she began high school, Brady also became more reserved when she was at home. She wouldn’t stay downstairs talking to her parents all day; she started to prefer going up to her room and being by herself while she sat on her computer. She and her parents began to view things a lot differently once Brady reached high school and she was tired of fighting with them right when she got home, which is why she locked herself in her room. She went down for dinner and then she would go right back upstairs, or she would be out with her friends until her mom was blowing her phone up with calls and texts telling her to come home.

Just when she thought she would have some time to herself, Brady heard footsteps coming down the hallway and she knew just who it was: her mother. Seconds later the door opened and Brady’s mother stepped in the room, her brow furrowed and her hands on her hips.

“Where were you today?” Brady’s mother, Maggie, asked as she stared at her teenage daughter. “Your principal called today to inform me that you weren’t at school.”

“I was at the Kwik Mart with my friends,” Brady replied casually as she stared at the screen on her laptop as she scrolled through her Facebook news feed. “There was nothing going on at school today, anyway.”

“Well, I heard that you missed a math test,” she commented sternly. “And the people you hang out with aren’t your friends, Brady. They’re troublemakers.”

“Okay,” was all Brady said as she attempted to tune her annoying, nagging mother out. Her coming into Brady’s room was something that happened quite frequently, and it was the same conversation over and over. And every single time they had an argument about Brady and her behavior, Brady always won and her mom would end up losing and leaving the room with a pissed off attitude. And that’s how Brady liked it.

“Brady Fields, you need to shape up until you get yourself into a lot of trouble,” Maggie scolded as she walked over to her daughter and took her laptop. She held it under her arm as she pointed a finger at Brady. “One day you’re going to get into trouble that you won’t be able to get out of. You’re soon going to be 18 and after that you’re going to be going to the Big House, not the detention center that you’ve been going in and out of for the past two years. This is getting ridiculous.”

“You never do anything to help my behavior, so obviously it isn’t that much of a concern to you,” Brady said loudly as she glared at her mother who now had her laptop.

“I’ve tried to get you counseling and to go to a group,” Maggie argued. “And since you have decided not to walk with your graduating class, I’m sending you to Camp Hope on the 26th. They’ll help you shape up there.”

“Camp Hope? What the hell is that?” Brady asked as confusion and anger filled her voice. She never thought her mother would actually turn to sending her somewhere, and now that she seemed that she was going to it pissed her off.

“It’s for struggling youth that need help. It’s an outward bound program that will help you find yourself, Brady,” she answered. “It’ll help you, and it’ll get you away from all of the people you think are your friends.”

“I’m not going,” Brady fought as she shrugged her shoulders. “You can’t make me go.”

“I’ve already signed you up and you’re not 18 yet, which means you still have to do what I tell you to unless you plan on moving out,” Maggie stated as she turned towards the door to leave. “Your senior year is now over and you’re leaving in two days. Pack your bags.”

Brady opened her mouth to say something in response to her mother, but before she could Maggie walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. Looking down at her hands, Brady bit her lip in frustration. She didn’t want to go to a camp for the summer. She didn’t need help. She wasn’t “struggling youth”. She knew just who she was and she didn’t need to find herself, and the fact that her mother believed she did pissed her off more than anything.

But without her laptop Brady had nothing else to do but to pack her bags for the camp that she knew nothing about but was already dreading.