Bad Girls

Parents

I was so glad that Kyla had the same schedule as me. I would have gotten lost in that goddamn place they call a youth camp. Honestly, there were turns everywhere!

After a week, however, I could get around by myself. After a week, I also picked up on how my roommates ignored Cassie every time she was around. By the second week, I was ignoring like a pro. I also realized, that even though the schedule's strict and most of the kids were messed up, I loved this place. It was already becoming much more like home than life with my stupid family was. I had remembered Rick's warning, saying I'd need luck to get by with my roommates. Now as I looked back, I laughed. I had been worried, but he was obviously just warning me about Emma-Lynn. She was a bitch, no denying it. But after a good two weeks there, the two of us got along much better. 

It was likely that the counselors were just homophobic. Bastards. As time passed, I realized that Emma-Lynn wasn't an outstanding exception to the norm, in fact, this WAS the norm. A lot of girls, I noticed, were holding hands, and making out in the courtyard, and such. Well, it WAS a girls' school. 

"Hey, Kyla." I said at lunch, struck by a sudden thought.
"Yeah?"
"There's no getting out, is there?"
All of my roommates looked at me, curiously wondering what the heck I was talking about.
"No getting out of here. For, like, a day or so."
"Nope. No shopping, no nothing. You need pads, you go to the nurse."
"Man, that sucks."
Emma-Lynn laughed. "Tell me about it. I'm in desperate need of a new pair of shoes."
"Hey, what's the date?" Ryan interrupted suddenly.
"Um...23rd." Kyla answered.
Ryan went pale...even paler than she usually was.
"What's wrong?" I asked and then Emma-Lynn gasped and put her hand over her mouth. 
"Guys?" I said, confused. I looked at Kyla, whose head was in her hands. Then, Dylan explained everything with a few words. "25th is when parents visit."

The 24th was probably the most nerve wrecking day ever. Nobody paid attention in any of the classes. Everyone was stressing out over the prospect of parents coming the next day. Not a single girl was excited about seeing their parents, and I could join them in that thought. After classes were over, Kyla and I walked back to our cabin, her explaining some things about previous parent visits.
"See, the day before parents come is when we do something completely crazy to shock our parents the next day. So you got any ideas?"
"I don't know."
"I think for me, I'm just gonna borrow Emma-Lynn's clothes."
I laughed. "I wish I could get a nose piercing. That would scare the crap out of my insanely Christian father."
"Well, you can. Dylan will do it for you."
"Does she know how?"
"Gurl, have you seen Dylan's ears?"
She had a point. Dylan had around ten piercings on each ear.
"That would be awesome."
We walked into the cabin and and Kyla immediately asked. "So what are ya'll doing to freak out the 'rents?"

Ryan groaned. "I lost 15 pounds since my parents last saw me. I think that's shocking enough."
I looked at Ryan. She looked like a stick.
Dylan laughed with her raspy voice. "I used to have light brown hair like Ryan, so black hair's good enough for me."
I tried to imagine Dylan with Ryan's hair but it was impossible.
Emma-Lynn smirked. "Gonna pretend Dylan's my girlfriend."
Everyone laughed, and even though she was joking, she and Dylan made eyes at each other.
"Nah, I'm not gonna do anything stupid. They hate me already, what more satisfaction do I need?"
"Your choice." Kyla shrugged, but her eyes twinkled. "Lend me your mini-skirt and tube top. That's my surprise. Ooh, and Dylan, pierce Joelle's nose, won't you?"
Dylan's eyes lit up with delight. "You serious?" she looked at me. I nodded. 
"Oh, hell yes. Imma go get my gun."

Soon enough, I walked out of the bathroom with a tiny silver hoop in my nostril, Dylan trotting behind me, no doubt with a grin plastered on her face.
"What do you think?" I asked my remaining three roommates. 
"Suits you." - Ryan.
"Bitch." - Emma-Lynn.
"Perfect." - Kyla.
I grinned. Suddenly I wasn't so nervous for the next day.

