The Other Side Of Fear[1]

Prologue

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Everybody wants to visit New York at some point in their life. I was lucky enough to have spent my whole life there. New York was my home and my life couldn't be anymore perfect.

I went to an amazing school and was progressing well in my senior year. I had a solid group of friends and not only that but also a really great friendship with pretty much everybody in my grade. I always considered myself popular, but not a bitchy or entitled kind of popular; I was always inclusive of everybody.

My GPA was a 3.9 and I was loved by all of my teachers. I was part of the cross-country team, the debate club and voted prom queen every year alongside Brodie West. He wasn't my boyfriend, although, he had been chasing me to go out with him since the 9th grade and everybody always said we would make the perfect couple but there was something missing there for me. He was simply just a really good friend.

My family had always been the best family you could ask for. My parents were always really chilled and cool with my brother Riley and I; they'd always trusted us. They allowed us to make our own decisions and supported us to learn from our mistakes.

My dad was an amazing architect and my mother, a brilliant teacher, although, I'd always been really glad she chose to teach at a school other than ours. My little brother and I were always extremely close and there were only two years between us. He too was always a popular kid at school. Everybody knew us and everybody liked us.

Being raised in a borough as nice and friendly as ours within a community where pretty much everybody knew each other and having a family as amazing as mine, life was always simple and straightforward. I couldn't trade my life for a better one if I'd tried. That's why it came as such a shock to my system when I lost all of it. My school, my friends, my home, my community...even my family was now at risk of falling apart, all thanks to my dad.

He'd decided to piss off his partners over some stupid financial decision he'd made which breached his contract and he lost everything. Not only that, but the final payment he'd received from his most recent project and the savings he and my mother had, slowly spent up until all they had left to live on was my mother's income. My dad struggled to find work in the city after his business with the company got around and after a while, they struggled to keep up payments on our house. They sold it. After that, they made the biggest life-changing decision that had ever been made within our family and completely rocked our world.

My father had a great aunt who had left a house to him in a shitty little town called Leiper Falls somewhere in Pennsylvania. He had visited there a few times as a kid but when she'd left that house to him, due to the fact he was one of the few family she'd had left, he really had no use for it at the time and rented it out to the locals there. With my father's lack of employment and no savings for a deposit for a new house, we needed it now. It was the only place we had and with no other options left, they told my brother and I to say our goodbyes and pack our things.

Our family argued back and forth for a week straight; Riley and I protesting everyday that we weren't leaving and demanded them to find another option. There wasn't one; we were broke. My mom left her job at the school and immediately sought out a position at the local high school in Leiper Falls. My dad seemed to think he would manage to secure some work out there.

Eventually, I realised there was nothing else I could do about it and I said goodbye to my closest friends Chelsea and Yasmine. We all cried and made our promises to Facetime everyday and visit in the holidays. I knew deep down as time passed they would forget about me. Even Brodie almost shed a tear at the news and tried to proclaim his feelings for me. I reassured him that he would find the right girl for him and promised to text with him all of the time.

Riley didn't say much about the whole thing. After arguing with our parents about staying and realising quicker than me that it wasn't going to make a difference, he soon just accepted the decision. He always was a lot more laid back than me and he seemed to figure he would just make new friends as easily as that in Leiper Falls. I didn't want to make new friends; I loved my girls and I didn't think I'd find anyone that would understand me or that I'd have so much in common with or as much fun with as my girls.

Sadly, the day came that we packed our belongings into our car and drove away from our perfect life. The three-hour drive was silent. It began with our father trying to reassure us it was a perfect new start for us all, followed by my mother's awkward nods of agreement and my response about how it was only a perfect new start for him after he fucked everything up. After that, I plugged in my earphones and shut it all out.

I stared out the window as beautiful New York passed us by and the sights of unfamiliarity surrounded us as we drew nearer to our new life. Leiper Falls. It couldn't sound anymore mind numbingly boring. I pictured a quiet little town full of old people with a battered old town hall and a few tiny stores where the locals would all stare at us for being new faces in town. Nothing like the hustle and bustle of brilliant New York. We belonged here, not there.

My senior year was halfway through and I would be spending the remainder of it at the local high school. It was a scary thought being the new girl and I planned to just keep my head down and get through it. I made a promise to myself then and there in the car; I vowed to get back to my beloved New York. I vowed to get through this final year of school and deal with anything that came with it and then get the hell out of Leiper Falls for good once I graduated.

My parents couldn't make me stay there and I made the strict promise to myself that I would return to New York and back to my perfect life as soon as senior year was done. I planned to get into Columbia University like I'd always planned and get myself a job and an apartment and return to my old friends and live my life there like I was always meant to. Screw Leiper Falls. I thought over those words repeatedly to myself. I wasn't going to let this drastic change in my life get me down.

As the journey passed by, we arrived in the state of Pennsylvania and the moment I dreaded the most arrived as the rusty, old sign welcoming us to Leiper Falls moved past my window and I repeated my promise to myself in my head. I told myself I was not going to spend the rest of my life here no matter what happened and not for anyone.

Yet as we drove closer and closer to our new home, I had no idea of the complete 360 turn my life was soon about to take once again, and how that promise I was currently making to myself, would soon be broken and as forgotten as my old life was about to become.