Guilty Love

4

Today was the day, Monday.

I really wasn't looking forward to the next six weeks, but I guess there were a few perks, after all it did take my mind off Aiden and Meredith and Co - Aiden being my ridiculously hot but equally uninteresting ex boyfriend of 8 months (I still don't know why I stayed with him for so long, if anything I liked the idea of him far more than him in reality).

So, I got up and showered. After that, I picked my outfit (if you'd even call it that) it was just Adidas leggings, a black nike top and a grey pullover hoodie, after all it wasn't like I was expecting to meet who I did that day.

I got up at about 6am that morning, I showered, brushed my teeth, all the normal stuff. I did my makeup the same way most 16 year olds do, not a little but not a lot, I threw on my usual workout clothes - not that I worked out often - and went to the bus stop grabbing a coffee on the way.

I had only been sixteen for a few months now, so I hadn't got my drivers license yet.

It'd been about an hour since I'd got on the bus when they pulled up to my stop, it was right outside the 'youth centre' as they liked to call it. I thanked the driver and hopped off, it was quite early, about 8ish so there weren't many people out and I was the only one who got off at this stop. I could see why it's not exactly somewhere you'd want to be; quite dingy and a bit run down - you could tell they'd tried though, everything you could see had once upon a time been bright and colourful on the building but after so long the vibrant hues had faded to dull and depressing tones.

I stepped through the door to be greeted by a lady called Helen she sounded as though she was from Texas or just the general south, she was painfully happy like one of the leaders you would've had at summer camp - I suppose in a cruel way this was summer camp, just for young offenders. Helen showed me to a hall, in the far corner there was a bunch of people about 15 of them, all looking to be teenagers some older and younger than others, as we walked over I started to analyse the huddle, emos and skaters (aka roadmen) seemed to make up the majority - this wasn't my usual scene and I honesty had no idea how to deal with it, I did notice something, I suddenly became very aware that there is not natural way to hold your arms. Much to my relief I saw an extraordinarily normal looking girl sitting against the wall on her own on her phone.

My thoughts were interrupted by another woman bursting through the doors blowing a whistle and shouting at everyone to get in order - at first I assumed she meant alphabetical but it was later made apparent that it was age oriented.

"Everybody! Order! Lines now!" the woman shouted in what was either a Welsh or Irish accent I wasn't familiar with either so couldn't be sure. I turned to Helen but she was now on her way back out of the room; I stood at a complete loss of what to do.

"Eve if I see you with your phone out one more time!" she seemed so angry, it was just a cell phone. Eve, the normal girl apologised -clearly very reluctantly- and stuffed her phone into her pocket before joining the line, six down from the oldest end.

"I take it you're the new girl then?" the woman asked without giving me a chance to reply.

"Introduce yourself." she definitely was good at ordering people around.

"Um, ok. I'm Jess, I'm sixteen and... well that's pretty much it."  said casually - I'm quite confident and am not too easily embarrassed so it wasn't a big deal for me.

"Well... Jess, I'm Miss Hirons. According to my sheet you should be in line there." she said pointing next to the normal girl.

"Now, who is going to tell Jess our most important rule? Elliot? Seeing as you're the one who always loves to ignore it how about you?" she just sounded evil.

"We don't talk about why we're here, or where we're from." I didn't see who said it, it came from the young end of the line though.

Miss Hirons spent about 10 minutes outlining rules and plans for the next 6 weeks, and me and Eve shared a few sarcastic glances and eye rolls - this was only Eve's second week at the program, she was finishing the same week as I was, I could tell she'd end up being my ally in this group of misfits.

Eve and I sat together on the bus and got to know each other better, it was about a 30 minute drive. She told me she was there for keying her ex boyfriend's car and slashing his tyres, I completely understood and I probably would've done the same (he had been cheating on her for 3 months with her best friend). I told her why I was there, at first it seemed all serious but it was good, we ended up laughing about it after a moment. In hinds sight breaking the most important rule within the the first 30 minutes of arriving could've been potentially problematic it seemed like a pretty pointless rule in the first place, and what better to spark a new friendship than bonding over crimes you've committed.

We got off the bus and saw an OCD suffers nightmare, there was rubble everywhere, half torn down houses, and peoples belongings scattered sporadically all over the floor. About 3 weeks ago, there had been a tornado which devastated this end of town, luckily it didn't reach near where I lived, it was bad here though, I felt bad for the families... but at least they didn't have to clean it.