Chapter One - Lilly
Today is the day it is going to happen. I’m not melancholy or nervous. I just want to get it over with more than anything. Today is the day that I, Lilly Barnes, die.
I know what you’re thinking, that I’m going for the dramatic with that line, but I really am dying tonight. And it will be all my choice and by my own hands.
I continue walking down the school hallway in high alert. In my mind I silently say goodbye to things as I pass them. Goodbye locker I could never get open. Goodbye Mrs. Rooms, you were actually a pretty decent choir teacher. You never once let on that I can’t carry a tune. Goodbye Derek Johnson who never paid attention to me. I will miss staring at the back of your perfectly shaped head in Spanish class. ¡Qué linda!
The news of my death will spread through this town like wildfire. People will pretend to be sad, but most won’t really care at all. Well, I take that back; the only person who will really care is my best friend, Buddy, but he will get over it in time. Buddy will be the only person I genuinely miss in this place (this place being Earth of course).
The school memorial held in my honor will mostly be free of tears. One of the popular girls will claim to have secretly been my best friend, and people will fawn over her for her loss.
Poor thing.
Student council will most likely put up a cheesy memorial in front of my locker, perhaps placing flowers and candles someone picked up from the dollar store.
I only hope they won’t put one of those God-awful posters up, the one where my nostril is the size of a human head. No one wants to see that.
In the last week I have tried to talk myself out of it, but my mind is set and I am past changing my own agenda. There is only one way out of all of this, and that is to be taken out permanently.
In the past week I have tried working through different scenarios in my head. I could move to New York and become a teen prostitute, living with other teen prostitutes, eventually gaining freedom from my pimp who most likely is beating me. I would live happily ever after spending my time in Central Park, walking and eating those roasted almonds I read they have in the winter. But, the truth is, I’m not a happily ever after kind of girl.
This scenario has also been played out in Paris and Greece. My main issue is that I don’t have any money to get me out of here. I’m pretty sure the Greyhound that runs near Bayberry doesn’t stop close to the Eiffel Tower.
I could get Buddy and tell him it was time to leave. He would understand; he hates this town as much as I do. Buddy would help me the moment I asked. I wouldn’t need a concrete plan or give reasons for fleeing out of here.
He would follow me anywhere, I just know it.
We could get in his truck and drive. We could drive until we hit an ocean. We could find odd jobs washing dishes or sweeping floors. We could make it work if we tried.
And I know we would really try.
But, the truth is that I love Buddy too much to do that to him. Buddy is going places and I would only drag him down. Way down.
I think of all the things I will miss. I think about coffee, red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, Little Women, and Channing Tatum. Oh, how I will miss Channing Tatum.
I try not to think about the things I won’t miss. I try not to think about the reasons why I am even doing this in the first place.
The bad far outweighs the good in my life.
The last 17 years have been hard to say the least. I currently reside in hell. I have had enough pain to last a lifetime. I feel like I am ready to stop the pattern. I am ready for everything to just stop.
Have you ever seen those commercials late at night, the ones that say a penny a day will change the life of a child? You know what I’m talking about. The children are usually standing outside in some field in a faraway country that I will never visit. The children have extended stomachs and flies on their noses or some shit like that. You know the ones. Well, a foundation should be started for me, because I have it worse. The Save Lilly Barnes from All Her Immediate Terrors Foundation.
Sure, my face is fly free, but I guess you will just have to take my word for it.
I have it worse.
Any minute now Angelina Jolie is going to come bursting through the door and adopt me (hopefully she’ll bring Brad Pitt). At least that is what a girl in my position hopes will happen.
The truth is that people don’t care about a girl who seems to be doing okay on the outside. Sure, I wear more eyeliner than the average girl at school. My makeup has even gotten me coined as Goth in some circles. But eyeliner does not an unhappy life make. I should point out that this category I have been thrown into is only by Bayberry standards. I would be normal in any other school. Well, as normal as a damaged girl can be.
But the clique I have been placed in isn’t the reason why I am doing this. I don’t need the attention. A boy hasn’t broken my heart. I just can’t take this life anymore. I am genuinely a cup half full kind of girl but I can’t see this getting any better.
I know that it won’t.
I understand that on the outside I look like I am doing alright. You would never be able to tell that I am breaking on the inside. My outsides do not match my insides at all.
I am of average height and average weight. I have average brown/blond hair, average brown eyes and am of average intelligence. I am nothing special. I am not particularly beautiful. I have no special talents. I can’t play an instrument. I am not an artist of any kind, and I am sports challenged.
I am your run-of-the-mill, average American teenager living in a small town in Texas. I could walk by you and you wouldn’t even notice me. It may sound like I am complaining, but I am just stating the facts.
Average, average, average.
I live in a town in Texas called Bayberry, and it is just as boring as it sounds. You can barely step out of place without everyone knowing about it. Everyone knows everyone else and all of their personal business. These small towns are supposed to be a great place to raise your family, but I think they do more harm than good. Sure, we can ride our bikes and leave them out in the front yard, and we don’t have to lock our doors at night, but we trade those freedoms for others. We lose the freedom to come and go as we please and the freedom to privacy.
Chapter Two – Lilly