A Summer To Die For | Teen Ink

A Summer To Die For

June 15, 2010
By taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.


Chapter One


Oh great, just what I needed. Allen was a total mess tonight. It was going to be terrible trying to get him back to--. This wasn’t my problem, nope. Allen Thompson had dumped me a month ago for… her. Claudia, that complete and total witch.

“Leslie!” Corey Simmons, my best friend ever, cut me out of my thoughts, “Come on! I have curfew,” Then under her breath added, “Unlike some people.” Like she thought I couldn’t hear her. She jangled her keys and started for the exit. Why did Allen dump me? I realized that I was getting back into a rut, but at the moment, to be quite frank, I couldn’t have cared less. Allen might’ve been a total mess right then, but it didn’t stop me from thinking. What wouldn’t I give to hear his deep voice whisper (somewhat) quietly in my ear, to feel his strong arms around me, keeping me secure. What I wouldn’t do to feel his lips on mine as he have me those sweet kisses, hear the words “I love you” that came out of his mouth at the most unexpected times. The list went on and on. All I’d had to drink was Sprite, had someone spiked my drink? I hadn’t been this bad in a few days. Allen, to walk down the beach with our fingers intertwined, the way your fingers fit perfectly between mine.

Allen. My eyes actually started to tear up. No; someone had most definitely spiked my Sprite.

I saw Corey walk back into the door. I had sank down onto a couch when I was supposed to be leaving, she was to nice to leave me. Dang! Corey was beyond mad at me, I could see it in her face. Why was nothing in my life working out right? Once something started to go good, it would usually just fall to crap right in front of my eyes.

I hate Claudia. What does Allen see in her anyway? She took my Allen, how could I not hate her? Leaning back, I let out a frustrated sigh, Corey had spotted me.

“What the heck, Leslie?” Now that I think about it, I don’t really know why I stopped, stupid Allen. When was I ever going to get over him? Three weeks from never probably.

“Leslie,” She must’ve seen the tears bubbling in my eyes because I could hear her hopeless/you’re-so-pathetic/frustrated sigh of my name.

“What.” I looked up at her just as the first tear tumbled down my cheek.

“Les-lie. Come on! If he picked,” she paused, “that over you, then he messed up and isn’t worthy of you anyway.”

Sometimes Corey could make me feel great and on top of the world with her words of wisdom, and now was starting to look like one of those times.

“I know, but I just want him back so, so, so bad. Is that so bad?”

“Yes, but Honey, it’s going to be okay. You will a guy that loves you and doesn’t hurt you.” I just stared back up at her. “Come on, we don’t need to discuss this here.” She then proceeded to drag me out to her car, (with her boyfriend’s help, of course).

After she dropped off her boyfriend, Corey turned off the car. “Leslie, I am seriously worried about you.”

“Why?”

“I know break-ups suck, and I’ve experienced it, too. But you’ve never been this bad. I’ve seen you devastated by a guy and sulk for a while, but it has been a month. You are going to have to get over him. He’s gotten over you and you need to get your act together.”

I didn’t come here to get talked at or insulted. So, after the way Corey just spoke to me, that was enough. She didn’t understand. We’d been together since Sophomore year and he was my everything. He was (sadly) the first gut I’d kissed, the first guy to take me out on a date, my first love. Allen was so much more than just some boy. We’d been together for 2 ½ years, and one day it was over. The next week he was with Claudia. How could I get over that? It’s not like there was some special medicine you could take that would just cure the pain and hurt and make it all better. I couldn’t just wake up one morning and be all better. Corey didn’t get this. The longest she had ever been with a guy is about 3 months. She’s a casual dater. Once things get boring or get tough, toss, and on to the next guy. One day she’s going to find a guy she really likes and he’s going to break-up with her. But Corey wont understand until then.

So, after her statement, I got out of the car and slammed the door. She can get in a wreck for all I care, not really, but still.

“Come on! Get back in the car! Your house is miles away.”

