And Then What ?

Clothes were strewn about the whole room,a half empty suite case laid open on the floor revealing carelessly folded female clothings.

Laura Halliday zipped up the suitcase and groaned, it was really difficult to pack ,you know.

She raked her fingers through her roughly matted hair and sighed feeling the grease with her fingers. It wasn't easy being concious about your looks when you spent a whole summer depressed and alone in a town like Cornell but thank God she was leaving today . One more day and she was sure she was going to have a nervous breakdown.

Looking at her mirror she realized her red hair was in desperate need of a haircut. The roots were already dull and also greasy from infrequent washing.

Her grandmother , granny Osborne wasn't around so she closed the door and left ,she'll have locked the door if she were at Clovis but here in Cornell a suburb town in Georgia, they didn't lock doors which was stupid to Laura.

What if a crazy lunatic heard of it and decided to go on a killing spree?

At Dessie's Touch Laura decided to try something different with her hair, yunno , change from being a red head to something erm...normal like being a brunette or a blond .

Her hair stylist, a petite lady who bore Kim on her name tag did a great job on her head transforming it from red to brunette with auburn highlights which she was grateful for ,anything but red appealed to her at the moment.It must have been over 30 degrees in Cornell and unpleasantly hot , as Laura approached the front porch of granny Osborne's victorian bungalow, the smell of fresh blueberry muffins wafted through the air...her favourite for all times.

" Those smell lovely" Laura beamed, revealing a set of white perfect teeth.

"They are. Take one , not more than that , hear me? They're for Paula, she's been feeling poorly lately" Granny Osborne said ,busy with her baking and hadn't stopped to look at her granddaughter yet.

" Nice haircut. I'm glad I didn't have to force you to do it" She laughed ,her gray curls bouncing with her.

"And yeah... your mom called, she wanted to speak with you but I told her you were out. She called your phone but it wasn't going through " she said clearing her voice.

Why would her mom call? She was supposed to pick her up, or maybe her dad was going to come in place of her. Laura laughed at herself...her father was never available on Wednesdays , and all the Halliday's knew that .

The telephone rang.

"Hey mom"Laura said flatly

"Sweetie, how've you been?" her mom asked feebly .

"Waiting for you . That's how I'm doing. You called for?"Laura asked dryly. No use beating around.

"Laura honey...I'm sorry but you wouldn't be coming back to Clovis. Things are worse than we estimated and it's better you stay at Cornell, away from it all . I hope you understand it wasn't easy to come to this decision?"

" Bye mom" She hung up.

She couldn't explain what felt worse- the way her hopes were dashed at the nick of time or the feeling that she was going to be in Cornell for a really long time.Or the realization that she was going to spend the whole school year in Cornell with no one to blame but herself and maybe Greg.

She'd come to Cornell for a quick get away trip from Clovis following a sex scandal ....her sex tape leaking. Laura had found out about it through Janelle, her best friend . When she asked Greg,her stupid boyfriend ,how the tape got out he'd shrugged and muttered " Probably my buddies".

His buddies? That was all ? No apology , no regrets no " sorry babe, don't worry it's going to be alright ".

Yet this was someone she loved .... someone she trusted . The whole tape was his damn idea to begin with .

While everyone was hailing him and calling him Adonis and hyping up his sexual prowess , she on the other hand was the " red head slut", " the Irish missionary" and she wasn't even Irish she only happened to have red hair .

The only thing about the whole scandal that seemed to upset Greg was that he was grounded the whole summer and his folks planned on sending him to a millitary school .

They hadn't spoken since and she wasn't planning on doing so ever again .

Her parents, Eleanor and John Halliday , God bless their souls had been angels . Though she could sense their disappointments ,they didn't rub it in her face but they'd suggested trips and summer camp but Laura didn't want to be around people , she wanted to be alone and that was when the idea of staying with her maternal grandmother in Cornell popped up.

Laura was already missing Clovis , funny how she missed working at " Zed's Diner ", she missed cheerleading, sneaking out of the house for parties, imitating Mr Hallow, her physics teacher , her parents and her younger brother, Rick and also Janelle . . .the thought of Janelle brought tears to her eyes. Janelle was irreplaceable to her but they hadn't been in contact since Laura arrived at Cornell . Laura wasn't ready to speak with Janelle too who would baby her so much that she was probably going to cry , besides Janelle's mother was really strict and had stopped Janelle from hanging out with her.

At times she wondered if Greg loved her at all, all those times when they'd sat for hours in his room just talking and making out, laughing and imagining a future. . . now there wasn't any future it was just Laura stuck in Cornell . At times she wished she'd listened to Janelle who was always pessimistic about anything love related because her parents were divorced but then Janelle wasn't someone she listened to. In that department she was anti relationship. Well, that was that .