UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER 1:
"Taryn Reed report to the principal's office. Taryn Reed to the principal." The announcement came over the loud speaker in P.H.S. 451 in Brooklyn, New York. Taryn was a freshman there. She did everything in her power to go completely unnoticed by everyone. She was a loner and that was exactly the way she liked it.
"Fan-fucking-tastic. Now what?" Taryn grabs her books out of her locker and starts making her way to the office. She opens the glass door and walks over to the secretary.
"I'm Taryn Reed."
"Ah yes, Mr. Snyder would like to see you in his office." The secretary said. "He's waiting for you so you can go right in." Taryn thanks the lady and walks down the hall to the office. She knocks on the door and waits for a reply. "Enter," she hears. So she does. Once in the office, Taryn sees her social worker, Tracy Simmons, sitting in front of her principal's desk. 'This is never good.' She says to herself. 'What did I do now?' Taryn thought as she dropped her book bag to the floor and slouched in the chair in front of the desk. "Ah Taryn, have a seat. I was just talking with Ms. Simmons about what a lovely student you are."
'You don't know me from Adam, dude. I have never been in your office before now.' The internal monologue in her head was running rampant now.
"It seems to me that you won't be with us any longer. Which is a shame. We enjoyed having you as one of our students." Principal Snyder said. Now it was Tracy's turn to talk.
"Taryn, as you know, the family that we were going to place you in had an unfortunate occurrence with a house fire. We had to make some last minute arrangements for you, but we did manage to get you into a group home in a smaller town."
"So, is this town like one of the 'burbs or something?" Taryn asked. She has spent most of her life living in Brooklyn and had the attitude and accent to prove it.
"Not exactly." Tracy told her. "The town is out of state."
"Out of state? Are we talking Jersey? Because that really doesn't count." Taryn asked.
"No. Actually where we got placement for you is a bit further south. As in North Carolina."
"NORTH CAROLINA! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! You can't do that! You can't move me half was across the country!" Taryn stood and started screaming at Tracy.
"Taryn, I understand that you're upset, but there was really nothing we could do such last minute. It was the only place that had an opening for you. Your flight leaves this afternoon." Tracy thought that breaking the news all at once would be like ripping off a band aid. It would hurt for a little bit at the beginning. But Taryn wasn't having any of that. She was super mad.
"This afternoon? What the hell?! Do I even get a say when it comes to where I'm living?! Can't you send me somewhere upstate? You can't send me south! That's so not fair." Taryn slumped back down in her chair.
"Taryn, we're going to need you to leave school early. You need to pack your things that way you can make it to the airport on time. We're leaving right now. Go to your locker and get all your things. Leave your books. Someone will take care of them for you." Taryn got up, grabbed her bag and stomped out of the office. Tracy was right behind her. As she was walking down the hallway, she started thinking about how everything in her life had played out up until now. She was put in the system when she was 5 because her mom died and she had no living relatives. She remembered bits and pieces of her parents. She remembered that they loved her a lot and would always do things with her like take her ice skating or to the zoo. And then one day, they went to dinner with friends and left her with the babysitter and never came back. She didn't find out until she was 12 that her parents died in a car accident. It was winter and they were hit by a drunk driver. It was a hit and run and they never found the driver of the other car. So she moved in with a foster family in upstate New York before she was placed in Brooklyn. She'd been living here for the past 2 years and was almost starting to enjoy it. She still had a really hard time opening up and trusting people. This was the longest time she had ever stayed in one place. The family wasn't all that bad. They usually just left her alone which was just fine with her. She preferred it that way. Then she wouldn't have to talk about her feelings or what she was thinking. But now she had to move to some town in North Carolina that she had never even heard of. She was a city girl. There was no way she was going to move to a little podunk town in the middle of bum fuck Egypt. Besides, if she just bid her time, she would eventually be moved back to New York. And then she can get back to being New Yorker. She was emptying out her locker of her personal items that she actually wanted to keep. Otherwise she was going to throw out the other stuff anyway. So it made her job easier.
"Taryn, if we want to catch your plane, we have to leave right now to make sure that we can go and get your clothes." Tracy told her. So Taryn slammed her locker door closed and turned around to face Tracy. "So let's go then." Taryn snapped and started walking out of the building.