“My house,” I said, “is 2.3 miles away.”
She didn’t ask how I knew that. Good, because I’d just made it up.
“Leslie…” She let the thought trial off as I gestured her to keep going. “Just so you know, I’m following you home!”
I sighed and got back into her Jeep because I knew she would. She continued to be silent the rest of the ways to my house. “That was more than 2.3 miles, btw.” She smiled, so did I. Her face grew serious quickly, “I just wish you would get over him, maybe you should get away this summer, go visit family.” She suggested.
“I don’t know.” There was no way I was about to go and ask a random family member if I could live with them for the summer. I had to do something to get my mind off of him. It really wasn’t that terrible of an idea when you thought about it, though.
“Just consider it, please.” She smiled then left after I’d made it safely inside my house.

***

I woke up the net morning to the sound of my dog barking. I went down-stairs and saw my Mom making breakfast.
“Hey Honey!” She called out cheerfully. I sat down. “Sleep well?”
“Yep.” I replied. I wasn’t a morning person.
She gave me some breakfast and let me eat a little before turning to me and opening her mouth. “Honey, I’m worried about you.”
“Why would that be Mom?”
“Don’t you get an attitude with me Leslie!” She looked stern, then back to caring. “You just, you don’t appear to be very happy or have much energy.”
“Studying for finals is why I’m not energetic or happy. Do you even know how stressful they are?” It was a pretty good excuse too.
“You are still upset about Allen.”
“No, Mom. He has a girlfriend.”
“Just because he has a girlfriend doesn’t mean you still,” She paused. ‘Are obsessed with him?’ I knew that was what was running through her mind. “You still don’t miss him. Breaking-up is terrible.” Good choice of words, Ma.
Cut the crap, I was going for the straight approach. “Where is this going?”
“Well,” She paused again, this was getting to be a trying conversation with her. “Your Aunt Sadie asked,” She quickly corrected herself, “no insisted, that you come and spend the summer with her.”
“Mom! What did you say?”
“Leslie, please, just consider it. Your Aunt loves seeing you and she lives in South Carolina. It will be warm!” She smiled.
“No.” If I went to South Carolina, I couldn’t monitor (stalk) Allen and Claudia. Just kidding, I don’t stalk… usually.
“Leslie,” My Mom looked stern, “I said consider it.”
“Whatever.” Then I walked off. My mom was such downer. Why did she feel the need to bring up Allen? I will get over him, it just takes time.
My Aunt Sadie was pretty cool, though. She doesn’t have any kids because she was single until she was a bout 40 years old and met my uncle, Mike Tanner. Both are older and have that, ‘I’m old and I’m having that teenage dating experience again’ feel to them. They make me think of those couples you see on eHarmony commercials on TV, except real. Bottom line, I love my Aunt Sadie, but I can’t abandon things here. And it’s my last summer before college at Yale. I should be enjoying it how I choose to.
“Corey,” I said a while late after she answered the phone. “My mom is trying to go and make me spend the summer with my Aunt Sadie.”
“You’re going.”
“What?”
“I said,” She was enunciating every syllable. “You are going.”
“No,” I was flabbergasted by what she was saying, although, after last night’s conversation, I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised. “I’m not.”
“Yes you are. And you should go and re-discuss this with your mom.”
“Wait--”
“I have to go, bye!” Then she hung-up. World’s shortest phone conversation ever. She was acting really strange. I was going to ignore her rude-ness and get on facebook to check out what everybody was doing. Scroll, scroll, nothing at all, all of my friends were boring people. (JK JK! I love you guys!) WAIT! Allen’s post said, Off for the summer! New York here I come! Woo! Allen wasn’t going to be here? And his relationship status said *gasp* single. Allen already left though, his flight was scheduled for two hours ago. Maybe I could re-consider this Aunt Sadie thing, maybe. I mean, lets face it, I was only staying because of Allen, and now that he isn’t going to be here, why should I? This is just some small and boring town in Vermont. There’s nothing exciting here. Aunt Sadie’s might not be so bad.
Aunt Sadie was cool and she might have some hot neighbors. Like the last time I stayed with her, it was great. A hot guy lived a couple of blocks away from her, and we’d been hanging out and I’d completely lost track of time. Needless to say, I got in to late. She didn’t yell or scream or threaten, she just told me she’d been worried and for me to not let it happen again. “It’s summer,” She told me, “You should be able to go out and have fun. You’re a teenager, it only happens once.” I think that made me have a lot more respect for her. She trusted me and she understood. This immediately put her at the top of the relative pyramid. She just doesn’t have that ‘mothering’ instinct. She never had any kids and doesn’t know what it’s like to have them like an actual mother. But, maybe that’s a good thing sometimes.
I don’t know, deciding where I was going to spend my last summer before college was a pretty big decision, I was going to have to sleep on it.





