She needed to get away from it all. Just for a while at least. Until she could calm down enough to concentrate on her Biology. Julie turned her radio on, anticipating the posh English accent of a BBC correspondant. Instead she heard the voice of a singer.

"Nick- Have you been screwing with the radio stations again?" yelled Julie, up to her brother who was upstairs.

"No, just with Lana. Me and the radio?-- Well we just don’t have the chemistry you know. " joked Nick while thinking about his recent crush Lana

" Not funny.just don’t play with the tuning again."

"Won’t you believe me. I tell you it just doesn’t click as much as I wanna ‘play’ with the radio, she just wouldn’t let me. sob.. sob" Nick replied imitating a drippy soap voice.

"Oh get a life Nick."

Julie went back into her room. She didn’t feel like listening to world news anyway. She needed some fresh air. A walk outside. That sounded good. She hadn’t been out in along time. With final exams and all the tests she’d been having, there just wasn’t any free time for her anymore.

"MOM-", Julie shouted to her mom who was busily cooking in the kitchen.

"Yeah sweetie."

"I’m going outside- for a walk, okay?"

"Go ahead. Just remember dinner’s at seven."

"Yeah, bye"

Julie walked out of her country style home. She looked up at the wooden shingles that were slowly rotting away. Upon further inspection she realized there were a bunch of termites eating away at the wood. I’d better tell Dad, she noted. After her brilliant termite discovery she walked out on to the road and then she stopped.

Where was she supposed to go? Everywhere she went, there were people around. She just wanted to be alone for a while. Maybe the walk wasn’t such a great idea after all. "Oh well", she thought, it’s not like I really feel like going back to Biology. She decided to go into the woody area near her house. As she walked further in, she began to smell the foul stench of cigarettes.

"Now who would be stupid enough to light up in the middle..." she thought out loud.

To her surprise she saw a boy who looked like an eighth or ninth grader, taking deep drags out of a cigarette and coughing.

"Do you know that you could start a forest fire if you dropped that cigarette in the right place?" she questioned.

"I’m not stupid. I know it’s possible, but you’re overreacting, and I’m not dumb enough to drop the cigarette. Leave me alone." he reacted.

"Well apparently you are pretty stupid because of the fact that you are smoking and you’re way too young."

"It’s not like it matters. No-one cares" he replied

"I do," she calmly stated

"Huh? I don’t even know you. Why do you care if someone like me is smoking." he replied, stunned.

"Because I know you’re not smoking because you want to, and when someone does something they don’t want to, I care."

Suddenly, he screamed, stunning Julie.

"I said- LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Okay, have it your way. Just don’t stay here and mess up my lungs too"

He ran away, leaving Julie confused. She wished people like that would get a life. But maybe there's was some concrete reason for him to do what he was doing. She just couldn't see how making life worse would help in anyway. She looked back at him and saw his long blond tresses flying through the air. He was too far ahead to catch up with him. And she didn’t have anything to say to him anyway.

She didn’t understand people anymore. Everything was different. She realized she was living in an artificial world. Her parents had always shied her away from knowing the real truths about people, knowing troubles they faced. They had taught her that the world was perfect. But as she grew up, her parents couldn’t hide it away from her anymore. Nothing could be perfect. Not her life, nor anyone else’s.

She entered her house sullen and depressed.

"What’s wrong sweetie. Everything okay?" her Mom inquired.

"Yeah everything’s perfect."

In reality, everything was wrong. She had too many emotions built up inside her. But she couldn’t let them out because she simply had no one to tell.