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Three.Happy In Another Life (Part I)
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It all started at the end of ninth grade. Emma was going out with a junior, Justin… something. Emma was always the most outgoing of all the girls. Even in ninth grade, she didn't look like a young girl. Emma exuded self-confidence; she could walk into a room and make everyone want her. Of course, her British accent helped.
Emma's philosophy of life was quite simple: always have a good time. Justin was one of those preppy popular boys who looked like they walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad and they had a lot of fun together. Justin took Emma to all the hot Junior parties. As the school year drew to a close, Emma was getting invited to all the fashionable summer parties held by the upperclassmen. Soon the entire group was a frequent fixture on the Manchester teen party scene.
Parties were easy to hold in a town where parents were often never at home. Kids wasted their ample allowance on booze and other popular drugs. When children were spoiled from a young age with everything they could possibly desire, in high school they turned to alcohol to have a good time.
Sakura was never one for the loud, crowded parties. The first party she went to was with Emma and KT. She only went because Emma didn't want to go alone and KT didn't want to be alone with Emma at a party. Sakura wanted to know what it was like so she agreed. She got dressed up, a silk French Connection halter and Calvin Klein jeans, put on make up and did her hair. Justin and Emma came to her house and picked her up at nine. They drove down the Interstate at eighty miles an hour, blasting The All American Rejects on Justin's eight hundred dollar custom Jeep stereos.
The party was at some senior's parent's beach house in Hull. When they got there, Sakura remember how the ground was shaking from the loud music. There were lights everywhere and a large bonfire was lit behind the house on the beach. Everyone who was anyone was there; all the popular senior boys Sakura secretly had crushes on; all the beautiful senior girls Sakura secretly wished to be. When she was there, dancing with her friends on the beach, a cocktail in hand, laughing, screaming, Sakura felt vibrant and happy. Nothing mattered except that moment when she was dancing, when she was laughing; nothing else mattered. People walked by them and looked at them like they were somebody. The lifestyle seemed so decadent and charming and mysterious to her that she was immediately drawn to it.
So it started. It began with just one party, just one drink, just one joint. But pretty soon, they were taking turns holding each other's hair as they puked over perfectly trimmed bushes. Halfway through the summer, all the parties looked and felt the same. It was all a haze. There was loud music, dancing, drinking games, and a lot of drunken horny teenagers.
Sakura let herself go that summer. She didn't care what her dad would think of her; she didn't care if it was illegal. It was never about peer pressure. Sakura never did any of it because her friends partied. She did it because she enjoyed it. She did it because it felt good. Within the fog of alcohol, expensive perfumes, and loud dance music, she felt young, reckless and incredibly alive.
It was that summer which took their innocence.
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The girls also got with their first boyfriends "that" summer. Sakura remember meeting Mark at one of the parties. Mark was the youngest son of a prominent banking family and he was only a year older than Sakura. That night they were both a little tipsy, he asked her to dance and at the end of the night they had exchanged phone numbers and screen names. Mark was her first—her first boyfriend, her first kiss, her first everything. He was cute and tall and a football player. Sakura thought he was perfect; she thought she might be falling in love.
When the school year started, Mark was busy with football practice and Sakura was busy with cheerleading. She had just made the varsity cheerleading team and she was determined to do her best. Mark was playing on the varsity football team. They saw each other at games and Sakura cheered on her boyfriend on the field. But they were two different people in school. They didn't have the same classes, the same friends. Mark was also a member of Big Brother, Big Sister, while Sakura was a volunteer with youth gymnastics; so they rarely had time to see each other on weekends. By the end of October, Sakura knew that Mark was really just a summer fling. Although she was extremely sad when they finally broke up in November, she knew that it was the right thing to do.
Tomoyo also met her first boyfriend that summer: Eriol Hiiragisawa–Tomoyo's emotional equivalent of the Great Crash of 1929. Eriol's family had come of old money; he had been from a line of well established, very historic English aristocracy. Eriol had an extraordinary upbringing. He had spent most of his childhood traveling the world while being home schooled by a family tutor. His family had a beautiful estate in Manchester, a massive, that is by Boston standards, fifteen acres. Eriol was in their grade and all the girls adored him.
Tomoyo and Eriol hit it off at a party in Nantucket. It was August in a particular sweltering Bostonian summer, so most Manchester students who were not traveling overseas stayed at their family summer homes on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. Tomoyo had been acquaintances with Eriol in school as they were both in the same English class.
For their first date, Eriol had taken Tomoyo sailing on his family boat. Sakura remembered seeing Tomoyo after her date; Tomoyo had been so happy, so vivacious—"It was perfect, Sakura, perfect," she remembered Tomoyo's words.
But as the months passed, Eriol and Tomoyo's relationship became building a house of cards. It was a fact universally known that youth cannot be trusted. Many girls at school were jealous of Tomoyo; they had long been Eriol's admirers and hated Tomoyo for being his girlfriend. They dated for over six months—three of those were spent fighting with each other.
It was one of those train wrecks of a breakup that when finally after the dust had settled, no one was left standing. They didn't know where they had gone wrong. In fact they had forgotten how they had begun and why they had ended. After you had invested so much into a relationship, given someone else so much, trusted them with everything there was, only to have it crashing down around you, there was nothing left.