I woke up the next morning from the strangest dream. It was one of those that you think are real, then feel so disappointed when you realize a beat later it isn’t. I went downstairs trying to shake off the funk, with no avail.
“Good morning, Honey!” My mom called out bright and chipper. I still haven’t been able to figure out how she is so cheery this early in the morning. I couldn’t be.
“Hi.” My lifeless response.
“How did you sleep?”
“Fine.” Lie. I had slept terrible. It was dream after dream, and they were all horrible. In fact, they had kept me tossing and turning all night. I finally had gotten up after I awoke from this last one because I simply couldn’t take it anymore.
“Good, good.” She continued to cook for a few more minutes. “So…” She started.
“What?”
“Have you, uh,” She paused, waiting for me to fill it in or something. I don’t think so. She sighed, realizing I was going to be difficult today. “Have you given it any more thought?”
“I don’t know Mom.” I really did feel difficult today. “What exactly do you mean by ‘it’?”
“Leslie.” The stern voice again.
I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, some.”
“So,” She smiled, “What do you think?”
“I’m still heading toward no.”
“Okay, I honestly didn’t think it would come down to this. I thought that you would jump on the chance to spend your summer in a new place with new people and your Aunt.” She sighed and added under her breath, “But you have to choose to be difficult.”
“Yeah,” I stared at her, “I do.”
“Well, you leave me no choice. You either go to your Aunt Sadie’s house or spend summer at that Spanish camp you so utterly detest, take your pick.”
“Spanish Sanctuary?”
“Yes, that camp.”
No! Not the horrid Spanish camp! No! My parents had sent me there during fall break. Spanish was my struggling subject and my mom was talking about putting me in it to help my comprehension level. She had said, before I went the first time (trial version), to help my grades, it didn’t. I detest Spanish that much more now. All day you would lean about Mexico, speak only Spanish, and go through more language classes than you could even begin to imagine. The worst way to ever, ever, spend a summer. It made me forever hate fall break, just think of what it would do to my perception of summer, too. I might as well just go ahead and agree to go to Aunt Sadie’s house, I would’ve anyway. Have a nice summer Vermont, I won’t be around to see it.
“Okay then, I’ll visit Aunt Sadie.”
My mom just smiled and said, “I knew you would come around.”


The author's comments:
This is Chapter one of the story I am writing for my friend for her birthday. There are about 4 Chapters and 20 pages on the computer. Enjoy. :)

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This article has 92 comments.


on Aug. 6 2010 at 8:55 pm
yeah lyrically I love that song but the music doesn't quite do it for me but when I listened to it with my good friends one time in the "party van" that my friend drives I liked it a lot more lmao. And you're doing a remix? My friend does that stuff with hiphop songs how are you going to do it with rock?

