Autumn Leaves

Chapter 1

There is one computer in Tara’s house. One computer, on a small desk in her room.  Just one. But even one was enough to kill her. One computer was all it took to make her take her life.

            Life is an odd thing. One moment you’re happy, and the next, life throws something at you that you can’t get over. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. As if. What if you can’t? What if you just don’t want to? Tara couldn’t take it anymore, so she took her own life. How could you do something like that? She left me alone with nobody, getting more and more depressed by the day. Why did she have to do it?

            I’d give anything to have Tara back. Anything. But she’s gone. Gone forever and I can’t take her back.

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            “What?” I say, looking up at my math teacher. “What?! What?! For the millionth time, London, pay attention!” she huffs, and moves on to the next poor soul to be asked her question. Mrs. Spinelli is a nightmare. I hate her, and everyone else does, too. She’s so mean.

            As the lesson drags on, I think longingly about my laptop, waiting at home. Ever since Tara died, my mother has been really over protective about the whole thing. No Facebook, Twitter, on and on and on. I don’t really care, though. I’ve stopped putting up pictures of myself and things like that, but I need some way to communicate.

            A crumpled up piece of paper lands on my desk and snaps me out of my daydream. Meet me by the gym at lunch, it says. May again. May is the most annoying human being to walk this planet, and she’s totally fine with it. She sends me thousands of texts a day, emails, notes, pretty much everything under the sun. When Tara died, she saw it as her opportunity. She is such a creep. I have no idea why she’s so desperate to be my friend. Tara and I used to be together all the time, with May following us around like a lost puppy. Ugh.

            The bell rings, and I pick up my stuff, eager to get out of the class. Math is my last class before lunch, but I decide to skip out on May’s little “meeting” and go outside instead.

            Outside, and nature in general is where I go to escape the rest of the world. Today it’s sunny outside, the reds and oranges of the trees glowing brilliantly. I love it out here. If you walk past the area where everyone eats, it’s quiet and serene, almost as if I wasn’t even in the city. Giant trees form an overhead canopy in the sky, and in the fall it’s even better. The colors mix together to form one, glowing blanket.  

            I’m tempted to walk out after lunch and ditch, but if I do it again, my Mom threatened to take away my laptop. So I just sit down and enjoy my almost hour of peace away from people. Lately I hate people, and I just want to be left alone. I’m too tired to deal with even my family, much less random people from school. I just want to stay out here forever.

                                               

 

 

            Stupid laptop. Stupid people, stupid life! My mother is currently going through a stage in which she believes that her sole purpose in life is to become my best friend. Okay, maybe not sole purpose, but she’s definitely insisting on way too much love for me. Great for you, Mom, but she has just announced that from now on, the afternoons are for spending time together. Are you kidding me? At the moment my mother is sitting in a giant green arm chair (part of her new love thing, decorating the house in random things in random colors, apparently they inspire happiness,) knitting. And I am reading. I usually like reading, but today my Mom is insisting on having a heart to heart talk.