25th. Did I say I wasn't nervous? I take it back. I woke up without an alarm at 6:00. I looked around and noticed that Emma-Lynn was awake, sitting on her bed, chewing her fingernails.
"Emma-Lynn?" I whispered, getting out of bed and walking towards her. "You okay?"
She looked at me, and I saw in her eyes how her entire "queen bitch" thing was gone.
"No." she answered. "I don't want to see my parents."
"Me neither."
"No, you don't understand. I don't want to see them, because I disappointed them. They hate me."
"Ryan and Dylan's parents hate them too."
"But that's because they're 'bad'. My parents hate me because I'm a lesbian."
Whoa. Her parents KNOW? 
"That's why they sent me here."
"Wait a sec, Emma-Lynn. You said you came here because your parents caught you with your boyfriend."
She looked at me, her expression reading You're such a dumbshit. 
"I didn't HAVE a boyfriend. That's my reason. I made it up. Cuz I wanted to come across as someone who belongs here. Someone bad."
I realized that she WANTED to be bad. She wanted to be like the rest of us, who had done something so terrible, we had to be sent away. She wanted to prove she was tough.
"Emma-Lynn. Here it is. Your parents? Bastards. They don't love you for you, so don't love them for them. They don't deserve it."

She looked at me and I saw her confidence come back to her.
"You're right. Thanks."
"No problem." I said, touched.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
"Shit!" Dylan fumbled around, trying to turn her alarm off. Ryan and Kyla awoke, rubbing sleep from their eyes.
Kyla groaned. "Parent visitation day."

All the students were seated in the Main Hall, as the 'principal' of the school stood in front, giving a boring lecture that no one was listening to. Until...
"All right. Now, students of Parker's, please make your way to the East Wing. Your parents are waiting for you in the East Hall."
Everybody shuffled around, walking as slowly as they dared, so that they had the least time with their parents that they possibly could. But there was no way they could stop moving altogether and suddenly, we were at the door of the East Hall. Someone at the front opened the door and we all made our way inside.

"Ryan? What happened to you!?" Ryan and Dylan's mother grabbed Ryan by the shoulders and looked her up and down.
"Are you bulimic?" 
Dylan grinned as Ryan responded "No, Mom." in a tired voice.
"Where's your sister?" her mother asked, looking around the room even though Dylan was standing right next to Ryan.
"Right here."
Their mom spotted her and nearly shrieked. "What have you done to your hair?!"
"Dyed it." Dylan looked supremely satisfied that her plan was going so well. My eyes shifted over to Emma-Lynn.

"Hey Mom." she greeted tentatively. "Hey Dad."
"Emma-Lynn." her mom said in a cold voice.  
"Hello, child." her father mirrored the cold voice.
I didn't want to eavesdrop, especially onto what was sure to be an extremely awkward conversation. I looked at Kyla being reunited with her family.
"Mother. Father."
"For God's sake, Kyra, what are you WEARING?"
"Clothes, Mother. And it's Kyla, not Kyra."
"I know my own daughter's name!" Her mother retorted.
Ouch.

"Joelle?" A voice behind me called.
I shut my eyes tightly. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. 
I turned around.
"Mom."
My mom gasped. Her eyes were fixed on my nose. "What...what?"
"That's new." I said, casually.
"How could you?" she looked terrified, as though she thought I was a completely new person because I had a nose ring.
"How could I? Hmm. How could you abandon your daughter without even caring? Same concept, I suppose."
"Don't talk to your mother like that!" My father came towards me angrily. He shoved something into my hands.
"The only reason she's been acting this way is because she forgot that at home, dear." He stroked my sobbing mother's hair.
I looked down at the thing in my hands. The Bible. I laughed and threw it on the floor. My father gasped and picked it up, looking at me with pure disgust.
"Nah, that's not the reason. I'd act this way no matter what. Oh, and by the way, I owe you guys a thanks for leaving me here. I have some of the best friends in the world."
"Really?" My mother's sobs had left her and the attitude was back. "In this hell hole, you mean? Well, I'd love to meet them."
"Fine." I turned around. "Emma-Lynn? Come here, would ya?"
Emma-Lynn looked thoroughly relieved to leave her parents and come over next to me.
"My parents desperately want to meet some of my friends. Mom, Dad, this is Emma-Lynn."
My parents looked at Emma-Lynn, judging her.
"No, Dad, Emma-Lynn isn't Christian." I said, before my dad could say anything. Emma-Lynn laughed and I saw the bitchiness that had left her while she spoke with her parents return quickly.
"That bullshit?" She laughed again. "Please."
And with that, she walked off.
"Don't you like her?" I smiled sweetly at my parents.
"Your way of life is sinful, Joelle."
"Then leave, won't you?"
Without sparing them a second glance, I spun around and marched to my cabin.