Disclaimer: My favourite author, Sarah Dessen, has always inspired me, but this is neither a continuation of one of her stories nor based on her work(s).

Chapter 7

Salley

I wrote the story over the summer, and I had totally forgotten about it. While I was cleaning out the hard drive of my laptop, I found it.

For just those six months, she had been his world. His reason to get out of bed every morning. His valentine and his high-school sweetheart. But it was all taken away by one huge FedEx van. One van that didn't see her on a bike. One van that took her away forever.

Wow, how much more lights-camera-heartbreak could I get? But then again, a lot of my stories were like this: girl meets boy, boy loves girl, somebody dies.

There's something about writing that I love. It's like every time I start daydreaming about what my life would be like if so-and-so should happen, I get an idea for a plotline. Writing is my way to escape. Writing is to me what music is to Roxy.

I love Diana Ross, but music just doesn't do it for me. But if I write, I can escape. I can be anyone.

Writing gives me a chance to be someone that stuff happens to.

Not a boring sophomore in West Creek High with a typical, picture-perfect family form North Carolina, complete with a golden retriever and white picket fencing.

The day was a teacher work day, so the students got a day off. Unfortunately, I was spending it driving Roxy and Lori to interviews. Lori had lost three jobs in the past five months, and they couldn't live off nothing. The first place we pulled up to looked like bad news. The lights didn't even look turned on, and there were only two cars in the parking lot. There was a red neon sigh that reads FOOD, and already I was ready to turn back.

"All right. Lori's New Job: Take One," Roxy joked, opening her car door and getting out.

"Very funny. Let's go," Lori said, getting out, too. "Salley, you coming?" She threw her handbag over her shoulder and slammed the door shut. They came around to my window.

"Uhm, sure," I said, the last one to get out. I slid the keys into my jeans pocket and headed for the door.

Roxy, upset she was spending her day off with her unemployed mother, made a beeline for the desk in the far corner. There was a lazy-eyed man sitting in one of those chairs that you sit in and spin for hours. Except, he wasn't spinning; he was smoking. And he had been for a while, by the looks of it. There was a veil of grey smoke surrounding him, even though he was just lighting up.

"Excuse me, Sir. We saw your ad in the paper, and Lori here is interested in applying for a job," Roxy informed him, waving her hand like a mad woman, trying to rid her space bubble of smoke.

"Emmph," said the man. Now that we were closer, I could see the million tattoos that covered his shoulders and arms. I could also see his lack of hair and teeth.

Lori, though a slacker but still a mother, did not like us being around this guy. He was obviously not able to hold a conversation, so she grabbed us both by the wrists and said, "Come on, girls. It's time to go."

We got in the car, and Roxy turned the radio dial to some station I never listened to. Suddenly, the car was filled with some Norwegian screamo band that I did not like. I wrinkled my nose and turned the song over to a Top 40 station, and the familiar voice of Michelle Branch took over the car. She giggled at my distaste for hard rock but made no move to change the station. Best friends have to choose their battles.

"Turn left!" Lori said from the backseat. I had almost forgotten where we were going. I swerved the car into another parking lot, this time in front of a supermarket.

Roxy, who was beginning to enjoy herself, got out of the car exclaiming, "Lori's New Job: Take Two."

This time I got out without question, and the three of us went in.

"Mr. Stevens, your wife is waiting for you at Customer Service at the front of the store. Mr. Stevens, your wife is waiting for you at Customer Service at the front of the store. Thank you," a very bored-sounding man said over the intercom.

Roxy pulled Lori and me by the wrist to the security guard standing at the front door.

"Do you know where I can apply for a job?" Lori asked the man.

"Yep…"

"Uhm, can you tell us, please?" Roxy asked.

"Yep…"

"Well are you gonna?" I coined in.

"Yep…"

Okay, this was ridiculous.

"Where is the freaking job application place?!" I asked. Roxy was giggling behind me, but I was ready to get in and get out.

"Go past cereal and Oriental goods, turn at feminine care, and you'll see a door on your right," he said, unaware of a reason for our irritation.

I got over my fit of anger and started to giggle along with Roxy and Lori. Some people…

Lori ended up getting the job at the Piggly Wiggly. Whether she was actually getting up for it or not, I didn't ask. There were more important things to think about.

For example, tryouts were that day for our school musical, The King and I.

"I don't wanna!" Roxy said, trying to wriggle free from my grip on her wrist. Dylan had her other wrist.

"You'll do fine. I'll be there with you the whole time. Since when are you nervous about singing, anyways?" he asked her.

I loved Dylan. He just slid in with me and Roxy, automatically best friends of the both of us, none of us jealous or feeling left out. And he was so nice to her, almost like a big brother. Especially this year: always picking her up into one of those hugs where the girl bends her legs behind her and grabs his neck, with him swinging her around.

Dylan couldn't do that to me. Roxy was itty bitty, barely over five-foot-three. I wasn't.

But it didn't matter. We were three pees in a pod, birds of a feather, three of a kind... you get where I'm going with this. Like those friends on TV with two girls and one guy who ends up with the sweet, shy girl instead of the slut.

Oops, I didn't say that! Back to tryouts!

"You'll do great, I know it!" I said, pushing them both into the music room door. "Call me, kay?" I called after them, the door swinging shut with a thud.

I walked away from the music room and started for the parking lot and my Lexus. Yeah, I know: Lexus in high school. Well, my parents are just some of those people that "want the best." In, like, everything!

Review, y'all!!! Jazzhands and airkisses : )