It Should Have Been Him

Chapter 2

Then

The story starts like this, 

It was a sweltering hot day,

It was bright, 

It was beautiful, 

It was great. 

All I could think about was the upcoming school year. To be a little more specific, I was looking forward to creating the best college application that Stanford was ever going to see. After all, every test I had ever taken, every assignment I had ever handed in was for that school. Nothing else but that school. If I tried my absolute hardest, there was no reason why I shouldn't have gotten what I wanted...at least that's what my mom repeated to me, almost every morning of my life. 

I lay on my bare abdomen, the sand slowly beginning to burn and the pendant of my silver necklace dangling. The beach was the one place I typically spent my time. It was right behind my backyard, shared with the rest of the neighbourhood. Occasionally there would be people swimming in the ocean or sun tanning. But most of the time, I had the place to myself. Now that the last day of summer before grade 12 was finally here, I couldn't have thought of a better place to spend it at the time. I read one of my favourite books from elementary school, son of a mob, while I had the rays of sun dancing on my back, and the crisp waves of the ocean ringing in my ear. It truly was turning out to be a perfect day. 

Until she happened. 

I remember her entrance perfectly. 

It went like this, 

I heard the back sliding door slam shut, and footsteps furiously stomp down the wooden stairs of my porch, a red handbag was thrown at me, missing my head by an inch or two. I turned my head upwards to see blonde hair being blown by the gentle summer breeze, lightly tanned skin from being out in the sun for just a little too long, and dark hazel eyes, staring down at me. I sighed heavily and focused my attention back on my novel. 

"How was Peru, Katherine?" I asked, not bothering to make eye contact. I didn't have to look to know that Katherine probably had her hands on her hips, annoyed that I wasn't giving her the attention she deserved. 

"Horrible, it was extremely hot there, and when I tried to get a first-class ticket back home, my parents told me I couldn't leave our family vacation by myself; I was a prisoner there." I kept following the words on my book, trying to drown her voice out. 

"Excuse your parents for trying to give you a nice vacation," I mumbled as I flipped the page of the book. 

"Whatever." She dramatically plops down and takes a seat next to me on the sand, "what you reading?" 

"Son of a mob," I answered. She groaned and kicked a pile of sand. 

"You've been reading that book since grade 6, hasn't it gotten boring?" she asked. 

I shook my head. She was the one who introduced me to the book. It was actually a funny little tale. In grade 6, I got a job at lunch time, library monitoring. Everyday after lunch, Katherine would join me to get out of silent reading. One day, a boy came in, and Katherine had decided that he was the love of her life. He signed out the book son of a mob and she put it on hold for herself. I didn't get what that was going to do, she said that maybe she could talk about the book with him. The only problem was, once she finally got her hands on the book, she remembered that she hated reading. I read the book instead, told her everything that happened, and she went to the boy. The story goes downhill from there. The boy thought she was a stalker, and her heart was broken for 3 whole days. Something came out of it for me though, I found one of my favourite books.

"No, it hasn't gotten boring, every time I pick up this book, it reminds me of your delusional self," I said, smirking a little. She snatched the book from me and placed it on the other side of her purse. I opened my mouth to protest, but she beat me to it, cutting me off. 

"This is our last year together," she said, as she stared off into the ocean's horizon, "You'll go off to some great school, and become president, or a  lawyer, or whatever. And I'll probably get some lame-ass job, and I'll be stuck here for my entire life. We'll never get to see each other again." 

Usually everything that came out of Katherine's mouth was pure nonsense, but for the first time, her words actually got me thinking. Was she right? 

Was I never going to see her again? 

"I don't---" 

"Look, I'm not asking for much, but don't you want this year to be crazy? Don't you want to remember your senior year of high school and be able to tell people you did more than just go to classes and study. Don't you want to tell people that you were messed up with other people's drama, and don't you want to tell them that you went to at least one dance or party?" 

There were a few problems with that statement.  A -  I didn't want to get involved in Katherine's drama. I had heard about it from her for years, the constant conversations about who slept with who, and how dare she do that? It wasn't my type of thing to get wrapped up in. B - I had known Katherine for years, we had been best friends since grade three, when I was the new girl at school, and some kid chopped off my ponytail with safety scissors. We became inseparable after she punched the kid in the nose. That meant I knew her better than anyone, which meant, I knew she didn't make the best decisions in the world and if you got involved in things with her, those things were bound to go wrong. 

I tried to brush off her words, I really did. I tried to tell myself that her words didn't matter. But it got me thinking, was I that boring? 

My whole life revolved around one goal, getting into Stanford. I had worked my entire life for it. Would it have been that bad? If I decided to let myself relax just a tiny bit? 

Would it be the end of the world?

I shook the thought out of my head. No way,  my mom would kill me. I couldn't take the chance of screwing up my life, I was so close, all I had to do was get through one more year of high school, and then I could go off and do what my heart desired. 

"No," I said softly. I dug my fingers into the sand, feeling the warmness overcome my fingers. 

"Think about it, there's a dance coming up in a few weeks, and I really want you to come," she said, her voice carving sympathy. I looked back at the waves of the ocean, chasing a little harder on to the shore. The water splashed against the cliffs, it looked so beautiful from a distance. My life was already so great, why mess it up because of what people thought of me? In a few years they would be wishing they were like me. 

Don't listen to what other people say, I told myself that day, as Katherine and I watched the sun set. But in the back of my mind, there was a little hint of doubt that kept creeping up on me when I would least expected it, and it began to make me wonder, would it be so bad if I went to one dance?