The end of innocence...

Currently

You are so perfect; your blue eyes, your sublime lips purposely designed to kiss a woman in the most secret places. Your hair the color of the sun. Your perfect, symmetrical face. The statuesque body of a lacrosse team captain. I swear, not only your beauty, but your benevolence is what makes all the girls want you.

• Our Nicole! - one of my best friends, Alice came into my room. She had done nothing but stare at me in delight. But my gasping for breath and my flushed face gave away my previous thoughts. I immediately felt uncomfortable, as if someone was spying on my innermost thoughts, or had discovered my dirtiest secret. But we weren't like that, we just weren't. Alice was my best friend, I wouldn't judge myself for falling in love with someone who never even spoke to me.

Alice and Vivian were my two best friends. They were beautiful! Not that I was ugly, but I also didn't think I was ugly enough to catch anyone's attention, especially not the guy I had wanted for more than three years. Luck

I met him one night years ago, when together with Vivian and Alice, we managed to escape from the girls' school. Our school was extremely strict. And it had a very good reputation for this. The school was a real haven for the daughters of famous people and tycoons. Most of us entered it as infants and only left to go to college. It was a real gothic castle full of luxury where every girl could have her own room. Parents paid millions to avoid having to take care of their own children. Since it was an all-girls school, one can imagine that we didn't have much contact with the outside world, except during the summer vacations. But Vivian had her methods for achieving anything, and that's how, at the age of fourteen, we learned to sneak out without alerting anyone about it.

I don't really know how Vivian met Luck, but she never talked much about him. In fact, she didn't seem happy about my recurring questions, her sculpted blond eyebrows were raised, and she had concern in her eyes whenever the subject was him.

" Look Nicole, Luck may not be as nice as you think" She whispered.

" I might want to meet him for myself to find out. - I say shrugging"

That was weeks ago.

Because the day I saw him for the first time I was delighted. He seemed happy, free, uninhibited. He was the total opposite of me. We were dying to see the city and explore the world and Vivian knew about this guy who was having a party in a forest clearing in the city. The guy, obviously, was Luck. The problem lay there, he never looked at me. I remember to this day when I found out about his attraction to Vivian, or to anything that had a hole between its legs. Man, that hurt. To realize that he would never notice me because I wasn't good enough for him.

My thoughts were interrupted by Vivian's annoying voice singing Oops, I did it again along with Britney Spears. She was rubbing gloss on the mirror while humming the ring tone of her cell phone.

*Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

I think I did it again

I made you believe we're more than just friends

Oh baby

It might seem like a crush

But it doesn't mean that I'm serious

'Cause to lose all my senses

That is just so typically me

Oh baby, baby (...)

• God! Jesus, please, Vivian. Just answer the phone! - Alice snatched the phone from Vivian's hand, unlocked the screen, looked at it for a moment, and rested it on her ear, following the monologue. - Ah, yes... We're ready now... OK... We're coming.

• Girls, Matthew is waiting for us downstairs, shall we go?

Matthew was the only man my mother trusted around me. He was a private driver for the security company that Viviam's father owned.

He was a good-looking guy for his age, about forty, and also provided services to my father before he passed away.

We got off and got into the big black SUV.

The conversation flowed freely, I couldn't remember being this excited in ages. This was all new to me, it was a new opportunity. Finally school was over, I would have two more years to go, but my good IQ put me ahead, so that the girls and I would finish school at the same time.

I leaned my head against the back of the car and dreamed of another reality, where maybe I could travel the world, get to know new cultures, choose my own college? I took a deep breath when I remembered that I would not have this freedom. Who was I fooling? I knew very well that I would have to take over the family business, succeed my mother in the company.

It was not what I wanted, it was her choice, but what alternative did I have? Unlike Vivian and Alice's parents. They had a choice, their parents were more normal. Nevertheless, their mother had not appeared in Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the state of NY.