Sakura remembered those grueling months at the end of sophomore year. Tomoyo was a mess. Strange how the people you loved best turn out to be the ones who hurt you the most. After Eriol, Tomoyo never let anyone else get close enough to hurt her. Rather, she became a serial dater. Tomoyo had four boyfriends that following summer and numerous flings. Meaningless relationships, nameless guys—Tomoyo partied harder, drank more. She became cynical, disdainful and detached. When junior year started, Tomoyo had changed so completely that even Sakura had trouble recognizing her.
It was true what they said: the first cut was the deepest.
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"Hey!" someone was calling her from down the hall. "Sakura!"
It was seven thirty on a Monday morning and Sakura was not in a mood to tolerate any drama. She had just gotten to school and she was running late, as usual. It was a good thing that she had study hall first period today. She still had to finish a worksheet for Spanish.
The past weekend had been an interesting one. Friday night was the Homecoming dance and the dreadful after party. Saturday, she spent trying to get over her hangover with her friends and still, somehow, managed to show up to her volunteer job at youth gymnastics in the afternoon. Sunday had been homework, homework, homework—it wasn't easy taking five AP courses—plus writing an article for the school newspaper. She felt tired and rundown. It was only October but she could tell junior year was going to be complete and utter hell.
Despite the student's constant partying and reckless activities, Manchester was still home to extremely successful and ambitious parents who accept nothing less from their children. So along with the parties and drinking, the students were also competitive in high school in order to get into the nation's top colleges. Everyone had high expectations to meet. After all, a quarter of the student body was to inherent and run multimillion businesses one day; and the rest was expected to become no less successful in life than any of their parents.
"What?" she asked irritably as she turned around. "Oh! Christian."
"Yeah, it's me. I've been looking for you all morning. What the fuck happened to you at Nick's party last Friday? One moment you were there and the next you were gone," Christian asked, a little angry. Sakura couldn't help but take a little pleasure in the fact that he had missed her.
"I left with my friends," Sakura started. "I guess you were too busy to notice." Fuck, it was too early for this.
He paused, as to figure out what to say next. "I thought you were my date," he finally replied.
Christian Sawyer was hot, plain and simple. This morning he was dressed in a collared shirt from Armani Exchange and faded Guess jeans which hang low but just right around his hips. He looked good. Christian made captain of the varsity soccer team despite him being only a junior. He has dark brown hair and striking blue eyes, which depending on the day sometimes also seem gray. But he was also popular with the ladies and notorious for breaking up with girls. Sakura had been surprised when Christian asked her to go with him to Homecoming. She didn't think she was his type. But, somehow, she secretly carried the faint hope that maybe Christian liked her but his behavior at the party had given her solid evidence otherwise.
"Yeah, I did too," Sakura said. The words became out as only a whisper. She surprised by how hurt she sounded and how hurt she actually felt. Sakura had spent the entire weekend avoiding the subject. Fuck, why do things like this happen to her? Now she is coming off like a complete ass in front the one person she wanted to think that she didn't give a fuck.
Christian looked a bit shocked by her response. He ran his hand through his hair. "Look, if you mean Julie, I'm really sorry," he said. "I was like completely smashed and like, you know like how these things are. You go with someone but like go home with someone else."
"Whatever," she looked away.
"All right, but I'm still really, really sorry. Okay?"
She nodded.
"I better get to class before Hamilton gets really pissed," Christian said as he glanced at the clock at the end of the hallway. Classes had already started about two minutes ago. "I'll see you around."
As Sakura watched Christian walk away, for only a moment, she allowed the feelings of self loathing and anger wash over her. A part of her wanted to yell and scream at him for making out with another girl, another part of her wanted to cry for the exact same reason. All a guy would ever do was to break your heart. She felt numb again.
Sakura didn't care what they said. A cut was a cut and they all hurt like hell.
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Author's Note: Here we are for background. Syaoran enters next chapter.
This chapter describes how Sakura and her friends came to be reckless partying juniors in high school. This is the truth. This is exactly how it happens to high school students everywhere (although, I suppose I'm from an older generation, from what I'm hearing now it is starting in middle school). You start off thinking that you are not going to be trapped by it. In the beginning you think its fun, you are curious and you just want to know what it is like; you are even attracted to it. But before you know it, you become one of them and you don't even notice it.
Drinking is a big problem with teenagers. It can be dangerous because most teenagers don't care or know how to drink safely. And adults tell you that it's because of peer pressure—don't drink just because your friends drink, drinking doesn't make you "cool." It is part of the reason, but the real reason (at least what I have come to believe from personal experience) is that it just feels good. Teenagers are under a lot of pressure and mix that with raging hormones and the next thing you know, everybody's drunk. When you are drunk you don't care and everything's more fun. Now, I am not in any way advocating drinking. It's just a way for kids to deal with their problems. They get drunk to have fun because when they are sober they are too preoccupied/depressed/angst-y to really have fun.
Drinking is not a healthy way to deal with your problems. In fact, it is the way to becoming an alcoholic, which I'm afraid to say a lot of my friends are or slowly becoming. So, please don't turn to alcohol or drugs to have fun. You know, things are a lot more fun when you can actually remember them the morning after. Or when you are not on the bathroom floor with your head stuck in a toilet for an hour. Alcohol, it might feel good for a while, but it never lasts. And the next day you are going to be hangover and miserable. Is that really worth it? Trust me, it's not. And do your liver a favor; you need your liver.
Wow, all my notes are turning from one lecture after another. I'm sorry. I always feel to need to explain myself because I don't want someone to read this story and get the wrong idea. I'm not advocating underage drinking and illegal drug use. The point of this story is to discourage it.
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