Senior year was meant to be easy for France Santos. It means finishing off his high school career with his best friends since childhood. The goal was to enjoy a well deserved senior year, and to not think about the past.
Unfortunately France Santos...
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"Mama says, 'Stupid is as stupid does.'"
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I like to believe my life is a routine. Most people would complain about that, but I enjoyed the repetition of everyday life. It was a structure to my day rather than mindlessly sitting around doing absolutely nothing.
But that changed when I was forced to transfer into public school. Even though it was my own decision, the break from routine left me unnerved. The anxiety gnawed in my stomach all summer, unable to shake off the feeling that something bad was happening.
Then I had the idea of starting the school year off with something new. Something to distract me from the nervousness and anticipation that left me idle.
I decided to throw a party. Something about the loud music, people everywhere, drinks scattered on tables as a result of various drinking games playing across the house. It made me forget about the stresses and worries I had for senior year.
At least that was what I imagined. I didn't imagine holding an expensive vase imported from Italy in my hands, still partially warm from Vanessa Raymond crying, who I caught cuddling it on my couch drunk.
She is always a crier in my old high school, so not a shock that she was sobbing in my house.
I shook my head with a knowing smile when I hid the stone statue in a random pantry nearby. Even with the occasionally noxious person that feels like throwing up and ensuring my family valuables are protected, it was something that made me feel alive.
Finding a strange man snooping in my room was not part of the plan.I was hiding a different heavy knick knacks my parents brought from Europe upstairs when I heard Bruno barking aggressively, which was abnormal from his normal docile behavior.
I didn't know what came over me when I opened my bedroom door and saw a dark figure in the room.
It gave me flashbacks to when I found him in my room, violating my privacy I thought, feeling a growing sense of nausea.
All my feelings became overwhelming, fighting to get my attention all at once. My hands started to get damp on the statue and my mind stopped thinking.
Opening the door to a stranger in my room only led to one reaction: throw the first thing in my hand.
My body flinched at the sound when the object made contact with the stranger's skull followed by his body crashed on the floor, and now, I am trying to process the fact that I hit someone. Then the realization that I assaulted someone hit me.
Did I just kill a man?
"Shit," I muttered to myself. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit"
My thigh began to vibrate, pulling me away from my panic. I fished out the phone on my phone to a picture of Mom appearing on my screen.
