Growing Up

Chapter 1: The Party

I, Rebecca Westwood, am an idiot.

It is a Saturday night. I'm supposed to be at Patty's house, finishing our history project. A very important project, in fact, that is worth half our grade. Patty's is seriously going to kill me on Monday.

That is, if I even make it to Monday.

To be honest, I would prefer to be at Patty's house. Even though she slightly intimidates me with her no-nonsense attitude and her extreme obsession with Shakespeare. Seriously, you don't mess with her and Shakespeare. I made that mistake once, and it didn't end so well. Needless to say, she is one scary, five foot girl.

But anyways, her house would be a great place to be right now. Even with her overbearing mom who always checked in on us every five minutes and offered us moldy biscuits. At least it would be quieter.

That is more than I could say for this place. This warehouse was filled with more people than I could count, which left me with barely any room to even stand. Another issue was the ear deafening techno music playing in the background. Let me tell you one thing, I absolutely hate techno with a passion, and Rhiannon knows this.

My best friend, Rhiannon, somehow convinced me to come along with her to Laurie Miller's party. I initially refused, because of my absolute hatred of social gatherings.

I am NOT a people's person. After an incident involving a six bottles of orange juice and a speech in third grade, I have been absolutely terrified of crowds. That's why I am glad to have a friend like Rhiannon. She is the social person, which means that if she can tell that I don't want to talk to someone, she manages to steer them into a conversation with her instead.

Well, having her as a friend has its downsides too. For instance, she is the reason I am here in the first place. After my first refusal, she kept pestering me until I finally agreed to go with her.

I don't get why she was so adamant to make me go with her. Within five minutes of arriving to this place, she disappeared through the crowd. I doubt she even tried to look for me.

Eventually, I got sick of the music and people, and went outside. After bumping through countless people, the crowd thinned and I found myself standing alone in the middle of a giant field with creaking crickets and a pitch black sky, where the warehouse was located. It gradually got darker as I went further away from the brightly lit warehouse.

I sat down on the dead, browning grass and sighed. It would be awhile until I got home since, as a fifteen year old, I still couldn't drive. I got a ride from Adrianna, and I hadn't seen her for at least an hour.

Ignoring the cold November air, I wrapped my thin black jacket closer to myself and took out my phone. On it, I saw five missed calls and twenty eight messages from Patty. I put my phone back into my pocket, not in the mood to deal with Patty's wrath . But, as I expected, I had no messages from Rhiannon.

Sighing, I stood back up and decided to go for a little walk to pass time. As I walked along the grassy field, I located two very familiar people arguing under a lone apple tree. As I neared the tree, Rhiannon saw me and beckoned me over.

"Becky, come over here and tell Adam how annoying he is and that if he attempts to speak to me one more time he will get punched more than once," she angrily said as Adam started to yell back at her.

"Hey! I waited six months until you even bothered to talk to me, after I did one little thing wrong."

"One thing? One thing? I hardly call dumping me in the middle of prom one little thing."

Adam frustratedly sighed and talked once more, "Anna, it wasn't even your prom, it was mine. And I just didn't think that things were working out at the time-"

"Oh that isn't even the point, you did what you did and that's the end of it. Now, Becky and I have something really important to do at this present moment so if you'll excuse us, we will be off now."

Rhiannon grabbed my arm and started to drag me away from the tree as Adam kept calling for her. She then proceeded to talk on and on about what an idiot she was to have ever been with him, and how I was lucky that I didn't deal with these kind of things. I laughed at her spot on imitation  of him, with his awkward, gangly walk. I never liked Adam, he was too boring for Rhiannon. I zoned out of her rant as I stared at the grass below me.

She is that kind of person everyone loves. Rhiannon is the epitome of perfect. With crazy red hair and freckly skin, she stands out in a crowd. I wouldn't say she is exactly pretty, more like fascinating. She doesn't look like or act like anyone I know. She is unique, from her habit of wildly moving her arms around while talking to the way she dressed.

Take now for instance. She is currently wearing an a black shirt and a green patchwork gypsy skirt that she had made. I don't get where she gets these outfit  ideas from, but they are seriously amazing. It was a far contrast from the plain blue dress I was wearing. I guess I can say I am lucky she had ever befriended me.

Even though she is nearly two years older at me as a junior, we have been best friends since I was in first grade and she was in third. On the first day of school, she found me crying in the bathrooms because someone had stolen my animal crackers. Needless to say, she had a bag of crackers herself and there the friendship began.

I guess she stuck around with me because she liked how I would do whatever she said. Well, almost everything. I still refuse to join the school play, because of that fear of public speaking. Anyways, over the last ten years, nothing has really changed between us. I was still quiet Becky and she was still perfect Rhiannon.

"And he had the nerve to tell ME to calm down. Can you believe that guy?"

I looked back up and said no. Satisfied at my reply, she changed the subject to what a drag Mrs. Jackson -her boring chemistry teacher- was.

As she continued to talk I started enjoying the night. With a friend like Rhiannon, nothing ever got boring.

Maybe ditching Patty wasn't such a bad idea after all.

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Hey guys!

The picture on the side is the full cast, and the video is one of my favorite songs by Fleetwood Mac, Rhiannon. This is who I based the character off of, and where I got the story idea from.

Did you guys enjoy? How do you find Becky right now? Hope you enjoyed the chapter!