• Splat! The paint hit the canvas splashing pink paint all over. Then orange, green, red, blue, yellow, and purple. “Now that,” I said, surveying my masterpiece as I covered the cans and picked up the brushes, “Is pure art.” I looked at my new outfit- white skinny jeans and black sweatshirt rolled up to my sleeves; they were covered in paint. I shrugged. They looked a lot cooler splattered with paint.

    In the bathroom, I washed the brushes as well as my colored face (obviously meaning I had paint on my face, not that I was colored). My strawberry blond hair looked to be streaked with different colors. My arms were barely visible under the paint, so I washed those, too. My emerald green eyes were outlined with brown eyeliner, my eyelashes curled. I tied my hair into a messy bun and went outside to soak in the sun on the last day of summer.

    As it seemed, I was an easy-going girl. I went with the flow, just letting life glide me along. I could handle pretty much any bumps or swerves. It was just how I brought myself up. I loved to paint, mostly because it helped me get out my emotions. At sixteen, I had a lot of emotions. Often my feelings reflected in my paintings. Flicking paint at a canvas meant that I was ticked off, while slow, gentle brushes meant that I needed to relax and slow down because life was moving too fast.

    It was my last day to enjoy, because the next day I was supposed to go back to school. I currently resided in Wyckoff, New Jersey. I was technically a junior, just turned sixteen at the beginning of summer. Clearly, the summer was my favorite time of year. I could do whatever I wanted, and I couldn't get enough of it.

    As I lay down on a beach chair in the middle of my backyard, I wished tomorrow would never come. I wanted anything but to go back to being told what to do and having to do everything that was asked of me. I also had a job at a local ice cream shop starting a week later, at which my mother had made me apply. I didn't want to have to face that, either. Mostly, I just wished I could get stuck in that day forever, that it would always be the day before I had to face the truth, but I never really had to. That would get rid of all my problems.

    “Cheyenne!” My mother screeched in her sunny voice, coming from what sounded like the laundry room, way in the basement of our house. “Phone!” I rolled my eyes. I wanted to get up from that spot about as much as I wanted to go back to school the next day. Peeking around the yard, I noticed that my two older brothers were conveniently missing. They were probably around the corner, waiting for me to move so that they could steal my spot.

    Yet I struggled to push myself up from the chair anyways. Instantly, I realized that it was much too hot outside to be wearing a black sweatshirt and pants, but I didn't care. I hadn't shaved yet that week, so I couldn't show any skin. I dragged myself into the basement to take the phone from my mother. Each step took more strength, courage, and stamina.

    “Who is it?” I breathed. It wasn't that I was out of shape, just tired and lacking sleep. In the summer, I stayed up late and woke up early, so each day I became more weary.

    “Amber,” my mother mouthed, handing me the phone haphazardly. She was on the phone with someone else at the time, no doubt a client. She ran her own food catering business, “Sharon Snack Servers” where their slogan is, “Never have another tasteless snack.” It doesn't make sense to me, but she's not attracting my kind of people.

    “Hey,” I said into the phone.

    “Hi!” my best friend Amber replied, happiness ringing through her voice.

    “Well, somebody's happy,” I noticed, “Did something exciting happen today?”

    Knowing her so well, I knew at that moment she was biting her lip, wavering between telling me or making me figure it out on my own. She gave up; secrets weren't her deal. “I met someone today,” she said.

    “Someone who?” By this point, I was just confused.

    “A famous someone. Three, actually,” she informed me. My eyebrows furrowed. Then I heard some scratchy noises, as if the phone was being taken away from her.

    “The Jonas Brothers!” A new, familiar voice cut in. Then Amber took back the phone.

    “That was Joe. But it really is them! I met the Jonas Brothers! And they're sitting in my living room!” She screamed. My expression fell, but we were on the phone, so she didn't know. “Isn't that so cool?” I knew she was so excited, she was probably bouncing off the walls, but I wasn't.
    “Yeah,” I lied, hiding the disappointment and hurt in my voice. “Totally.”

    “Well, come over! Cuz they're here, and you should meet them too!” She hollered.

    Think, I told myself, think! I needed an excuse. “I, um, can't. I still have to finish my summer reading.” That was the biggest lie ever. If Amber knew me, she knew that I always did everything early.

    “Oh,” she said, the excitement in her voice leaving. “OK. I guess I'll just see you tomorrow then.”

    “Yeah. Bye.” I hung up.


    -----


    There were clearly good reasons why I didn't want to meet the Jonas Brothers. Mostly, I hated their guts, because 1, my tone-deaf dog could sing better than them; 2, their songs were too mushy and happy, and everybody knew that nobody's life was that good; and 3, they were stuck-up greedy jerks who only cared about themselves. To make it worse, they were from Wyckoff, so everybody here was their fan, except me, of course.

