Golden & Gone

Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

My father is the sheriff of this town. There isn't much about going on in our town; 2 coffee shops, 4 restaurants, 1 grocery store, 1 pub, and a car repair shop (only for when the problem is too severe to be fixed at home in one's own garage). It's a small town and that's the way that it has been for the last 100 years and will be for the next. My mother is in the same career as every other woman is in in every small town; being a housewife. Many girls my age in this town didn't even bother trying at school and they were right not to, for we all would end up in the same place, sitting at home bouncing two babies on our hips waiting for our husband to come home so we could be reminded about why we were lucky we didn't have a job. Most girls in my town figure what difference is it if they get knocked up now or later, at least if sooner they will have a little more energy to give to their children before age steals it away. However, I'm a little different. No matter how different I am though, I will never leave this town. I will stay here forever; that's what my life will be like because I, just like everyone else who was ever conceived and born in this town, will stay here until my body rots away and is then absorbed by the dirt around so that something else will grow in my place so that my roots will remain in the soil here in this town. Life was given to me on this soil just as it will surely be taken away on this soil. As it will be for every person I will ever meet.

I think it's funny how summer feels like a life time ago, even when it's only the first day of school. Tens of books, loads of syllabus, a billion pieces of homework, new classes, new school year; all of that had a way of making a 17 year old girl on her first day of Junior Year of High School forget the blissfulness of summer. Even though grade levels change, subjects evolve, teachers retire, I have always and will always be with the same peers. We were all born at the same hospital, went to the same preschool, same church, same elementary school, same middle school, and now same high school. Thank God we don't have a college in my small town. 

I've never really fit into a group of friends in particular. I've always been on the outside because theres never been a place that I've wanted to be inside of. That's probably because of how well I know everyone; and in my opinion it seems better to have no friends then to have those people as friends. I mean, think about it. It's obvious. Margot, Daniel, and Raymond are bipolar, Stacy and Marilyn are soon to be mothers, Ethan is sucidal, Christina and Morgan, and Tegan are devoting church goers, Erik is the flirt who knocked up both Stacy and Marilyn, Vinnie and just about the rest of the girls other than the few with the opposite problem that have mild anorexia. If you aren't on the list you most likely are a druggie or a drunkie. I just find it easier to not belong than to belong in a particularly dysfunctional group. After all, I'm just Brie. I'm almost as stuck in my ways as this town is.