Infamy

One

They let us out of school early that day. I remember how relieved I felt that there was no more school to stress about as I caught up to Aria in the high school parking lot. 
"So." I nudge Aria with my shoulder
"So?" Her body is stiff and tense, her usual flow absent.
"Schools out early. That can only mean one thing."
She finally turns her head to face me this time. There's a cloudiness in her eyes that I've never seen before, and the feeling I get from looking in them makes me wonder if maybe a tuna sandwich was a good choice for lunch today.
"You feeling okay Ari? You seem a little..." I trail off not knowing how to describe the particular predicament she's in without offending her. But she just smiles, the kind of smile that most boys would trample each other to see again.
"Distracted? Your one to talk. I saw you eyeballing Ethan McCormick at lunch today. And I get the feeling it was because he helped you with your math homework last week." Aria winks playfully.
Ethan.
The golden boy of Blue Ridge High.
All soft smiles, cotton t-shirts, and baby blues you could stare into for hours. Trust me I know.
I blush bright red, "I was not! He was playing a good game of pool and I was watching." Lies. I was so eye boggling him.
Aria rolls her eyes, "Yeah Grace. You were watching the pool game from all the way across the cafeteria? I didn't know you had super sonic vision." She nudges me with her hip and I tip off balance slightly.
"At least I was interested in something going on in the real world. You were nose deep in a Steven King novel." Which I'm not wrong. Aria Genevieve Bone is completely, undoubtedly, totally obsessed with Steven King. So unbelievably so that some nights she won't come down from her room because she's so busy reading. Not even to eat or take a shower.
"Just because I have my nose deep in a book doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to your oh so obvious crush on Ethan. If Beth saw you making eyes at him you'd be toast."
Bethany Rose Horne.
Also know as Ethan's snobby, pig nosed, girlfriend.
In high school you have people like Aria who have no problem flying under the social radar, peeking up every once and a while to go to a party.
And then you have people like Bethany.
Shoving everyone down.
Throwing herself at every guy.
Walking down the halls like she owns the whole freaking school.
Once, I wanted to be just like her.
Key word.
Once.
"Guilty as charged." I roll my eyes as I climb into my black beat up Ford F-150. When I first got my license my parents were still balancing their schedules from work to sleep to daughter time. My mom worked at a doctors office as a receptionist. She checked everyone into their appointments and lead them back to see the doctor. Sometimes if the office was short of help she would fill in for one of the doctors. She went to medical school to study nursing for four years. It would have been longer but she had met my dad when he was on a run to South Carolina and fell in love with him summer before her fifth year. My dad is a trucker so he had to go on frequent runs like this, and when he got burned from the exhaust pipe on his truck, that's exactly where he wound up. Moms work.
"It was love at first sight. I knew right then and there that she was the one." My dad always said.
About two months later, Mom was pregnant with me.
"Do you regret it? Not being able to finish school?" I had asked her one night over dinner.
"No." She told me,
"You were the most precious thing we could ever ask for. I don't care if I never went back. I had you and your father and that's what matters."
As I slide into the weathered leather bench seat I find the note that my dad made me on the first day of high school
"Today you start a new chapter in the book of life. I love you buttercup."