on Aug. 6 2010 at 8:25 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Oh good... We would've had a real problem if you didn't, lol. Yeah, their Dark Horse album isn't my favorite... I haven't heard a lot of thier early stuff, but I know most all the songs from the last album (All the Right Reasons, I think...). But, I do love This Afternoon. Speaking of that song, i'm about to go download it... And Hey There Delilah,,, I need it for a remix i'm working on... lol :)

on Aug. 6 2010 at 11:19 am
yes and they are the most disappointing band ever. I love their older stuff like The State and Silver Side up so very very much but their new album Dark Horse was a huge disappointment because half the songs were like bad re-makes of "Animals" and the other half were bad re-makes of the corny sad/love songs. They would be my fav band if they stuck to what they started with

on Aug. 4 2010 at 10:01 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

hmmm... idk... I think i'm gonna go try to listen to some of those on youtube if my computer doesn't freeze.... lol. And it most likely will... But, please, tell me you know nickelback... :)

on Aug. 4 2010 at 9:35 pm
never heard of those bands lol. But avenged sevenfold plays "Bat Country" which was on Madden NFL 06 and all over MTV at the time, "The Beast and the Harlot" was on guitar hero III i think, and recently they play a song called "Afterlife" on the radio and most recently you might hear their single "Nightmare" on the radio.

on Aug. 4 2010 at 9:17 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

I figured that out about a minute and a half after i posted the reply, lol... i knew it sounded familiar... i've heard of them but i can't recall any of their songs... what songs do they sing that i might know? I really like 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship... if that helps your answer. lol

on Jul. 31 2010 at 7:12 pm
my fav band is avenged sevenfold and I drew the deathbat on my binder one day in school and called it avenged jasonfold because of my first name lol

on Jul. 30 2010 at 9:28 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

haha lol... i never knew that... i'm gonna keep this comment going as long as i can. lol... I have been wondering,,, where did you get ur screen name? It sounds strangely familiar, but i can't figure out why. lol... hm.......

on Jul. 30 2010 at 3:47 pm
well idk how the convo gets changed lmao but I do know that these comments boosts your stories' ratings and stuff so don't complain :P

on Jul. 24 2010 at 10:29 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

haha lol... :) But how did we get from my story to 'your mom' jokes? lol.... haha.... this is a really long comment chain. lol :D

on Jul. 23 2010 at 10:30 pm
lmao it sounds like he and I are "that guy"

on Jul. 23 2010 at 10:05 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Oh, don't worry about beating it to death... one of my friends... yeah, he's taken care of that for you. lol ;)

on Jul. 23 2010 at 9:25 pm
My friends and I always tell mom jokes, and then for comebacks they turn into "your face is dead" and i'm in the process of beating that joke to death right now xD

on Jul. 22 2010 at 5:28 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

Oh yeah... ur not alone... at all. You should see my friends. Some guys at school talk about when they play call of duty and some one says 'your mom'. They're always like, 'my mom is dead!" I've never tried it but i would love to. It sounds like it would be hilarious. lol :)

on Jul. 22 2010 at 10:53 am
lmfao I tell mom jokes wayyy too much it's good to see someone else with good taste in cliche comedy :D

on Jul. 21 2010 at 8:02 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

That really is awesome!!! Great minds think alike... maybe more alike than i ever realized. lol. But that really is cool. lol,,, and thanks! :)

on Jul. 21 2010 at 8:01 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

your mom. haha lol jk... But i have no clue who was so stupid. no clue... lol :)

on Jul. 21 2010 at 1:41 pm
shayna101 SILVER, Carlsbad, California
5 articles 0 photos 35 comments
Its amazing how similar we write! Our titles are even close "a summer to die for" and "a summer to remember". And the novel I am currently working on I was going to use the name Corey for one of her friends. We write the same genre as well. You use great detail and it flows very nicely. I love your dialouge too, that is somthing i need to work on. The story deffinitly kept me intrested. Keep writing :)

on Jul. 15 2010 at 6:22 pm
what kind of genius thought that kids would like whiskey-breath freaks with too much make up and odd hairdos?

on Jul. 14 2010 at 11:26 pm
taylorf463 GOLD, Marion, Kentucky
13 articles 0 photos 152 comments

Favorite Quote:
If he'll lie for you, he'll lie to you.

An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories let up to it, it would always had the last word.

When you're 7 and you watch It, it really is creepy. It makes you afraid of all clowns. lol. I never actually watched the whole movie, only about 1/3 of it. lol. I think some one made up clowns b/c they thought kids would like them, but they don't. So who knows? lol :)