Living In The High Life

Chapter 1:

She was fuming now.

Her cheeks became blotchy and her jaws clenched, as every time we fought.

She yelled through her teeth, “I swear Rae, you’re so unreliable! I can't even trust you going out with your friends anymore!” Changing her tone, she mumbled, “Not like I could before but…”

“It’s not even my fault! If anything, you should be yelling at the police for not believing me!” I yelled back. You see I had been arrested for possession of drugs. The thing is that they weren’t even drugs. They were Tic-Tacs in a medicine bottle. I put them in there because it's the only thing I had in my bag when my friend dumped a billion and one into my hand.

“Don’t blame this on anybody else but you,” she said with a softer voice, dissapointment clear in her voice.

“MYSELF? What part of ‘they weren’t even drugs’ don’t you UNDERSTAND?” I yelled louder than I should have.

“Don’t yell at me Raine. And by the way, your father called. He said your flight has changed to Sunday.” And with that, she walked off, leaving me no chance to respond.

Oh, sorry. I should introduce myself: My name Is Raine - yes, Raine – it sounds like rain so I just have everybody call me Rae, or Ray - however you choose to spell it is cool but I like the ‘e’ at the end because I think it gives the name a little spunk.

So here’s my story: My parents are divorced. I live in this lame-ass, country-town in the middle of Colorado with my mom, while my dad lives in this beautiful beach house in Los Angeles. We all used to live in LA until my parents got divorced. My mom got custody and that’s when we moved to Colorado. I only visit my dad once a year… in the winter. I mean it wouldn’t be so bad if it were in the summer because he is right on the beach, but during the winter… Really? You can’t do anything at a BEACH house on the BEACH in the WINTER! I’m sorry. I’m getting all worked up over nothing.

Back to what I was saying, I don’t exactly have the perfect life here in Colorado with my mom. We just don’t click like my dad and I. Our days are spent constantly fighting. Moreover, it's always about the stupidest things like how I slept in too late, or how it’s too hot to be wearing jeans… blah, blah, blah.

My school life is okay - well it surely isn’t anything to get excited about. I go to school, learn stuff, hang with friends, and then come home. Actually, I don’t have many friends – I have one super duper close friend and her name is Dani. I’ve known her since we were seven. We’re 18 now. It’s cool that we’ve stayed tight this long because I don’t know many people, or actually any people who have had any kind of relationship that long. Example: my parents. Well anyways, that’s when I moved here, second grade. She only lives about 20 minutes from me so it’s easy to hang out outside of school and stuff. Sometimes it's as if we live at each other’s houses. When something in my life isn’t going right, I stay at her house, and vice versa. Once I stayed for like 3 weeks because of a fight between me and my mom and a bad breakup at the same time. I was NOT looking, or feeling so hot during that.

I haven’t had very many boyfriends. My last one was Jason. He was my life. It lasted about 2 years and it was going so well. He loved me, I loved him, and Ashley loved him too… ‘Who’s Ashley’ you may ask? Ashley is this girl he dated a while back. It was never serious between them two but she begged to differ. She is what broke us up. She always tried to steal Jason away from me and interrupted our ‘moments.’ It was never that bad until the last few months we were together. I got tired of her being around and Jason was getting on my nerves, saying things like “Oh come on Rae, just let her stay this one time.” It was never just that one time, though. It was all the time. Therefore, we broke up. He’s now dating her again and I’m just glad it’s almost the end of senior year. When all of this crap is over Dani and I are moving in with my dad for the summer because we’re going to UCLA in the fall.

Oh how I can’t wait to get out of this shit-hole of a town.