Four Girls, One Problem

Raine

It was the first day of school. I've hated school since the second grade. Never really made any friends, never had a boyfriend... I was the girl you'd see in the movies that was sitting by herself at the lunch table. My name somewhat fits me. How my parents came up with it, I have no idea. I guess I was born on a rainy day or something.

I love my parents and they love me. But they seem to not love each other too much. In fact, they fought so much, they didn't even know that every day and night, William, my brother, abused me. It'd be something different every day. Hits, kicks, spit. I covered my bruises by wearing long sleevs and pants.

As I walked to school, I could hear the cars pass me by. This is a big city. New York, New York. I hated it here. It's like this city never sleeps. You'll hear policemen, drugees, tires screeching.... I couldn't wait to go to college far away from here.

"Hey, sweet thing!" a guy yelled from his car.

I looked over at him and looked back at my feet.

"Wanna ride?" he asked.

I didn't respond.

"You deaf, or something? Answer me!" he yelled.

I flicked him off and tugged my jacket closer to me. The wind was blowing hard and I could see the school now. I heard the car stop and I kept walking. Then footsteps begin to increase, and so does my pace. I started running and I felt a grip on my arm. I yelled out in pain and tried to yank my arm free.

"You better watch who you flip the bird to, missy," he snapped.

I yanked my arm from him and pushed the school doors open. Yup. Life was fun for me. I sat in my seat and watched as more kids filled the classroom. This was video class. When the bell rang, everyone shut up and our teacher smiled at us.

"Hi, everyone, I'm Mrs. Spears, and what I want you all to do, is get into groups and film each other. This will take up the first two weeks of school, so have fun with it. One person will film another person--within the group--at their house and then the others will do the same. That way, we all can get to know each other, and learn how to use our cameras. So group up," she smiled and went back to her desk.

I just sat there and saw a girl walk up to me. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. "Wanna be in a group with me and my friends?" she asked pointing to two other girls.

I shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

I went and sat down and looked at them. "I'm Raine. Laugh, and I kill you."

"I'm Kourtney, this is my sister, Shianne, and you met Angel," Kourtney smiled.

"So," I faked smiled. "Who gets filmed first?"

The three girls looked at each other, then at Angel. "You wanna go first, Angel?"

She smiled and shrugged. "Sure. Here, let's exchange numbers and addresses."

Everyone whipped out a paper and a pen--inculding me--and wrote down our info. We broke out our phones to save the numbers and we typed the addresses in our notes app.

"What time can everyone come over?" Angel asked.

"Anytime," I shrugged.

"Okay, be at my place at...five?" she looked around.

We nodded and I sighed. This was going to be a long two weeks. And I wasn't looking foward to being filmed.

*****

I was the first at Angel's house after school. She opened the door with a smile on her face.

"Come on in," she said. "My mom gets home at six."

"Oh," I nodded.

Kourtney and Shianne soon arrived and then we all just sat around, Kourtney playing with the video camera in her hands.

"Should we film now?" she asked.

"No, let's just wait for my mom," Angel insisted.

"Come on, Angel," Shainne said. "This'll be fun. We can just talk until she gets here. It's 5:30."

Angel sighed, but kept her smile. "Okay."

As everyone started cracking jokes, I watched Angel. I watched her mask her tears that I saw creep up on her a few times. She was hiding something. Then again, who isn't? Everyone has some little secret, but Angel kept hers locked. And me, being the queen of masking emotions, knew that Angel was masking something.

When her mom walked in, a man was with her. We looked at her and she shrugged. "This happens a lot," she whispered.

"Hey, baby," Angel's mom smiled.

"Hi, Mom," she hugged her mom.

"Kourtney, Shianne," she nodded at them and looked at me. "Who are you?"

"Raine," I smiled.

"Ah," she smiled. "Oh, this is a friend from work. His name is Luke. Why are you videoing this?"

"It's an assignment for school," Angel said.

Her mom nodded and her and Luke went into the kitchen. Angel sat back down and looked at us.

"Are you okay with this, Angel?" Shianne asked.

"Of course," Angel smiled and cleared her throat. "Why wouldn't I be?"

From my first impression of Angel, I figured she was this peppy little pipsqueak that wanted to be apart of every fundraiser or something. But she was really just this regular girl who masked so much. And she must've been practicing for years, because she had me convinced she had a happy life. I wondered what else she was hiding.