—–Chapter 1—–

“Can you turn that down please?” I yelled to my roommate Victoria. I swear I could hear the TV from the living room as if it was actually in my room. It was early Wednesday morning and I had no idea what she was doing up so early when I heard her come home so late last night. I had forced myself to wake up an extra 30 minutes earlier today so that I would be able to do a little bit of last minute cramming for my last final of the semester before winter break and my roommate’s blaring TV was not making it any easier for me to concentrate. I guess she didn’t hear me because the TV was still as loud as it was before, so I decided to do something about it myself. I went to the living room and saw my roommate in her drunken slumber draped helplessly across the couch clutching the remote in her left hand. Angrily, I grabbed the remote out of her hand and as I was about to turn the TV off all together, I glanced up at the beautiful 52″ flat screen mounted on the wall that my parents had ever so graciously give me for my birthday that had just passed. CNN was on and of course they were just broadcasting all of the depressing news that was happening in the world, but as I looked up, I saw a picture of a girl, looked to be about my age, maybe a year older and a story about how she had disappeared a few weeks back. “How depressing,” I thought to myself, “can’t they ever show anything positive? Does anything good EVER happen in this country? Oh well, whatever, I have better things to do than to watch these sob stories.” I turned off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. Victoria must have heard me because I saw her flinch and her eyes fluttered a little bit and then she mumbled something. Despite my frustration and out of the goodness of my heart, I grabbed a quilt and threw it over her to keep her warm and then headed back to my room. My book still lay open, almost untouched on top of my unmade bed and my notes lay scattered around in various places in my room. “So much for the extra study time,” I thought. I looked over at the clock; “6:49,” it read. I had eleven more minutes until Cameron was supposed to be here to pick me up and take me to school. I closed my book and put all of my notes back into my binder and then put everything into my over-sized purse. I pulled my hair up into a bun and threw on one of Cameron’s giant sweatshirts that he had left here, grabbed my purse and walked out of my room and towards the kitchen. Just as I had grabbed a glass of juice and a granola bar, I saw Cameron’s Lexus through the window pull into my building’s parking lot. I quickly gulped down my juice, tore off the wrapper from the granola bar and headed out the door.