There was a loud ringing in my ears as I awoke to another day in the life of the infamous Taylor Rhodes. Every morning I dreaded the sound of that alarm and always had to hit the snooze button at least three times before I would eventually have to force myself to get up. I couldn’t be late to school again. I was late every morning to my first period, and if I was late anymore, I’d get a bad citizenship grade. My parents stress out over citizenship grades with me; they just don’t understand that it’s just based on attendance, and that it doesn’t affect my overall GPA. Hey, what can you do? As long as you’re still a minor, you have to obey your parents. I just don’t want to get yelled at again, I suppose. I just have…what is it now…278 more days until I’m a legal adult? That sounds about right. I can’t wait for that day, the day I can move out and stop taking the verbal abuses of my mother. She’d yell at me for everything that was wrong in her eyes. The fights every night between me and her always ended up badly. My dad just sat there and watched, and when the fight was done, I’d get a simple “She doesn’t mean any of that, don’t worry” response from him. Then later I could always hear her screaming at him from my bedroom. I didn’t care to listen to what they were arguing about, ever since that time I was eavesdropping on them when I was twelve years old.
Their voices were muffled as I would listen from beyond a closed, locked door, and I could only catch little tid-bits of everything they were saying.
“….just a waste of space….can’t do anything right….why do we even bother….ungrateful child” my mother was shouting.
“Now, don’t say things you don’t mean…” my father said in response to that comment, in a foolish attempt to defend me.
That was the night that I cried for hours, and re-evaluated my life up to that point. That is when I decided I needed to make some changes. Those changes got me to where I am today.
I finally sluggishly made my way out of bed, and into the shower. I looked over to check the temperature of the shower before I went ahead and turned it on. It was pointed in the “C” direction. Perfect. I hopped in, and turned on the shower. The icy coldness quickly woke me up. I then adjusted it to go warm. The warm felt soothing and relaxing. After ten minutes was up, I regretfully climbed out of that safe haven of mine. I always feel so calm in the shower, with the warm water rushing all over me. It is my sanctuary.
“Great,” I mumbled to myself, “stupid me forgot to bring up my laundry last night.” I always hated when I forgot to do that. It meant that I would have to go all the way downstairs to the freezing cold laundry room, grab my clean clothes, then go back upstairs all while wearing a towel. I hated it because dad would always see me and I’d get extremely embarrassed. It’s one of those awkward situation things.
I made an attempt to be as sneaky as possible. I slowly opened my door and slipped out, and then carefully snuck down the stairs. I made it to the laundry room, unseen, still safe. As I entered the laundry room, the coolness of the tile startled me and I let out a little gasp. I knew I only had a short time now. I reached for my laundry basket as quickly as I could, then swiftly went back up the stairs and closed my bedroom door. I think I made it without being seen.
I quickly threw on the normal jeans and a T-shirt, and then looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t want bother to do my hair today, it was too much of a hassle to impress a few high school students you’ll probably never see again after graduation. I reached for my contacts, and put them in. My eyes were dark blue today, which is a good sign. My eyes changed colors based on my mood, kind of like a mood ring. They’d go from extremely light blue to extremely dark blue. Light blue meant something was bothering me and that I was anxious and stressed. Dark blue meant I was content with life, with hardly a care in the world.
There was a scratching pain in my eye. I had to take out my contacts and pull out the thing that was irritating my eye. It was one of my eyelashes. I then noticed that the brown eyelash complimented my brown hair very nicely. I guess my hair didn’t look too horrible today.
I glanced over at the clock. “Damn, I’ve got to get going now.” I whispered to myself. I raced over to my backpack, grabbed my keys and ran out the door to my car. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye back to that voice that echoed through the empty house that told me to be careful. I didn’t need to be told to be careful. I was a good driver, I just sped a lot.

It was still dark outside when I pulled out of the garage. I hate these mornings; school is just far too early. It also increases the chances of me having a dumb blonde moment of leaving the lights on, even though I am clearly not blonde. I quickly pulled out of my driveway, and began to quickly gain speed as I went down my street. My house was on the steepest part of the hill. I remember vividly every day walking home from elementary school when I was younger. Rain, snow, hurricane-speed-winds, extreme heat; no matter the weather condition, I always had to walk home from school. My mother was always far too busy to take five minutes to come pick me up, and my dad was always at work at the time school got out.
I quickly rounded the next corner. School was just a few blocks away; I just had to go through a lot of lights. Damn, how I hate these lights. They always go red when I don’t want them too. While waiting at the first light, I began to fiddle with the radio. It was just boring, overplayed clichéd songs. I’m probably better off if I don’t have the radio distracting me. I just turned it off, no music cold describe my feelings today.
Finally the light changed, and I sped through the next two, one of them turning yellow right as I was going through. The last light is an awful light. This light is always busiest, and the best part is, it is a left turn. Everyone I knew hated this light, there were accidents here on a daily basis. A green arrow is a rarity on my side of the light, but I hoped for the best.
