Chapter 3
It was Thursday, two weeks after my first date with Harry. I was walking on the beach, taking some pictures of the water, and some of the beach life. I had always shown a love for photography, especially pictures of nature. I had millions of pictures of flowers, clouds, and the ocean. So one day, after saving up loads of money, I went out and bought a special photographers camera. Since then I found it hard to go out in public without it. You never know when something beautiful could happen. That was the fun of it. I was always competing with Mother Nature. She would throw something extremely beautiful at me, and I would try to capture it in a picture before she took it away. It's actually quite fun if you give it a go...
I woke up to 'Grade 8' by Ed Sheeran, blasting in my ear. It took me a few moments to realize it was my ringtone. I grabbed my phone, sleepily, and managed to answer it saying, "Hello?"
"Good Morning Sunshine!" Emily. Of course. She obviously thought it was her duty to wake me up extremely early on the weekends. So much for beauty sleep. "No offense, Em, but what do you want?" I asked her. Wondering what in the world she had planned this time.
"Okay, just meet me at my house in like 10 minutes or I'm leaving without you! Bye!" She hung up. "Ok?" I said to the walls. I realized I only had 10 minutes, so I quickly got out of bed. I didn't have much time to think about some fancy outfit so I put on my DIY dip dyed jean shorts, a white tank top, and a plain black sweatshirt. My shoes were my black lace Toms. On my way out of my room, I looked at the time on my phone and saw it was only 5:36 in the morning. Are You Kidding Me?! I thought to myself. I ran down the stairs to the kitchen, quickly wrote a note for my mom saying:
Emily needed me to meet her at her house. Gimme a call if you need me. Love you
xx Meadow
I grabbed an apple, my house keys, and my bag, and ran out of the door.
I got to Emily's house just in time it seems, because she was three houses ahead of her own.
"Emily, hold on, I'm here!" I yelled at her. She was so impatient. She stopped, and waited for me to catch up to her. "So where are we going?" I asked her once I had caught up.
"A bunch of people from school are helping some guy with a project. I think he writes a newspaper in New York and he's asked a lot of kids our age in different states to help him out. He's involved in an art project on whether or not graffiti is art or vandalism." She explained.
"So we're doing graffiti?" I asked her. She quickly nodded her head, as we crossed a street I've never been to before. Personally, I believed that graffiti was art, but the cops in Florida, they thought otherwise. "But what if we get caught?"
"Than we get caught. I don't think we could get arrested, so the worst they could do is give us a ticket and talk to our parents. But the guy who put us up to it would have to pay for the tickets."
"Emily, my mom would kill me if I ever had to talk to the police!" I was starting to get a little wary about doing this. "Don't worry! I'll take the blame for it. Now quit arguing, we are doing this no matter what you say!" I guess the conversation was now over.
After walking for around five more minutes, I saw about ten or fifteen people gathered around a huge white wall. I recognized a few of them from school. They all had spray cans, and were making beautiful designs, and writing some inspirational quotes like, 'If you can dream it, you can do it. -Walt Disney' and 'You Only Live Once, But If You Do It Right, Once Is Enough'
A guy I didn't recognize walked up to us and tossed a couple spray cans and walked away. He had tattoos covering his arms, and his bottom lip was pierced. "Who was that?" I asked Emily, as she started drawing a cartoon girl. "His name's Jace. He used to go to our school, but he always got in fights. He almost killed a kid once. So, he was kicked out. Try not to get involved with him, Meadow. He's really dangerous." She sounded nervous while telling me this, but I knew I had to trust her.
We had been painting on the wall for so long, and the wall was completely covered. I checked the time and it was 7:23. "Shoot!" I muttered,"I gotta get home." I waved goodbye to Emily, and dropped my paint cans in a box. As I started walking, I looked back and saw Jace, the boy with the tattoos and piercing watching me from the corner. I suddenly didn't feel so great. I started walking a little faster, but of course, he followed me. I tried convincing myself that soon he would leave me alone. Nope. I was on Emily's street now, and I realized he would follow me until he saw where I lived, and if he didn't leave me alone then, well, I wasn't sure. I had passed Emily's house, and I was almost running. I glanced back quickly, and caught a glimpse of him. He wasn't far behind. I was sweating now, and my stomach felt all twisted up. I knew what Emily said about him was true, and I didn't want to get raped. I was on my street now, but I could still hear his footsteps behind me. Were they getting closer? Or was I losing it?
Three houses away from my own now. I broke into a sprint, I didn't care if he followed me now, I just wanted to be safe inside my own house. I ran up my driveway, and into my garage door. I locked the door behind me, and ran to the window, looking outside. Jace was standing on the sidewalk directly in front of our house. He saw me in the window, and smirked. He then walked off. Now he knew where I lived. Oh. No.
