No one was online except two people. My “counselor” friends; they weren’t actual counselors, but they’d kept me sane enough all these years. “Go out,” they tell me, “and have some fun. Stop moping in front of your computer.”

I force myself to. It’s Saturday night. Everyone will be in town. Who knows? It could be my lucky night; I might finally snatch a boyfriend that will last for months on end. I dig around in my room for my favorite jeans and snatch a decent shirt out of my closet. Once I’m dressed, I go to the bathroom: hair, teeth, make-up. I don’t need to go overboard. I don’t want them to see a mask. I want them to see me and dream about who I am, not a person I’m pretending to be. I try not to pretend even though I want to. Being me is so much better than being someone else. Or it used to be before three weeks ago.

I come back into reality and discover I’m staring at my reflection in the mirror. Thinking like that only gets me down and that’s the last thing I need if I’m going to go out tonight. If I’m going to succeed, I must think positively. That’s what my big brother always tells me: think positive and keep an open mind. He’s not my real brother, of course, but we’ve been friends for a couple of years and that’s just how our relationship developed. It’s too complicated for either of us to understand how it happened, but if we hadn’t learned to love each other as siblings, we wouldn’t be speaking. That’s what he tells me. It’s true.

The accessories are added as I think about this. My new earrings are gorgeous with this outfit. There’s no way I can’t attract someone’s eye tonight. Then again, it’s not hard to catch a guy’s eye; the challenge is talking to them. I’m shy until you start talking to me, then I don’t shut up. I start to think about my flaws and begin examining myself in the mirror.

‘Stop that,’ my mind tells me, ‘you’ll only fail. You must succeed!’

I tell my mom I’ll be back in a couple of hours, grab my backpack purse, and flee the depressing atmosphere. No more bad thoughts. I slip in to my used 95 Mustang and speed away. The engine revving as I force it to jump from 0 to 65 flushes out any negative emotions that were once there. It’s always done that. I switch on the radio to the Classic Rock station and crank up the volume to 40. I’m feeling good as I cruise in to town about five minutes later. The speed limit is 30; my excitement has taken over, but I don’t let it get to my foot. I’m broke and jobless. I can’t afford a ticket.

Wal*Mart is the only place us teenagers have to go in this town and we can’t stay there too long, either. I remember about four months ago, the cops came in and handed out tickets to everyone who was sitting around doing absolutely nothing but mingling. Too bad the cops weren’t handing out tickets to those boys that race around the courthouse. From what everyone knows of our town’s cops, they probably had a bet of who would win going on under the table.

My stomach ties itself in knots as I pull in to Wal*Mart. He works here. Unfortunately, the only place everyone flocks to is the department he’s at. I can feel my heart racing a lot faster than the Dodge that runs around the parking lot to show off for the ladies. Stupid things never impressed me. If you can play “Free Bird” on Hard on Guitar Hero II like he can, I’ll be impressed. Otherwise, you shouldn’t waste your time. I’d rather you talk to me than show off.

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For more of the story, visit my Journal.