Life's Long Journey

Chapter 1

"I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away! But baby, I just need one good one to stay." When the song finished, I noticed my phone was ringing. I looked and it was my mom. I answered the phone to hear her worried breaths of panic.

"Mom! Mom! What's wrong!?!" She began to calm down when she noticed I had answered. She started taking deep breaths indicating she wasn't very happy.

"Maya Renee! Where are you?!? I got home and you weren't home!!" I quenched at the sound of her screams. I gave her a second to catch her breath before I answered.

"Mom, I'm going to get Carlie then we're going to the Summers Park festival." I heard nothing on the other line. All I heard was deep breathing. I then heard my mom talking to my dad. I couldn't hear anything clearly, so I knew it was in another room. After about one and a half minuetes my dad came to the phone.

"Okay Maya. We will let you go with a warning this time, but next time you must tell us where you are going, who you are going with, and when you will be back. Am I understood?" I nodded, but realized they couldn't see me.

"Yes sir. I understand." I turned on Carlie's street that was brightly lit by all the street lamps.

"Dad, I need to go. I'm arriving at Carlie's house." I pulled into Carlie's driveway and she pried open the car door and slipped in.

"Okay sweetheart, we'll see you later. Bye." I put my phone down and Carlie looked at me with a glare.

"You look like I've ripped up your homework, threw you in a pool, woke you up two hours early then repeated that five times." She tried to stifle her laughs, but was failing.

"May! Did you just get in trouble again?" I stared at her with a blank expression as I thought out my response.

"Maybe. But anyway, it's no big deal." I shrugged and turned to back out. I turned up the radio just to have Carlie turn it down again.

"NOT A BIG DEAL?!? Maya!! You've gotten in trouble twice this month! One more time and you'll be on complete grounding!! We can't let that happen!!" I clenched my jaw at the sound of her screams. They hurt my ears so bad, I thought my ear drums would burst.

"Wow. You keep better track of my groundings than I do. Maybe even better than my parents." This didn't help anything. She just stared at me with her glare.

"May, I keep track of your groundings because the last time you got a complete grounding, we almost lost each other. I don't want to lose my best friend." I looked over at Carlie, who now looked like a sad puppy with her big puppy eyes. The last time I got a complete grounding was in 8th grade for not doing my home work for an entire week. I lost my phone, privileges to go outside, privileges to speak to Carlie, and I was forced to go make up any homework I didn't do. It was terrible. And since I wasn't able to speak to Carlie, I couldn't tell her I was grounded, I couldn't respond to her texts either. After I was grounded, we got into this HUGE fight. I will never forget how scared I was to go to school because I was so scared to fight with her.

"Look, Carls, I know we almost lost each other, but I know it won't happen again. I've taken care of things in the past, haven't I? I know you're scared, but don't be. I'll take care of everything. I promise." Carlie gave me the "I don't believe you but will pretend I do to stop this conversation" look before turning the radio back on.

When we arrived at the festival, Carlie's first move was find a food stand to eat at. She clearly hadn't eaten yet, and her favorite food was festival corndogs. I began to stroll around looking for somewhere to sit when the performances started. As I was walking around I felt someone yank on my arm with extreme force. I turned around to tell them to get away from me but instead of saying anything, I was thrown into a giant puddle of who knows what. All I knew is that I was soaking wet and there were lots of people laughing at me. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw him, the boy I had been avoiding for a year.