I held the deadly pills in my hand, staring at them through my teary, blood-shot eyes. I knew I wanted to swallow them, but I had forgotten why. It seemed like the happy people were always the ones with mental problems.
I had a nice life. I lived in a nice house and went to a nice school. I had nice friends and nice possessions. I didn't have a boyfriend, but who needed one? I even had a nice family.
So what was my problem? I probably couldn't answer that. Something was missing. Something hadn't happened in my sixteen years of life. There was an empty space inside me, waiting for the right thing to fill it up. I spent my whole life searching for completion and couldn't find it. I figured this was my only way out.
"Theresa?" I panicked and quickly flushed the remains of my second suicidal attempt. I flushed my eyes with cold water and slowly opened the door of the bathroom in my "nice" house.
Angie was standing before me. Angie was one of my best friends. She probably knew what was going on, but she pretended no to show it. "Hey," Angie said, trying to sound cheerful. She bit at her top lip as if she was nervous about something, her bright blue eyes searching around the room. My eyes were blue, also, but I always wanted ones as bright and natural as hers. I envied her hair, too. It was long, brown, and straight. Mine was short and slightly wavy. The one thing I wasn't jealous of was her clothing. She was on of the most outrageous dressers I had ever known. It gave her a unique quality, I guess.
"Hi," I said finally, trying to sound cheerful myself.
"What's up?"
"Oh…nothing."
"You wanna go do something?"
"Sure…what should we do?"
"I don't know." We went on like that for awhile. It was extremely awkward. Angie finally asked if I'd like to go skating. I agreed.
Angie was unusually quiet as she drove us to the local skating rink. I said, "Maybe we'll meet some cute guys there."
That loosened her up, and she laughed, "Or some gay guys with no socks!"
No matter how depressed I was, it seemed like my friends could always make me feel better. But it was just momentarily. They didn't fit into that hole I desperately needed to fill. "Why don't we pick up Katrina and bring her along?"
"Good idea. Her house isn't too fair from here." Angie turned the corner into Katrina's neighborhood. The huge houses all seemed to be staring at me. It was almost like they were mocking me for not having a house as big as they were.
But Katrina did. I don't know how, but Katrina's parents were rich. She knew she was spoiled, so she tried to hide it. It was almost amusing sometimes.
Katrina's fourteen-year-old brother, Joey, was playing basketball with some of his friends when we pulled up the cement driveway. I swear I wish I were fourteen again. Those boys were so cute. Why couldn't seventeen-year-old guys be like that?
Angie honked the horn and Katrina ran out, her purse dangling from her shoulder as if she knew we were coming. She opened the door of the car and hopped into the backseat. "Where are we off to today?" she asked, brushing through her white-blond hair.
"We're going skating," I answered, sensing the whining that was about to occur.
"I don't like going skating. Wearing those dumb skates makes me taller that I already am." Katrina was about 5'11", which she thought was too tall for a sixteen-year-old. Angie, who was only 5'3", totally envied Katrina. But we all envied each other for some reason or another, so we didn't let it bother us.
The indoor skating rink had a fair amount of people on that Saturday afternoon. I noticed a few groups of guys our age, but girls accompanied most of them. Darn.
"I think that guy wants to jump you, Theresa."
"Typical Katrina," I though. She had to be the most perverted girl I knew. I usually played along. "What guy?" I asked her.
"That one sitting by himself in that booth over there," she vaguely pointed with her eyes.
I waited a few seconds and then turned in the direction Katrina pointed out. The tall guy at the booth had been staring at me but quickly averted his eyes. He had blond hair slightly below his ears. Even though that hair cut wasn't in style, he didn't look half-bad. "He looks jumpable," I said, just to make Katrina giggle.
"He looks lonely," Angie spoke up. "Why don't you go talk to him?"
"Because I'm a shy loser that never walks up to guys!" I quickly returned.
"Come on," Katrina pleaded. "If he's staring at you he obviously wants to talk to you. And he's kinda cute so if you don't hurry up…"
"-Okay, I'll go talk to him!" Even though I didn't know the kid, I didn't want Katrina stealing yet another guy from me. I gulped, took a deep breath, threw my shoulders back, and walked up to the boy. He appeared to be the same age as me. I noticed he had the most gorgeous blue eyes I had ever seen, he was very skinny, but the tight black T-shirt showed off his muscle definition in his upper arms.
"Um, hi," I stuttered. My heart was racing and my hands were clammy.
"Hi," he answered. He appeared calm and cool, like he was a professional flirt.
"Um, my name is Theresa," I stuttered once again.
"I'm Taylor."
I nearly fainted at the sound of his voice. He had the best voice. And the name 'Taylor' was so cool. There was a moment of silence. What was I supposed to do? Say? I'd always been shy. And my mind always went blank when I talked to hot guys I didn't know.
"So, um, can I buy you a slushy or something?" Taylor asked.
"Um, sure," I answered. He stood up and I followed him over to the snack bar.
"What kind do you want?" He asked me.
"Blue!" I spit out. I am such a dork! Why do I have to be such a dork! (Why am I so stupid? Lol) I hate myself! "Um, blueberry, thanks." He ordered our slushies- he got a cherry. He handed me mine, and we skated back to his booth. I sat down across from him. We were both in an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
"So, how old are you?" he asked me.
"I'm sixteen, but I'll be seventeen next month. How about you?"
"I turned seventeen a month ago."
"Cool," I replied. Ohmeegosh! Taylor and I were only two months apart! Oh my gosh! He is so hot! "When's your birthday?"
"March 14th. When's yours?"
"May 9th."
"What grade are you in?" he asked me.
"11th," I answered. I was starting to feel more comfortable around him.
"So am I."
I wondered why I'd never seen him around school if we were in the same grade. "What's your last name?"
"Hanson."
"Oh, I don't think I've ever heard of you."
"Yeah, I don't live around here."
"Oh. Where do you live?"
"In Oklahoma," he replied slyly.
I almost spit blue slushy all over the table. "What are you doing at a skating rink in Wisconsin by yourself when you live in Oklahoma?"
"I'm not here bye myself. Two of my brothers are with me."
"Then why aren't you with them?" I asked, confused.
Taylor defended himself, "Well, you're not with your friends." He was right. I had forgotten all about them, actually. I gazed around the room and spotted Angie and Katrina skating with two guys on the rink. I knew immediately that those two guys were the brothers Taylor had just told me about. They were both fairly tall and had shoulder length blond hair. One of the guys had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. Taylor spotted the four and commented, "It must be fate." I just smiled. How was I supposed to respond to that? "Do you rollerblade often?"
"Kind of. I don't come here very much. I mostly skate near my house."
"Oh, where do you live?"
Taylor seemed like a really nice guy, but one can never be too precautious. "I live a few blocks from here," I said.
"Do you want to go out on the rink?"
"Sure, I'll follow you." I didn't have strong leadership qualities, and I wanted to see how well Taylor rollerbladed before I embarrassed myself. It was hard to believe I nearly killed myself that very morning.