My mother was powerful, owner of a chain of world-renowned jewelry stores. Her parents, my grandparents, not only started but grew the company with much effort. They also say that my great-grandparents were gold miners, and had the great dream of growing into the jewelry manufacturing empire. And so, from a simple idea, a multi-million dollar company emerged, passed down from generation to generation. When my mother came of age, she took over my grandparents' company, tripling the profits with the help of my father, who was a CEO.

What for some was a life of luxury and glamour was for me a real nightmare. In these later years, I was not able to reconnect or build a good relationship with my mother, as she traveled frequently for business and cared little for the daughter left to be raised in a girls' school. Until I was 8 years old, I remember that my parents had me, pretty much like a family of normal millionaires, but when my father became ill, she ended up settling us in New Braunfels, a small town in the far reaches of Texas for medical reasons. Six months later, he died. My mother thought I was too big to have a nanny, so she enrolled me in a boarding school for girls north of town.

It was there that I met Vivian and Alice. Which is honestly the only good part of being left behind by her. They made my days better and happier. My childhood was difficult, I was constantly lonely, I missed my father; he was everything my mother hadn't been: loving, attentive, caring, a good father, even if he wasn't always there. I just wanted to come home, I missed even my mother, even though we didn't have much of a connection. I constantly cried myself to sleep. But as I said, my days were better thanks to my friends. Life got a little better when we moved on to high school. Today I hoped it would get a little better.

• Wow! - Coughing. - What - cough - do you have here? - Coughing.

Alice choked after drinking from the small aluminum canteen that Vivian drank from and passed to her.

• Whiskey. - She smiled as she took the drink from his hand and sipped. - Oh, what is it, Nicole? Don't give me that look, we're going to college. - She made a protesting noise with her throat as she took her own sip of the drink. - Damn, that's strong. - She laughed in that sick voice of hers. - No one will tell your mother! - She gave a generous wink to Matthew, who looked disapprovingly in the rearview mirror. Just a sip! Even Alice drank.

• After nearly choking to death! - she retorted, her voice hoarse, forcing a frown.

• I don't know...

I looked at Matthew, who seemed distracted by the traffic.

• Oh, you know what? - She used the app on her cell phone and turned the stereo up to its last volume, spreading the song Complicated, by Avril Lavigne, throughout the car. - And then? - she raised one eyebrow, as if in defiance.

Well, I could have said no, they wouldn't have pressured me. I could have simply said no, but I was tired of the rules that, even from afar, Madeleine imposed on me.

*Don't go out alone!

Don't drink! Don't smoke!

Stay away from men, they only want one thing!

Preserve your future, you'll be a great CEO when you replace me!

I've worked it all out, Nicole!

Nicole! Nicole!

Nicole! Nicole!

Nicole! Nicole!*

I could almost hear his voice.

But tell me, how can I listen to someone who didn't raise me? Who was not a part of my life? Who abandoned me when I needed it most? All those years alone. When she or her assistant sent simple gifts on commemorative dates. How many birthdays, Christmases, thanksgivings, graduations I spent alone. And I never, never did anything except what she sent me. Today I wish it were the other way around. I repeated internally, like a mantra

"Today will be different."

Alice let out a soft hiccup, looking at me with watery eyes as she held the bottle after her second sip.

• It's okay, honey," she said, gently patting my hand. - You have to feel good, not pressured. - She smiled sweetly.

• I know... - I said in a whisper, more to myself than to them. - But I think I want to. - I said uncertainly.

• I'm just tired of all the rules. I'll never be fearless like Vivian and steal a motorcycle. - I smiled, remembering a hilarious story from a summer we spent at Alice's parents' house. - Or I will be determined like you. - I smile at Alice. - But I wanted to be me, for one day. To do what I really want. That's why I'm going to drink. - I concluded, after all, what could be so bad?

I took the canteen and drank. The hot liquid went down my throat, burning, I coughed a few times and stared at the curious eyes above me. It was then that I sang the last chorus of the song. First alone, then accompanied by them.

We sang in sync, gesturing with our hands, feeling our spirits and emotions at their peak. Then we laughed, reminisced about old times, made plans for the future, aware that, from then on, everything would be different.

I just didn't know if it would be for the better.