    So I returned to my canvas, tacking balloons filled with paint all over it. I threw darts at it with all of my might. Pop! Red paint everywhere. Then yellow, purple, green, blue, orange, and pink. I wasn't in the best mood, as could be told from my painting techniques.

    “Cheyenne!” my brother Ashton called, “PHONE!” He was obviously not feeling very patient. Super irritated was more like it. I put down the darts and hurried to the voice. He handed me the phone.

    “Yo,” I spoke into it.

    “Hello there. This is your phone company,” a familiar voice said. I heard chuckling in the background.

    “Ha ha. Very funny,” I spat, hanging up the phone and throwing it at the colored canvas. It hit it and then fell to the ground. I rushed over and picked it back up.

    Oh, cool, I thought, looking at the phone, which had been turned blue and red. Pretty. I laughed, and then thought of my mom's reaction. She would most likely ground me for a month, and take away my paints, brushes, and canvases. Ouch.

    I lay the phone out in the sun to dry, and then returned to the darts. “I'll miss you,” I said to the canvas, shooting another dart across the air. It fell to the ground before it even hit the canvas; that was how sad I was. I cleaned up all my stuff and went upstairs to put on my pajamas. It was getting late, and I was tired. I deserved a good night's rest for the punishment that would come in the morning.

    “CHEYENNE!” My mother screamed, waking me up instantly from my dreams of getting away with discoloring the phone. Damn it. It seemed so real. I slumped down the stairs with my eyes barely opened, closing every few seconds. Tired was an understatement.

    “YOU GOT PAINT ON THE PHONE!” She whooped. I bet the whole neighborhood could hear her.

    “Yeah,” I said guiltily, with a yawn. There was no point trying to hide it. Nobody else in my family painted.

    “Grounded,” she told me. “One month. No painting. No phone. No nothing. Now go get ready for school.” She was still very angry when she said the last part. I expected her to cheer up, because it was my first day of school. Clearly, she cared about as much as I did.

    I hurried back upstairs to shower, get dressed, and pack my things in my new backpack. I didn't know what to expect, so I threw on a pair of black shorts and a bright green tank top. I put a few notebooks in my bag, grabbed a poptart, threw on some yellow converse, and walked out the door.

    The bus stop was just a little down the street. I was used to the walk by now. I couldn't drive yet; I hadn't even gotten my permit. I'd been too lazy, so I just counted on taking the bus every day in high school. I didn't even stop to think about what I would do when college came.

    I sighed and climbed up the stairs to the bus, sitting next to my friend Breanne. She and I were just bus buddies; we'd hung out a couple of times over the summer, but not much. She was only a sophomore. “What? No permit?” She'd told me a million times that I needed to get it. But I'd only ignored her, because to me it hadn't mattered.

    I shook my head, and she proceeded to talk about all the places she visited over the summer. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a scientist, so they were rich. And she didn't have any siblings, so basically she got everything she wanted. But I didn't like her because she had a lot of money.

    Okay, maybe that was a part of it. But I was fifteen when I met her and I didn't have a job, and she gave me presents for every occasion. Breanne was really nice, though, and a lot of fun to be around. She was funny, too, even though sometimes she could get on my nerves. She tried to tell me what I needed to do to be popular, because she was. “Get your eyebrows done,” or, “Buy one of those things that poofs your hair.” “Get your license, buy a cool car.”
    I didn't really bother trying to be anything I wasn't. And I sure as hell didn't care what other people thought of me. Appearances didn't matter in my world.

    In school, we went our different ways, and I found my new locker. It was right next to Mrs. Finley's room. She hated me, but she was the only AP Pre-Calculus teacher, so I was stuck with her. At least I could go to my locker before her class every day.

    My homeroom was 311, Mr. Kine. I'd never heard of him before, so I slipped in with everyone else and took a random seat. There was a new student standing in the front of the classroom, and I knew as well as anybody who he was.

    “Settle down,” Mr. Kine started, “I'd like to introduce our new student this year, Nick Jonas.” The girls screamed and the guys groaned. I just laughed. “Now, I know this is exciting. But he is here to learn, just like you guys. So please treat him with the respect you treat anyone else with.”

    Surprisingly, no one rushed up to Nick. They actually listened to a teacher! That was an accomplishment. Or maybe they just heard creepy stories about him. “I will personally assign one student to lead you around campus this week,” Mr. Kine continued. He looked at the attendance sheet, because he couldn't have known who we were yet.

    “How about Cheyenne Hale?” I cringed. “Is Cheyenne even here?” He asked. I raised my hand lightly. “Ah. Cheyenne, Nick. Nick, Cheyenne. Cheyenne, please show Nick here where all his classes will be, as well as any of yours in case he needs to find you. I ask that you use your manners, and answer any questions he has. Don't let me down. And you'll be excused from your classes today.”