December, 2005 

“Travis! You are going to be late!” my mother’s voice rang from the kitchen down the brightly painted hallway to my bedroom. I groaned and rolled out of the twin mattress. My boring white sheets laid on the ground and my whole room looked like a tornado had come through. So it basically looked like the room of any sixteen year old guy. Papers were everywhere, catalogs for colleges I didn’t want to go to were thrown in the strangest place around the room, and piles of dirty clothes sat stacked up against the walls. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with the word,“Allentown Lutheran Bible School,” written in large green letters. Mom had gotten it from Goodwill a few years ago for my dad, but considering he left without so much as a goodbye I decided to keep it for myself.

“Coming,” I murmured, not really caring that the chance of her hearing me were pretty slim, as I grabbed my old backpack and walked down the green hallway,my mother tended to abuse neon colors, towards the kitchen. My step-dad, Sebastian, sat in an old lawn chair next to the large table in our dining room. He was smoking and a beer sat in front of him. “Little early for a drink, ain’t it?” I smirked. Sebastian and I had never been the best of friends. We always fought but ever since he married my mom he had become more aggressive and eager to start fights. There had been a time where I looked for Mom for protection but when Sebastian was concerned she just pretended he was the perfect stepfather and that I was crazy. But I knew she saw him hurt me.

“Listen here, Travis. I am allowed to do what ever I want. You understand? I’m the reason you two aren’t at the shelter where you belong,” Sebastian snarled, his lips curling in disgust. I shrugged and grabbed a plate of eggs from my mother. She looked at me with her sad, faded, blue eyes and whimpered a bit as if I had yelled at her. She fixed her messy bun of gray and went on with cooking eggs. I took a seat across from Sebastian and kept my head down, knowing any eye contact and I’d become a victim to his abuse.

“Better hurry up, Travis. Don’t want to be late,” my mother practically chirped as she set a plate of eggs down on the table. Sebastian looked away from his cigarette and glared daggers at me.

“Bye,” I murmured, scurrying out of the house but not before I heard Sebastian voice his rude opinion about me.

“Man, you look ready to kill someone,” Tanner murmured, his brown eyes flickering over me with boredom, once I sat next to him on the bus. “Sebastian start a fight again?”

“Something like that,” I chuckled softly and laid back, lost in thought. After what felt like hours—which was probably only fifteen minutes—I climbed out of the bus and walked with Beck Nathans, his sister Leah, and Tanner towards the cafeteria where we got to wait out a sentence of 23 and a half minutes of boredom till the bell rang. “I’m gonna grab a soda or granola bar or something,” I announced, 18 minutes into our sentence. Beck gave me a dismissive wave, deep into a conversation with Tanner about Star Trek or something. Leah raised an eyebrow but shrugged as if my plans were none of her concern.

I nodded slightly and walked towards a large vending machines that sat outside of the cafeteria in the hallway. My eyes ran over the contents with a sigh as I began to decide what to get.

“Get the Peanut Crunch Bar. The rest of the stuff in there’s junk,” a voice said. I turned around to stare at the girl in front of me. She had long blond curls that ran just past her shoulder. A look of interest flickered in her bright green eyes and her perfectly tanned skin seemed to almost shimmer under the light. Jessica Barton had to have been at least 6 foot if not taller and she was one of the first girls I had ever met who could look me in the eyes with out craning their neck.

“I’m allergic to peanuts,” I lied. I wasn’t to sure on why I had lied to her; pretty girl just make me do that, I guess.

“Oh really? That’s strange I could have swore I saw you eating a PB n’ J yesterday,” Jessica said with a light smirk on her lips. She stuck her hand in the pockets of her black skinny jeans and leaned back against the heel of her boot.

“I..er…um..lied. Sorry I just…” but I trailed off when I saw her laugh. At first I thought she was laughing at me as her smile widened.

“Oh my god, I was totally making that up. I was just kidding, don’t worry. But seriously, get the Peanut Crunch,” I opened my mouth to reply or thank her but two other girls dressed in pink mini skirts appeared from the cafeteria and Jessica began to walk towards the doors. She gave a small wave and I turned back to press D7 on the machine. I got the Peanut Crunch Bar. And guess what? It wasn’t junk.