The Beginning

I never said I was a good kid. I don't think I make right choices, and I think that makes me who I am.

The summer of 12th grade was what really pushed this thought deeper in my mind. I had cheated on my girlfriend, Laura, and I didn't feel guilty. I don't even know why I did it in the first place.

i really truly loved laura since i was 14. it wasnt a quick fuck kind of thing, it was one of those true, meaningful kind of relationships. i didn't think it would end with me fucking another girl and laura finding out, because i never thought of myself as that kind of person. i thought laura would be my only one until we went to college. that was totally wrong.

to begin, ill start off. a week after we left school for summer vacation, my friends and I, former 11th graders, decided before senior year, we were going to rent a beach house out in long beach, california. we had all worked our asses off that year to get the money for this big, comfortable house right on the shoreline. our parents made it clear that since we were al 18, and that if we we're going to gain any trust from them (really, they just meant 'pay for this and we'll give you whatever you need when you get older'), we would have to pay for this house ourselves. since it was a 5 week rental, and costed $3,000 a week, the money was somewhat hard to raise.

my friend keith worked at a burger joint for 12 weeks until they fired him for using the storage room as a place for katherine and him to screw.
jared and kept their job at Osaka, a japanese restraunt, until the end of the year. the pay was fucking awesome, and they really helped out with the house.
luke and lillie worked at mama's house of pizza, a guido pizzzeria that really just served cheese and grease on a plate.
some of the other girls coming with us (Polly and Sarah) worked at the local mall, milling around and helping who ever needed assistance.

my calling was with laura, at the "half hour photo". i worked where the locals called the 'fucking-never-get-my-photos-back' store, since the photo devolping machine rarely worked. most of the time me and laura stayed in the back room with each other and occasionly glanced at the video monitor to see if anyone was at the desk.

the day we were schedualed to fly to california from LaGuardia was a bust, because something happened where we couldn't take off for a long time, and in some odd occurance, they switched us to JFK instead, which costed us even more money.

All of us together added up to the following:
5 guys (me, jared, keith, luke, mike)
5 girls (katherine, lillie, polly, sarah, laura)

Then, polly got sick, leaving us with the following numbers:
5 guys (me, jared, keith, luke, mike)
4 girls (katherine, lillie, sarah, laura)

Polly still gave in the money because she felt bad for having to back out at the last minute, and her dad promised for senior year, a trip to europe with all of us would be on him. a definite plus for polly.

sitting in JFK, all of us kind of just sat there, looking at each other.

"what the hell are we going to do for 5 weeks?" sarah asked.

"ill be real fucking busy. ill fuck half the girls there by the time we're gone." keith remarked.

katherine hit him, and keith smirked.

technically, they were a couple. katherine and keith, on and off together, but a couple. jared and sarah had been going out since 10th grade, luke and lillie were a casual couple, but intimate. mike was single, but he had no worries. he didn't have any trouble getting a girl.

finally, our flight number was called.

and long beach was within our grasp.