Escalade

Chapter One

I walk up the front steps of my porch, my black Chuck Taylors smacking against the ground as the rain water splashes out from under them. Music is blasting in my ears as my ride home waves her arm in the air, trying to get me to say goodbye for the 30th day in a row.

I slip my house key into the lock and walk inside. Letting my school bags fall to the floor, I make my way to the bathroom and flip the light on to look at myself in the mirror. Tear stains cover my face and my bright green eyes looking duller than usual. My face was already showing signs of the forming bruises, and my dark brown curls were knotted and matted from the eventful day at school.

After wiping off the dried makeup and pulling my hair back into a bun I walk into the kitchen and connect my iPhone to the speaker. I turn the volume up as loud as I can, and with Breaking Dishes filling the air, I walk over to the couch and pull out my notebook from the bag I dropped at the door. I begin to write.

January 16, 2015,

Today. Was. Shit. That is the best way I can describe it. I'm sitting in Psych and all of a sudden that asshole Caleb takes my journal from my bag and starts reading it to the class. He read a good month's worth of entries before the teacher walked in. He read everything I wrote about my thoughts and feelings, and he even read what I write about Samantha. God, what I would give to...

And if that wasn't enough; word got around to Samantha and her girls what I wrote about them. Which is fine, I couldn't give a rat's ass what they thought about me...until they confronted me in the bathroom. She called me every word she had in her vocabulary, every nasty word she could muster up to call me left her lips like she had rehearsed it. I wouldn't put it past her if she had. Long story short, I got pissed, (not surprising huh?) and ending up punching her. There was blood everywhere; literally, it was so bad. Then, of course, her friends banded against me and knocked me on the floor and kicked me until another student walked in.

Of course, poor Samantha didn't get in trouble because her daddy gives so much money to the school, and the school needs his money. So, per usual, I got in trouble, and I had to take all the blame. Guess I'll be doing community service at the school till God knows how long.

Oh, I almost forgot. New Kid was staring at me today again; it's like he's asking for me to report him. Honestly, he pays more attention to me than I pay attention to me, but for some reason I feel comforted by him watching me. It's almost like he's trying to get to know me without actually-

I'm ripped from my writing when the music turns off suddenly and a sharp, dense silence fills the room. I turn around to see Iris, my guardian and best friend, looking very angry.

She's four years older than me, and while Iris is short, she's incredibly fiery and will not stand for attitude. Her long, straight brown hair makes her amber eyes glint like they were on fire, and I notice them even more now that she's glaring at me.

For someone that has to deal with me and my moods so often, she does an incredible job. It makes sense, since she's been living with me for six years guarding me for six. My parents died when I was 13, and Iris and her mom, Meredith, took me in. Iris and I did everything together; we shopped, partied, and lived normal teenage lives together. When she was old enough to live on her own, she got her own apartment and I moved in with her. We lived just five minutes away from Meredith's, so it was the perfect amount of freedom a 19-year-old and 15-year-old needed.

I spent many of my afternoons alone after school because Meredith worked during the days and took classes at night, but the weekends were what we lived for. We didn't go out or party; we stayed home watching every Cary Grant movie known to man and eating our worries away.

Life was good, peaceful, and simple. We were all we needed. Things changed, however, when tragedy hit us hard.

I was 16 and Iris was 20, and we were both waiting for Meredith to come home from work so that we could all go to dinner. We had been waiting for nearly two hours when the police knocked on our door. They told us that Meredith had died suddenly in a hit and run, and they never found who killed her. Afterwards, Iris and I moved back to Meredith's, and for the next two years after her death, Iris would be my guardian. It's nearing the two year mark, and I'm finally about to graduate high school. Honestly, at this point, I'm just trying to get through each hour of the day without exploding.

I take a deep breath before saying, "Hey."

"Hey? Hey? Do you understand how much trouble you're in right now, Pipe?" Iris asks. I just stare at her, which, unfortunately, only makes her more upset with me. "I know this stuff is hard for you. I get it, but from now on you need to learn to control your anger somehow. I am sick and tired of having to change your school district because you keep getting kicked out. It's not fair to me to have to keep saving your ass constantly. Please try harder here, Piper. Please."

I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, and when I open them I look at her.

"Okay," I say, nearly forcing the words out of my throat, "I'll try harder this time. I promise.". I look down at my journal and play with the freshly torn edges.

"Why is your journal torn?" Iris asks me.

"This kid took it during class. It tore while I was trying to get it back." I feel hot tears beginning to burn my eyes, "I didn't want to punch her Iris. I really didn't, but she cornered me in the bathroom and called me names. I just couldn't take it anymore; I cracked."

"Well, apparently so did her nose," Iris remarked, trying not to laugh.

I struggled to smile at her. I knew exactly what she meant when she said this wasn't easy for me.

The past two years of my life have been hard. After Iris' mom died I didn't know what to do with my life. She was the only parental figure I had, and then, within the blink of an eye, she was gone. I suddenly realized that every time I loved someone they died, and that I couldn't control the anger that burned inside. I seemed to be constantly angry at the world. For the past two years, I have gone to four different high schools. I've been kicked out of all of them because of my violence towards people.

I accidently put this one kid in the hospital once because he called the only friend I had "trash." During the past two years I have felt like a ticking time bomb, like I was going to explode any minute, and if I did explode I would either hurt myself or the people around me. Iris, however, has kept me strong. She's taught me to control the worst of my anger and has been my rock. She tells me I can do anything I put my mind to...and I almost believe it sometimes.

Iris comes up to me and puts her arms around me in an embrace. She pulls back and looks at me, "When your principal called he said you would have OSS, so I talked him down to only community service after school for the next three weeks. You'll help teachers in their class rooms and you might be working with other students who are either getting service hours or are getting punished as well. I need you to be nice to them, okay?"

I roll my eyes but nod anyway, "Okay."

"Awesome," she smiles down at me, "now let's make some dinner."