Last Year of Seventeen

It happened last year. No one saw it coming, it hit our town like a meteor, something foreign, something both frightening and enticing. This scandal made everyone shake their heads, but they loved it, they love drama simply because they hardly get a taste of it. Sadly, their entertainment came with a cost, and I got shoved the bill. Really, the entire scandal was put into motion by me, but it wasn't my fault. They say I lied. That I made it up. They pinned me with a dire need of attention. Attention was the last thing I wanted, especially from someone like him.

Don't cause problems, my mother said to me, in this town, nothing stays a secret for long.

It's not a secret, I told her, I want people to know what he did to me. And I'm not causing problems, it's the truth!

I told my mother everything after the incident happened. She listened, and I thought she supported me—her nods were terribly convincing—but when I finished she told me to stop creating such stories. Attention, attention, attention, that's all she wants, they said, after it spread around the school. I told my best friend at the time, Daphne, and Daphne decided to take on the role of head-gossiper. She started the spread, like an STD during spring break, like in the movies. Everyone at school knew. Everyone at school thought I made it up, for guess what, attention.

She made it up because her Daddy ran away with that slut, some girls said in the locker room, just a week after school started.

The incident happened at a beginning of the school year party, thrown by the bastard himself. I attended with Daphne and our mutual friend Jana. Daphne was on the dance team and needed to soar this school year, as Junior year meant rising and senior year meant thriving. She needed to set herself up for greatness. Daphne, Jana, and I were nowhere near popular, but we weren't considered losers either, we were just there. I was okay with it, just being there. She needed more.

Once she made the dance team over the summer, Daphne knew she had a shot at actual popularity.

Jana, on the other hand, was like me, she was satisfied with her notch on the scale of social status. She was focused more on school than friends, then again, now, who knows what she's like.

To make this all clear, after the start of the year party and after the first semester of my Junior year, I left.

After my fake incident spread, everyone turned against me. How could they turn against their leader, Harrison Keller?

Harrison Keller was the host of the party a year ago, and my leading man in the production that is the scandal. Like I said before, I did not want attention from him, unlike everyone else. Everyone else happened to love him, he was the star of our small town football team, a golden boy, wealthy, and charismatic to all hell. Girls swooned, boys were jealous, blah, blah, blah.

I know what you all are wondering, what was this incident?

A sudden bell causes me to jump, my heart skipping an extra beat. I nearly hit my car horn. I scan the cluttered parking lot around me, filled with student cars, and the last few freshman rush past the main doors.

I wish I was a child, I wish I could fall to the floor and cry, I don't wanna!

Groaning, I grab my backpack and climb out of my car, shutting the door dramatically behind me. I swing the bag onto my back and grasp my phone tightly in my hand, ready with 911 already dialed, as if I'll need it, and I start my death march up to the doors.

As I said, I left after the first semester of my Junior year, here at Coldgrove High School. I spent winter break packing up my things, leaving my mother, and moving to Florida with my Dad. How could I stay at a school where everyone hated me? Hell, the entire town hated me. So, I left. I started my second semester at a High School in Florida and lived with my Father and his girlfriend, yes, the one he ran away with. My parents are divorced now, but they were together at the time.

My mother was devastated.