It was my lucky day. I got a green arrow, and gunned it. In the event of a green arrow coming into existence on my side of the light, it would vanish just as quickly as it came. I barely made it before it went yellow. I then went into the school parking lot, the next most dangerous place in the entire city. There were multiple accidents here a day, all caused by stupid, idiotic teenage drivers. I’m not one for stereotyping, but damn, they all suck. I’m the only sane driver in the whole school. I quickly went to ‘my’ parking spot, nobody else dared park there. My car always was there, every day of my high school career. I was happy that I could stake such a claim.
I quickly jumped out of my car, grabbed my bag, and was about to shut the door when I heard an annoying, obnoxious beeping coming from my car.
“Keys” I muttered to myself as I swiped them from the ignition. I began to walk towards the school.
Woods Cross High, where the Wolverines are plastered up on every wall in the hall. Green and black never met my fancy of color combinations. I didn’t like it at all. We could have gone with something much better for our mascot, like the clichéd ‘Wildcats’, and had better colors like blue and gray. We couldn’t have the Wildcats though; West High already beat us to them. Oh how I wish I could go to West High.
Sure, West High was an extra twenty minutes out of my way, but if I had any say in it, I would go there in a heartbeat. It was my mother that was the problem, she said there were ‘too many druggies’ there, and that she didn’t want me to get involved.
Sure, Woods Cross wasn’t the best school; I just didn’t have many friends. The only reason that made school worthwhile was my boyfriend, Brody. His gorgeous blonde hair was perfect length, reaching down just to the tip of his ears. He had amazingly brown eyes, too. I could get lost in them for hours. I had just about every class of the day with him, except for gym. That would be the one awkward class where we would see each other in our nasty gym clothes.
Brody wasn’t like any of the other boys at Woods Cross; he was just about the only intelligent boy. He didn’t make immature jokes, he didn’t pull immature pranks, and he most certainly tried so hard in school. All the other guys would make fun of him for dating me; they didn’t like it at all. I’d get the same from some of my other friends, too.
As I raced down the halls to my first period English class, I took a glance at the clock. I was only a few minutes late, thank god. I would just make up some excuse like “I had to give my little brother (who didn’t exist, for I was an only child) a ride to school”, she’d have to buy that excuse if she had any heart in her.
I entered the room, and took my seat. I noticed we had a substitute today, so my fears of being marked tardy were gone. I began to relax a little. I glanced across the room, and saw Brody there. He shot me a quick smile and a small wave with his hands that only I could see. That made things so much better. He actually made me feel like someone.
The substitute didn’t care where we sat after he took roll, and so I began to make my way towards Brody to take a seat.
“Hey,” he said in that gorgeous tenor voice of his, “what’s up? I see you lived through another night of your psychotic mother. Good for you.”
“Yeah, I did. I tried to avoid her all day yesterday. The ‘avoiding her plan’ seems to work really well. Think I can pull it off for about another year until I move out?”
“Haha. Not a chance. There will have to be some contact at some point. You can’t go on avoiding someone forever, as much as you’d like to. One day she might not be there, and you might actually miss her.”
“Yeah, and on that day that she isn’t there, I will be the first suspect that the police come to question.”
He snickered a little bit at that comment. “I suppose…but I’ll get thrown into jail with you for being one of your accomplices!”
We laughed for a moment, and then in that same instant I felt the glare of hundreds of eyes fall upon me. Their eyes felt like daggers. Why didn’t they like it that Brody was my boyfriend? Why can’t they just accept that fact?
The lights began to dim, and a movie went on. For once, we didn’t have a movie guide to go with this movie. I took advantage of this opportunity and laid my head on my desk, and tried to get a little sleep.
I never felt like I got enough sleep at my house. Whenever I sleep, I subconsciously pick up noises that happen around me, and they have an effect in my dreams. Like, if I heard my mother screaming at my dad, I would dream that she was yelling at me. One time the fire alarm went off in our house due to a malfunction, and I dreamed that I was in a burning building and couldn’t escape. I guess I’m a really sound sleeper. I don’t wake up easily. That’s why I put my alarm on full volume every morning, right next to my head.
Sleep came upon me fast. At first, the sleep was just blackness. I liked this type of sleep, it made me feel so much more refreshed. I wished this would never end. Alas, all good things must come to an end. My mind started picking up on the noises around me…
Pencils were tapping on the desk, I could hear a little laughter, and the low voices of the people around me. The movie was draining must the noises out, but the movie wasn’t helping either.
I could pick up that the movie was a biography on the life of Edgar Allen Poe. How everyone in his life died so tragically from disease. Perfect; just what I needed. I began to dream that we were in the classroom, and that everyone was just going on as normal. I glanced over at Brody, and he looked extremely pale, and he was sweating. He began to cough, over and over, hacking and wheezing. I couldn’t bare it. Then that’s when blood started to come out of his mouth, and began to speckle the desk as he coughed. I went to run over to him, to try to save him somehow. That’s when I tripped and fell, and there was a loud thud and a jolt.
The jolt had woken me up, for I had fallen out of my chair in full sight of everyone. I slowly began to get back up as my face was getting redder. I took a quick peek to see if Brody was all right, and he was. I let a sigh of relief.