Life was full of firsts. First steps, first crushes, first boyfriend and unfortunately your first heartbreak. Sara Tancredi was sixteen and devastated over the fact that she'd lost the boy she was sure was the one and only love of her life. He'd broken up with her, saying of all things that he needed space and ten minutes later she caught him snuggled up to Carrie Warren, the school tramp.
She hadn't confronted him, she knew that she should have but she just couldn't find the words through the knot of emotion lodged in her throat.
The bus ride back from school had been a blur. She'd sat in the back of the bus, her earphones covering her ears so that no one would speak to her and she wouldn't have to hear the whispers she knew were going around.
"Hello?" She called out as she stepped inside her front door even though she didn't see her father's car in the driveway. Silence greeted her and she headed up the stairs to her bedroom.
She flung herself on the bed and let the tears she'd been holding in fall from her eyes. Miserable and feeling completely alone she curled herself into a tight ball, clutching her treasured teddy bear to her chest for comfort. Sara cried so long and so hard that when she finally stopped her throat was raw and her eyes were burning.
Sara winced as she felt a dull throbbing in her temples; on top of everything else she was getting a headache.
Her father's bedroom was down the hall from her one. He'd have something for a headache in his cavernous medicine cabinet. Sara felt a twinge of guilt at invading his privacy until she remembered how willingly he'd invaded hers only the week before.
She'd caught him reading her diary. A diary she'd taken pains to carefully conceal on the top shelf of her closet. He'd yelled at her for both her outrage at the invasion of her privacy and the contents of the pages.
She was the daughter of a politician, one with aspirations, and it just wouldn't do for her to run around acting like a cat in heat. When she tried to explain that she was still a virgin that she'd written about things that she was curious about he'd brushed her off.
The following day a driver had picked her up from school to take her to see a gynecologist. The examination had been invasive and embarrassing but at least she'd been able to throw the fact that her hymen was still intact in his face.
His bathroom was immaculate as were his sleeping quarters. The maid who came in three hours a day saw to that. Sara opened up the cabinet and stared at the neat rows of pill bottles.
It took her a minute to find the bottle that she was looking for. Pain killers her father had received after a root canal. Sara read the instructions, one every four hours as needed for pain. She shook two out into her palm and swallowed them with a handful of water from the tap.
She was careful to replace the bottle exactly where it had been. Sara turned the lights off behind her and jumped as the telephone rang. She ran down the hall to her own room, jumping on her bed to grab her pink cordless phone. "Hello."
"Why are you out of breath? What were you doing?" Frank Tancredi was not a man to waste words.
"I was in the bathroom."
"I've got a late meeting tonight. I'm going to stay in the city tonight. I expect you to be on time for school tomorrow Sara."
"I'm always on time Dad." Sara reminded him as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the stars she'd arranged on the ceiling. With the lights off they would glow, a mini solar system for only her to see.
"Finish your homework and go to bed early. Don't stay up all night watching television. I have to go."
With that the conversation ended. Sara hung up the phone and let it fall to the bed. She let out a long sigh and realized that she wasn't as annoyed at the conversation as she should have been. In fact, she felt rather good.
Good enough that she didn't want to spend hours working on her French homework or her calculus. "Fuck it." She declared as she kicked at her book bag. It made a satisfying clunk as it hit the floor.
Sara stared up at the stars, letting her eyes follow the patterns she'd created with her own hands. Her mind wandered and she allowed it to do so enjoying the fantasies that she weaved. A life where she wasn't a politicians daughter who was always expected to wear the right clothes, smile and say the right things. It would be a perfect world, one where her mother was still alive. Sara had no clear memory of her mother but in her mind she was a kind, caring woman who would understand that a teenage girl needs space in order to become a woman.
She would become a woman, the woman of her choosing, no matter how much that angered her father. She didn't want to follow his footsteps and enter the political arena. Unlike most girls her age she knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to be a doctor, to help people who needed it most desperately. Her father called it a waste of time. She was too soft hearted and to him that was the worst possible flaw his daughter could have.
He wanted her to become a lawyer and then eventually receive a judgeship. He had the connections to make that happen. Even though she was only a junior in High School she was already receiving college brochures, colleges hand picked by her father.
The pressure was just too much sometimes. She held no illusion that she was perfect even if her father constantly drilled it into her head that she must be. She was humans and by design humans were flawed creatures.
Annoyed that she couldn't stop thinking of her father and his plans for her future Sara reached for the remote control on her radio and turned it up loud. It didn't matter what song was playing, all that mattered was the noise drowned out the thoughts swirling through her mind.
When Sara sat up her head spun slightly and the feeling had her giggling. It reminded her of being a girl, twirling in circles at the park until she could no longer keep her balance. She could all but feel the sun beating down on her and the warm summer grass underneath her back.
"Miss Sara." Rosa, her nanny, rushed towards her with a disapproving frown on her face. "What have I told you about getting your nice clothes all full of grass and dirt? What will your father say?"
Sara sulked, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout, as she rose to her feet. "But it's fun Rosa." She protested.
"It is time for us to go. I have to wash that dress now. You need to be ready for the party tonight. Your father wants me to have you ready at six. You will greet his guests and after you'll have your supper in the kitchen."
"Shit." Sara cursed, savoring the forbidden word as she got to her feet. She turned off the radio and returned to the master bathroom and the medicine cabinet. What would it take to make it stop? She didn't want to think about him. She didn't want to think period.
Sara swallowed another pill and sat down on the cool marble tile waiting impatiently for the lovely lightheaded feeling to intensify. It did and moments later she found herself stretched out on the tile, incapable of moving even if she wanted to.
Her last thought before she drifted off into a dreamless sleep was that it felt so good to feel at peace, to not have a single thought that she didn't want to have.