MISTY RIVER: The Black Prince

Chapter Six

Friday September 18

Dear Diary

I have dreaded this day for long now, and after what happened yesterday, I can't say it makes it any less awful. Not only is it my first birthday without my parents, but also I have to go to school and face Elias. Or who knows if he's even going to be there... He doesn't seem to have any problems with skipping school, and especially not during the classes that we have together. I have decided to ignore him and avoid him at all costs from now on - for real this time. I should have followed my friends' advice from the beginning and nothing of this would have happened...

I put down the diary. It felt meaningless to write anything more. I didn't want to think about it, and writing about it only made me angrier. I hated that he affected me this way. After I had seen his face in the window at Sarah's house the day before, I realized he had way too much impact over my life. Sarah's grandmother had been right. Why did I let him treat me this way? I just couldn't believe I had missed the big blinking "bad guy" warning sign hanging above him, which clearly had been so hard to miss to everyone else.

"Hey, Happy Birthday!" Luke said when I walked into the kitchen a couple of minutes later. "You're already up?"

"Yeah," I said and tried to look at least a little excited for the day.

"I was going to come up and give you this," he said, "but I guess I'll give it to you now then." He handed me a dark blue envelope with a red bow on it.

"Oh," I said. "Thanks, but you didn't have to."

"It's money," he explained. "I didn't know what to get you, so I thought you could buy yourself something you'd like."

"Actually, that's great, Luke!" I said and smiled. "I'm going to Portland sometime next week with a couple of friends to look for a dress for the Homecoming dance."

"You and Kyle are going this year too?" he asked as he grabbed the car keys on the kitchen island. 

"Sarah," I said.

"Oh," he grinned. "Anyway, I gotta run, but what do you say about ordering take out tonight and celebrate?"

"Sounds perfect," I said trying to smile as genuine as possible. Except the part about celebrating though...

"Great!" he said and then headed towards the front door as I began preparing my breakfast.

Jake was still asleep, but eventually came downstairs right before I was heading out, without having any breakfast as usual. I observed him carefully as he walked past me.

"Yeah, right," he suddenly said and turned around. "Is it your birthday?"

"Yes," I said and pushed him outside so I could close the door.

"Sweet," he smirked and then walked to the car that was waiting for him on the street.

I rolled my eyes. It might have been a weird "Happy Birthday" wish, but it was still good coming from him.

When I had parked on the parking lot in front of the high school, I looked around, searching for Elias' black Porsche. When I realized it wasn't there, I exhaled in relief. Great! He wasn't here yet and hopefully he wouldn't come at all. It would be much easier to get through the day if he wasn't around constantly reminding me of what I had promised myself to forget. I walked through the entrance doors and continued to my locker. The corridor was fairly empty so far. Most student were still standing at the parking lot talking. I entered my padlock combination. I had a plan. I was not going to mention anything about my birthday to anyone, and hopefully the people who still remembered it wouldn't shout it out so everyone else would hear. I wanted this to be just like any other day. I opened my locker and panicked as balloons in different colors suddenly flew out. I caught them and pressed them into my locker again and closed it quickly. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Luckily, the other students were all facing their own lockers or busy talking to each other, so no one seemed to have noticed. Sarah was the only one who knew my combination. It must have been her doing. It had seemed like a good idea to tell her back then, but right now I regretted it...