Define Me

Prologue:

In the rough of Forks High School, only the 'cool' prevail. Only the girls who dress modestly and walk with their heads high and shoulders back and only the boys who tuck in their shirts and have shiny shoes. It is those select few who follow the rules and enunciate their vowels that get to be 'cool'.

I'm cool. I have never danced out of line under the scrutinizing stare of the Elders. I have nodded politely and kept every emotion that makes the teenage population locked up with a perfectly polished key. I have never stamped my foot when I didn't get what I want or yelled above regulation noise level. I don't run in the corridors or spill lunch food down my school shirt.

I am as perfect as they come.

My parents never complain. Or they haven't yet found anything worth complaining about. I have never been held back after class for slipping grades or been given those dreaded yellow penalty's that tell us we have detention.

And being perfect gets me everything I could ever want. I have that fancy, cherry red Mercedes and that designer bag that the girls were drooling over in the shop window.

I have the big house with the ostentatious pillars and the black wrought iron balconies. I have the gated community and the flashy white teeth.

I have everything I have ever asked for.

So why does it feel like I'm choking. Like even in large rooms that I'm drowning and grasping at slippery straws.

Sometimes I think about running away. I think about packing up one of my Louie Vuitton cases and catching the next bus out of here.

But then I think about Irina our cook and how I know I wouldn't survive without her there, cooking every one of my daily meals, calorie counting and being there with the tub of Ben & Jerry's every time I so much as frown the wrong way. Or Pooch the Pomeranian with his big sandy puff for fur and how he nips at my ankles when I cry.

And then I'll sit and cry like the helpless child I am because I can never leave. This life, it defines me. I am nothing without it.

Nothing.

But then out of the blue, something changes. A bulb is lit and an idea forms, hopes climb like vines inside the walls of my head, tainting the perfection and leaving behind something worth so much more.

And when you've had the greener grass, can you ever go back?