DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH STAND BY ME. I DO OWN:
Rory Scanlon and her family, Andy Watts and any other names you don't recognize from the book/movie. PLEASE REVIEW THIS and if you hate it let me
know how to make it better but don't be mean about it hahaha!

I remember that morning like it was yesterday. It was raining softly; the weather seemed to match the mood of the day. My father was in the kitchen
and I remember hearing the soon to be familiar sound of a beer bottle
opening. My sisters Alexandra and Nicole sat on the couch, Nikki was sobbing into Lexy's lap. And I, I sat on the window seat looking out into the driveway where my mother was loading her final suitcase in the back of the station wagon. She slammed the trunk shut and the disappeared into the drivers seat. And without looking back, she backed out of the driveway and
sped off down the street. She was gone. She had no plans to come back. Caroline Scanlon wasn't meant for motherhood, that I had known since I was
about 8. She wanted to be famous, go to Hollywood and become the next Audrey Hepburn. Instead, the 18-year-old southern belle Caroline Connors
met the 23-year-old frat boy Bob Scanlon at a party at Louisiana State University, got married, had three kids and moved to a cushy home on the View in Castle Rock, Oregon where she had everything she wanted. Some women
dream of a life like that, to my mother that housewife lifestyle was suffocating. I remember she would call her best friend back in Mississippi every day and say "Dahlin I just can't deal with this anymore! I'm so tired of being ordinary, I need to change my life soon or I'll just go haywire."
My mother was 18 when she got married and 19 when she had me, her first
child. She was so young and hadn't quite grown out of her prom queen captain of the cheerleading squad mentality so she pushed everyone of those
superficial values on my sisters and I.

She wasn't a bad mother; I would never charge her with that. My mother was the prom queen, cheerleader, and every other trait of the popular girls you could name and she made sure that I fit into the same mold as her. She was a tough, never letting us become "those kind of girls that you hear the old
bats talking about under the hair dryers at the salon." But despite my tight leash, my mother encouraged me to be the best I could be. And by the time I was 16, I could honestly say that from the outside I had the perfect life. I was on the cheerleading squad, played varsity tennis, was dating the captain of the basketball team and lived in the swankiest neighborhood up in the view. But it wasn't enough to see me and my sisters succeed, no Caroline Connors Scanlon wanted to be more than just a mother and a wife. She usually made family dinners hell by telling my father how boring her life was and how she did him a favor by marrying him and how she could move
on to bigger and better things. One day, I guess she just cracked and decided that is exactly what she would do. Although my father, who loved
her more than he could ever show her pleaded with her to stay and even
though little Nikki held on to her leg and sobbed, she shrugged her shoulders and said in the southern accent "Dahlins its time for me to move
on! Alexandra be good for your daddy, you too Nicole. And Loren dahlin, don't do anything I wouldn't be proud of." And with that, she left. We all sat there in silence for a while, my sisters on the couch, my dad in the
kitchen, me in the window seat. No one was sure what to do next, but we knew that we had to find a way to move on. Little did I know how greatly my
mother leaving would change me.

OK! Nice nostalgia, lets flip to the present. Its been three weeks without my mother and we've slowly started to get a new routine. My sisters and I
get up and go to school everyday, my father is silent at breakfast and makes it home for dinner each evening only to immerse himself in more work at the dinner table until he goes to bed. He rarely talks to us, much less reprimand us. He works, eats, sleeps and watches baseball games on TV. The bulk of the household responsibility was thrust into my lap, and although
it was a big task to undertake, it was then, three weeks later that I
realized the freedom I had obtained with my mother's departure. "Lexy! Nikki! Come on you gotta get up! You'll be late for school and I'm not dealing with your teachers!" I ran into their rooms for the third time
that Thursday morning. My father sat at the table reading the paper and sipping coffee, barely acknowledging my presence, merely muttering when I set out a plate for him and refilled his coffee mug. Thirteen year old Lexy
slowly made her way down the stairs and yawned as she poured herself a
glass of juice. Ten year old Nikki soon followed. The two little girls quietly chatted to themselves as I adjusted my makeup using the toaster as a mirror. A honk outside startled me and awoke me from my beautification
ritual. I looked up to see my boyfriend Andy Watts sitting in his red convertible. I smiled, thinking that Andy was one of the few normal things
left in my life and hurried my sisters out the door and down to the bus
stop. I yelled a goodbye to my father who merely grunted in response. I
grabbed my purse and jumped into the car. Andy wasn't the greatest boyfriend in the world, I'm sorry if I ever built him up to be anything more than Mr. Right Here Right Now. I mean yeah he was really cute and all the girls at school thought he was amazing and sure he was the basketball captain, but underneath that he was a conceited and
selfish guy whose main concerns were how he looked and how he played. I
mean, we got along and everything but honestly, I think if someone came
along that was just a little bit hotter or had a nicer ass or was more likely to have sex I'd be kicked to the curb in a heartbeat. I always hoped that I was wrong and that maybe Andy meant it when he said he loved me, but
the nagging doubt was always there.

"Hey beautiful!" Andy leaned over and kissed me as I closed the car door. "You're looking hot today, Ror, you meeting someone special?" He grinned. "Nah just some loser basketball player as always. You know the routine." I shrugged. We drove to school saying the same idle chitchat as always, you know talk about basketball and cheerleading and friends and who's hooking up with who. We pulled into the school parking lot and were about to park
the car but Andy realized there was someone parked in his spot. Ace Merrill, the local hood, had his car parked in Andy's spot. He was sitting
on the hood of his car with some of his trashy friends and some even trashier girls hanging around them. "Fuckin' bastard! Who does he think he is?" Andy was not a happy camper. "Baby just park somewhere else-don't let them piss you off." But that wasn't good enough for Andy Watts, the BMOC, the coolest guy in the school. "Stay in the car, Rory, this will only be one second." He pulled the car over, jumped out and headed over to talk to
Ace. I rolled my eyes as I heard him yell a line of obscenities at Ace, like that would phase him. I looked over at that gang, the Cobras I think they were called. They did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, and I sort of admired them for that, I mean I would never admit that I admired them, but something about their life without boundaries was appealing to
me.
"Listen Asshole, move your damn car now or we're gonna have a serious problem!" Andy continued to yell at Ace, who took a puff on his cigarette
and smiled. "Ok pretty boy, I'll move my car in exchange for the tasty broad who's chilling out in yours." I shot a dirty look at him and he just smiled at me. That was enough for Andy who proceeded to punch Ace in the
face. I jumped out of the car and tried to pull Andy off him. "He's not
worth it Andy! Let's just go!" I finally succeeded in getting Andy away from Ace. "Watch your back, fucker, and if you ever park in my space again
I will murder you." I pulled Andy back into the car. He found another
parking spot and just sat there fuming.
"Baby calm down its not that big of a deal." I started but was cut off. "Not a big deal? He parked in my spot! The space is mine, and he just did it to bust my balls. He ever does it again and I'll kill him." We walked into school in silence after that and all the while I wondered if he even
cared that Ace had called me a tasty broad.