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Life is Beau-ti-ful |
| Written by D.A. Ross | |
| Saturday, 28 June 2008 | |
When you're in high school, nothing around you matters much except your friends, your trends and maybe some juicy gossip.
Jill Monroe, teenager extraordinaire thought she had the world in her hands; at least as far as Ralph Waldo Emerson high school is concerned. Jill is the smart, wholesome, girl next-door, destined to be the homecoming Queen type. Connie Maryweather, average American teenage girl looking to be seen, and always herd is the spunky, trendy cheerleader with all the right answers, eager to make a scene just for the attention.
Between the two of them, they had a small army of boys drooling over them on any given school day. Connie always took advantage of her admirers, and made sure her appearance was desirably. She kept her red hair short, in the style of the day; her tanned body always revealed just a small amount of cleavage under a size to small blouse looking as though she just stepped off the cover of a travel magazine. She also played on a small southern accent that she picked up from her mother's side of the family. Connie was cute, Jill admitted.
Up until now, their relationship consisted of fake smiles to each other passing in the halls, and prying information about the other out of classmates, good or bad. Formally, Jill and Connie were never introduced to each other and neither considered the other a friend. However, together they both agreed the other was major competition in school.
Today was Sunday, and the end of a long weekend of a smear campaign between the girls, after they encountered each other at a wild party Saturday night. There very apparent dislike for each other quickly surfaced at the party; with each trying to gather the attention of the others date, in hopes of ruining the evening for the other. Two hours into the party, both girls began a knock down, drag out argument of biblical proportions if front of everyone, ending an hour later with the flashing strobe lights of police cars and varying citations.
The next school day, Jill and Connie were filled with so much hatred and jealousy for each other; students avoided walking on the same sides of the hall with either one, you could simply feel the tension between them in the air. They would pass each other in the hallway and continue to display fake smiles to one another just to keep the other off guard; secretly wishing the other one would drop off the face of the planet or move away to attend another school. Their relationship continued in a silent battle most of the school year. Until.
John Bishop was his name. He was the new resident bad boy of the school, immediately idolized by all the other boys who secretly wished they were him, and adorned by all the girls in the school who saw him as the perfect way to rebel against there parents. He just transferred in from out of state. The rumor was, that he transferred from a boys Juvenal school, but that rumor most of the boys in school tried to use. John was different however; he showed no interest in Jill, or Connie. That in its self made him the most valuable catch of the year. Their competition for his attention began immediately, with both girls positioning them selves as close to his locker as possible.
About a week had passed when Jill found out that Connie had slipped a note into his locker asking him out on a date. She became furious with jealousy. After cornering her in the girl's bathroom, Connie admitted to the note, and told her she should have thought of the idea first. Not two hours later that same day, Jill wrote her own note and presented it to John in the school cafeteria in front of most of the student body. Smiling a deviant smile, he read the note and agreed to go out with her. Jill accepted with the condition, that there date had to be on the same day as the note from Connie and he had to cancel his date with her.
By the end of the next period, the events in the lunchroom quickly spread through out the entire school. Connie, angry that her plan had failed confronted Jill in the hallway and the two had angry words between them again that ended up sending both to the dean's office after a teacher disturbed by the loud arguing left his classroom to stop the two young women in fear that they might break out into a physical altercation.
The next day, Jill and Connie were filled with so much rage for each other, that they both overlooked the fact that John did not come to school that day. By the end of the last class period, the two self centered sworn enemies horrifically found out why.
John Bishop, their teen heartthrob, the boy who both girls would risk being suspended from school over, had gone out on a date with one of the very friendly girls from school.
He took her down to the vacant rock quarry where he violently raped, and killed her leaving her naked body to rot in an old abandon work shed. If it had not been for a local homeless man sleeping behind the shed, he would have gotten away with it. The next day the mood in the school was somber. Just after lunch, Jill ran into Connie in the hallway. The two stood in silence for a moment with tears in their eyes and fear still in their hearts.
From that eventful day forward, Jill and Connie agreed to never fight over another boy again, and they have been best friends ever since.
Author's Note:
This Introduction was written for a manuscript I completed a year ago. I deleted it from the book because, I felt it worked better as written dialog instead of the narrative form. This is not an excerpt! It never went into the finished manuscript.
Nevertheless, the meaning of the story stands strong, and should be taken to heart; after all, life is Beau-ti-ful.
D.A. Ross
Copyright 2008 D.A. Ross |
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