BARRIERS OF A FIRST LOVE
Chapter One
September 2, 2003
Jack Dawson looked up at the nondescript
building of the high school and sighed. It was just like a million other high
schools all over the world. It had the same boring bricks, the same staircase
leading up to the main entrance that the in crowd sprawled on for the better
half of their high school experience.
And the people would all be exactly the same,
too. The guys would be friends with him because he used the salon hair gel and
was good at sports. The girls would like him because yesterday his mom had bought
him a complete wardrobe from the Gap. And they would all be strongly
disappointed by the time they really got to know him.
He hated jocks and he hated cheerleaders
because the stereotypes were all true. He was nice to them, but he refused to
really ever get along. So they would single him out; keep him out of all their
exclusive cliques. And they wouldn’t even think twice about it.
He would then be expected to find a group
that suited him better, whether it was the drama club, the debate team, the Goths,
the ballerinas, whatever. But he couldn’t. Or at least he never had, anyway.
All the groups stuck their noses in the air at all the other groups when they
all pretty much envied each other. They all thought that they were specially
unique when really they conformed to be in the group. And no matter which group
you chose, you would always be on the outside looking in.
How did he know all this? Because he had been
to school after school.
His parents had gotten divorced when he was
fifteen and--without any legal terms--his dad had gotten full custody. His
parents had just decided that it would be better for him that way.
His dad, Patrick Dawson, designed a popular
brand of travel brochures and books, a job that took him to far-off corners of
the world every couple of months or so. When Jack was put in his care, he went
right along with him.
And now, for his senior year of high school,
his dad was staying in an exotic jungle in Africa for two years for his biggest
project to date. After contacting Angela, Jack’s mom, it was decided that Jack
would live with her until it was time for him to go off to college.
He had arrived in LA last week.
Before the divorce, Jack had had a good life
in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. But all the happy memories had gotten to his mom
a year ago, and she had moved to California to be closer to her parents.
So now Jack was in a new place that didn’t
want him.