Chapter One

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Chapter I

Four days earlier

"Working out is so overrated," Megan said before taking a bite of her Chunky Monkey ice cream. "I mean, these girls are way too skinny. Who wants to be a size four anyway? I know I don’t." She sat alongside her best friend Kaden who ate potato chips, barely able to keep her eyes open. Megan, seeing her friend half asleep reached for her couch pillow then slapped her friend across the face with it to wake her up. Instead she sent several chips flying out of her hand and onto the floor. "Wake up! It's only ten!"

         "I'm getting too old to stay up this late," Kaden replied stretching off the couch to pick up the chips that had fallen.

         "We're only eighteen. These are supposed to be the best years of our lives…and stuff." Megan grabbed Kaden's leg and began to rapidly shake her, "We are young! Heartache to heartache we stand! Something, something, something no promises!" she sang Pat Benatar way off key.

         Kaden kicked her friend on her side, "Stop it, you're embarrassing me. It's a Friday night and where are we? Sitting in my living room watching reality television and eating bad food. I can feel my brain cells dying as we speak."

         "So let's go out! We can go to a party,” Megan took a deep gasping breath “Or a movie! What about a strip club?! I've always wanted to go to one." Megan always seemed to get excited by the most outrageous things. She continued to ramble on about different things they could possibly do on a Friday night, but Kaden stopped listening after the mention of her worst nightmare, mini golf.  This was the reality of her life. An eighteen year old girl, who decided not to continue her life with another four years of schooling, with no job, but she had one crazy friend. Even her younger sister, Quinn, had a better life that actually involved a boyfriend.

 Kaden never really took to the other kids from her neighborhood. Sure, she was good with other people when she had to be, but only if she was forced to. It was hard for her to make friends; she had more difficult things going on in her life growing up. Normal kids had issues of 'which movie do we go see this weekend' whereas her problems were more 'what dinner am I making my sister tonight'. Most of her life Kaden took care of her younger sister seeing that their mom was always in and out of the Seattle Mental Health Center. When their mother was home, she spent most of her time drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.  It didn’t help much either that their father had left a long time ago. Despite her parents, Kaden and Quinn were always there for one another, no matter what. Breaking Kaden’s silent thoughts, Megan said "Are you listening to me?"

 "Of course I’m listening to you,” she sighed “How could anyone possibly not hear your voice? We should go out, maybe tomorrow night. But I'm not going to a strip club. What about....." The only interesting thing Kaden knew of was some jazz festival weekend at a pub downtown. She had seen a flyer for it at the grocery store just the other day. "What about the jazz festival at O'Brien's? I'm sure there will be a lot of strapping young men for you to toy with."

         "That's genius! We can pretend to be these incredibly intelligent scholars studying the art of music at the University of Seattle. This will be easy,” Megan nodded her head while rubbing her hands together. “Alright, my name will be....." She sat back against the couch eyeing the room for assistance to come up with a fake identity, "Victoria Wrench."

          "Victoria Wrench? That's what you're going with?" Kaden questioned mockingly. Megan probably had gotten the idea from the Victoria Secret bag that hung on the banister.

         "Absolutely, it's sophisticated and sexy,” she crossed her legs Indian style on the couch to face Kaden. “Now, your name should be..." Again, Megan searched the room for help. "Torrey Jackson," She said squinting at Kaden with an approving look.  Kaden couldn’t tell where she came up with that name; nothing in the room had Torrey or Jackson on it.

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