Being grounded isn’t fun: being a prisoner in your own home, having nothing to do, and if you’re me, enduring 72 hours of “Why aren’t you like your older brother!” speeches.  Luckily for my ‘goody two-shoes’ self, I’ve only had to go through this once, and it was not worth it.

It’s a fall day, and my friend Paris and I had just finished decorating a Christmas tree my mother thought was a brilliant idea to put up in November. Paris and I are both hobbits compared to the dragon of that Christmas tree so being exhausted was an understatement as we finished. Paris sat down on the squeaky computer chair catching her breath while I screamed at my brother, “This would have been easier if my tall brother would have helped!” “Screw you!” To which he replied.

Paris noticed my tense expression and had the most idiotic plan to cheer me up. She came over, sat me down on the chair and explained, “What if we went over to Mikee’s house?”

Now, I had a mega huge crush on this guy while Paris had a thing for his friend Vakeem so it seemed like a perfect plan, right? Or so I thought. I texted both on Facebook, discovered they were both at Mikee’s house, told them both we were coming, and we were on our way.

This is stupid! Turn around! This isn’t worth it! I have a bad feeling about this! Something will go wrong! I thought the whole time but it was too late as the sounds of Paris knocking the dove coloured door brought me back. The moment the door swung open, Vakeem ran out to Paris while Mikee stepped his way out. Instantly Paris and Vakeem began making me nauseous with the cutesy, coupley, crap so I directed my attention to Mikee.

“So… How’s your day?”

He shoves his hands in his pocket, “It’s fine…”

“That’s good…”, That basically the represents the overall quality of conversation.

The awkwardness between us makes me cringe and I couldn’t focus. His dark eyes mesmerized me and his deep voice was all I could think about while my words ran out. Apparently, this went on for too long as he began looking around until he stopped and asked, “Where did Vakeem and Paris go?”

Just then my heart stopped. For many of you who don’t know, my friends and I have a rule, never leave me unattended. It’s stupid, but I have mazeophobia and because I’m an introvert who never sees the light of day, I need my friends. I started freaking out and running around the apartments, nothing. I ran to the library, the school, Paris’ house, nothing. I check restaurants, markets, and anywhere Paris could get her hands-on food, nothing. You’d think someone was tall as Vakeem was easy to find, but nope, it was like the hardest ‘Where’s Waldo’ game to be created.

Mikee was nice enough to look for them too while trying to calm me down with the whole “it’s fine” and “there’s nothing to worry about” words of encouragement, but I was having none of that and let out a variety of angry grunts in response. Panicked is my only emotion now and as I finally burned out, I made my way home.

You’re a bad friend! Paris is going to hate you! She’ll never forgive me! Why did I go along with this plan? How am I resisting the urge to fan girl over my crush right now??

Thoughts ran around my head with an anxiety powered engine corrupted my mind while hearing the mucky steps I took toward my apartment building. As I turned the corner to the building I saw Paris, Vakeem and our friend Majid pop out of nowhere running in my direction.

I was realized and shocked and before I could even utter a word, Paris beats me to it.

“Ash, I’m sorry!” She says in fear.

“Sorry for what? Where were yo- “

“I told your mom you were lost and now she’s pissed!” Paris tells me in a fast pace.

Words said after that turned into background noise as I began panicking more on how I’d explain this to my mom. She is the queen of stubbornness and “It’s for your own goods” so I know this will be the death of me. Mikee, Vakeem, and Majid made a silent escape while Paris and I made our way to my house.

My cold hands were intertwined with her shaky ones, trying to calm me down more. It didn’t help, and as we knocked, we were trapped. Immediately we got screamed at by my mother, and like idiots we made up a lie about playing hide-and-go-seek.

Of course, my mother didn’t buy it because she looked through my Facebook and found our chats. When Paris left, mom grounded me for the rest of the month (which was only a couple of days).

The aftermath of that experience was 5 days worth of apologizing, hours worth of reading, and constantly being yelled at. In retrospect, I could have called Vakeem using Mikee’s phone but I couldn’t come up with a plan during my ‘Panic! Around the City’ self. No near-death experience could compare to the heart attack Paris gave me that day. To this day, I’m still grumpy about the whole thing.

 

I nailed the voice and humour of this narrative but I need to stop changing from present to past tense! Next time I’ll try not to confuse anyone with it.