Hi. My name is Rochelle Teats. I am seventeen years old and I am originally from Beirut, Lebanon. I am the daughter of a car sales man. My mother is a great chef. I’ve never really been out with any boy in my life. I can only fall asleep and dream about that.
I was always considered a geek at school and never really got noticed or looked at by any boys. Until one day, when I was taking a shower at night time. I had no idea that I had forgotten to close the window, it was the most humiliating moment of adolescence I ever faced. There was a boy standing right outside the open window staring at me the whole time as I took my shower. He started laughing uncontrollably right outside my house. That’s when it suddenly clicked to me that I had forgotten to close the window.
A couple of days after, I saw the same boy outside my school. I was only fifteen at the time and the boy turned out to be nineteen. He called me a pretty butterfly. We soon became the best of friends and up to now we are still good friends. In a way we both kind of have great interest in each other but we don’t know whether to start a relationship or not. I guess we are both afraid we might eventually get hurt.
The reason I decided to join the online escape cyber club is because I hope to make new friends that can give me some tips and advice on young men. I don’t want to start a relationship with a man and be at a loss because I am so terribly naive.
Rochelle let out a heavy sigh as she continued to fill out a little more information about herself on her profile page. She knew there were certain aspects of her characteristics that she was unwilling to state on her profile page. Yes, she had been a geek but no ordinary geek.
Rochelle thought back to the time when she was only fifteen. She used to drink vodka with orange juice after school with her fellow geeky friends. It seemed a bit lame at the time, but her and her friends just did it for fun. Rochelle was already a bit tipsy on the night she had left the window open whiles showering. Her parents had clearly not been around that night but busy at a dinner party.
In her tipsy state she had left the window open whiles having a shower. A boy she knew in the neighborhood by the name of Shane, was standing right outside her house half drunk and laughing uncontrollably. Rochelle did get quite upset when she realized Shane could see her completely nude in the shower. She grabbed a towel and glared angrily at Shane who was still in fits of laughter.
“You buffoon! How dare you stand there and gaze at me in the shower. Don’t even try coming near me or else I will report you to the police!” Rochelle cried out feeling quite traumatized as to the incident that had just occurred. No young man had ever seen her with barely any clothes on before. It was so upsetting for Rochelle. She watched as Shane squashed the empty Beer can he was holding in anger.
“You are not reporting me to anyone! I know all about your after school drinking habits. You are no angel. We are going to behave like matured adults and act as if this never happened!” Shane yelled out in a threatening manner. Rochelle felt even more angered and helpless. Shane was telling her she was to blame for the whole incident.
“I hate you!” Rochelle cried out bitterly to Shane. She knew she never wanted to see him again.
The next morning Shane followed her like a lost kitten to her school. He demanded they became friends in order to get past the embarrassing incident that had occurred.
“I like you and I don’t want you to have any ill feelings against me. I want us to get past what happened last night,” Shane had insisted whiles offering Rochelle his right hand for a handshake. Rochelle reluctantly shook Shane’s hand as a sign of truce.
A couple of months went by and Rochelle and Shane became the best of friends. Shane took Rochelle shopping and spoilt her rotten by getting her all the latest fashionable accessories a girl could ever dream of. He gave her extra allowance for school, which was highly unexpected from a neighbor that was just a goldsmith’s apprentice.
Shane even did some of her school assignments for her when she was busy getting drunk with her friends. It was such a bad habit, Shane wondered when Rochelle would discontinue her drinking routine with her friends.
On Rochelle’s sixteenth birthday on a warm summer’s day, Shane walked Rochelle to a garden at a local park. He told her as to how he had quit drinking and of ailments such as permanent liver damage, heart disease and hypertension that came with excessive drinking. Rochelle laughed at Shane’s evaluation of her drinking habit and told him to consider getting an occupation as a health nutritionist. The only way she would think through what he said was if he agreed to go clubbing with her and her friends – perhaps he would realize the fun of drinking and socializing.
Their main motto was to live today, die tomorrow. Shane was very disheartened as to the motto of life Rochelle had mentioned to him. He thought carefully as to her drinking rituals and agreed to go clubbing with her and her friends. Hopefully he would succeed in changing her mind. Maybe one day she would abide by a different motto. Shane’s current motto in life, was to live life to its fullest and not to live short.
It was Friday night at last and the club was packed with so many students. One of Rochelle’s friends walked towards Rochelle to wish her a happy birthday. So many gifts had been brought to Rochelle at the club but the most terrifying gift was one brought by a DJ friend of Rochelle’s. He was holding her gift in a small bottle. It was a bottle of ecstasy pills.
Shane was a bit unsure as to what was actually containing the bottle and sat back in the club drinking lemonade.
A popular club beat begun to play and Rochelle and her friends rushed to the dance floor to jump to the beat. As they did so Rochelle popped one of the pills from her bottled gift into her mouth and sucked on it for a short while. She then opened her mouth with the pill still clearly on her tongue and placed it into another one of her friends’ mouth. This pass on the pill procedure continued amongst five other friends of Rochelle’s.
Shane watched quietly as Rochelle jumped about with her friends. He was quite disgusted as to Rochelle’s behavior in the sharing of one pill with about five different friends. It suddenly dawned on him that the pill that Rochelle and her friends were sharing was no ordinary pill. He quickly got up from his seat in the club and rushed to Rochelle to find out what exactly she was consuming at the club.
By the time Shane had reached Rochelle she was on the brink of putting another pill in her mouth. Shane grabbed the bottled gift from Rochelle and grabbed her from the dance floor. He was not going to allow Rochelle to continue her pass on the pill game. He quickly carried Rochelle out of the wild club. Rochelle’s friends begun to jeer behind him.
They finally got outside the club – Rochelle had already started yelling at Shane angrily.
“How dare you! I can’t even celebrate my birthday with my friends? I didn’t even have one drink, please stop being such a grandfather!” Rochelle pleaded. Shane pretended as if he had not heard what Rochelle had said and continued to carry her towards her home which was clearly not far from the club.
“I care about you. I wanted you to quit drinking so much, that is all. You are too young to be drinking anyway but becoming a drug addict is going off board!” Shane yelled back at Rochelle.
“I’m not a drug addict. My friends and I were just trying to have a little fun. What we were doing is not an addiction,” Rochelle said trying to sound as convincing as possible. Shane grunted and continued to carry Rochelle towards her home.
“I am going to tell your parents about this. Any caring neighbor would do the same thing,” Shane said imperatively. Rochelle suddenly burst into tears, trembling uncontrollably.
“Please don’t tell my parents. Please Shane, I beg you!”
Rochelle pleaded again for the second time.
Shane suddenly felt a pinch of sadness and placed Rochelle back on the ground. He already felt exhausted from carrying the obnoxious teen.
“I am throwing this bottle of harmful drugs away. You are not to converse with the man that gave these to you again, otherwise I will report this incident to your parents. I can’t carry on watching a beautiful girl destroy herself this way,” Shane cried out suddenly in despair. Rochelle found herself bursting into more tears and gave Shane a huge hug.
“It’s okay. I now know what a caring person you are. I won’t do that again,” Rochelle said apologetically to Shane. Shane quietly accepted Rochelle’s apology and disappeared from her life for almost a year.
Rochelle shook her long hair back and decided not to think as to how she got hooked on ecstasy. Instead she focused on getting the help that she hoped she could attain from the online escape cyber club. She decided to flick through other members profile pages out of curiosity, to find out whether they had similar life stories she could relate to. She suddenly came across one member’s profile that seemed quite emotional. Rochelle suddenly felt intrigued as to the story one member had noted down. Her name was Tanya.