Ten Months Earlier

Scarlett

I was bored, it was the same drill every single day. I’d get up in the morning and then clean the hotel and then go to bed. I’d finished high school and the only thing that I had to look forward to was living in my parents’ hotel and cleaning it out every day.

Unlike my friends, who I hardly talked to anymore. They’d all gone off to college, leaving me behind, not that I could blame them for that. I wasn’t exactly the best student, let alone getting straight A’s, most of my grades were in the C range, with the worse being a D and my best subject getting a low B. Not good enough for college, maybe not an Ivy League college, but it was good for something.

I was the plain girl in school who no one ever really saw. Guys didn’t pay attention to me, and I didn’t even get to go to my own Prom.

When am I ever gonna get out of here? I thought to myself with exasperation.

I lived in Beckonsville, this small town that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I’d been born and raised t