Dear Diary, I am scribbling this to you in tears. This summer has been awful. The weather, the brainwashing rap songs, the sickening grilled hotdog incident at the Fourth of July barbecue...I will recount the events. While vacationing in LA with my family and my friend, Veronica, we made the acquaintance of two other tourists, Chloe and Brunswick. They were visiting his parents’ estate. Although neither could have been a day over twenty, the two had drastic adult issues. They drank excessively and frequently to dissolve these obstacles.

“My uncle offered me the CEO position of his acclaimed stock company,” Brunswick boasted one day, counting the money in his wallet meticulously. “Once he retires.”

“He’s only in his forties,” Veronica countered.

“He seems to have found an extra outlet for money. Uncle said with my résumé of graduating early top 10% at NYU, my part-time stockbroker internship, and my IQ of 125, I’m next in line,” Brunswick acknowledged. “Sounds much better than that half-baked idea of working for that French stock agency. And it pays a lot more. I’m ecstatic to have beaten my cousin for the position, even if I had to pull a few hidden strings. I just have to help Uncle with managing his money from his new source for a bit.” I was impressed—he was no dumb blonde.
Last night, the four of us collapsed onto Brunswick’s ruby convertible, hunting for a massive party. Said party contained a bounty of sodium-saturated fried chicken, bittersweet shrimp cocktail and airy sushi at the decorative buffet. Songs of joy à la “Two Tickets to Paradise” and “Pon de Replay” trickled onto the stereo system. Chlorine levitated from the shimmering swimming pool, as a group of partygoers dressed as Mohawks recreated the Boston Tea Party. A stranger approached Brunswick, rather sullenly.
“You sold out. You betrayed me. Why are you here?”
“Jersey, buddy, I can explain! Oh, these are my friends...” He could not finish that sentence. Soon the two were engaged in exhausting mortal combat. Veronica and I were appalled. I thought they were friends; that Brunswick had not burned any bridges. Chloe did look as if she had expected this, as if she had witnessed this many times before. I should have known then. They fought brutally, the moans of struggle evident. The crowd gathered and applauded the show, toasting their glasses, setting off firecrackers; all for a show they believed was faux. The ordeal ended with Jersey knocking Brunswick into the shallow end of the pool, producing a distinct splash, (soaking my head and causing a kid in trunks near the pool to slip, then plop into a lawn chair), and creating a vivid sprinkle of B Positive. Just minutes ago, I arrived at the local hospital with Chloe and Veronica.
We were lumped defensively on a pleather periwinkle sofa, stained with Crayolas, the cafeteria’s excuse for food, and inkings. One lone lamp, slathered in drab emerald and gray tones, moped and flickered simultaneously. Elevator music warbled on via the speakers behind us, dragging on forever like time itself. I think I caught a runaway patient in a hospital gown, fleeing the institution—who would blame her? The gowns do not tie in the back—but it could have been my imagination running away with me. As we visited Brunswick, Chloe seemed beyond tears.


“You’re my best friend. You have to wake up! What about your ambitions? I still need to learn so much more from you! I should have stopped you from—” This was all she could choke out. Veronica and I left her to her devices, which is why I am sitting here now. I can hear snippets of words from her, but only silence from him. He cannot hear her, yet if he could, he would comprehend her perfectly. I borrow a Post-It from Veronica and etch a quick note of sorrow to Chloe. I am leaving Los Angeles tomorrow, and I know I will never again collide with either; Brunswick for self-explanatory reasons; Chloe because she will be off to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in the fall, followed by a move to Australia.

Veronica nudges me, and says it is time to meet my family for dinner. I have to cease my writing to you, Diary, for now. I know precisely what occurred, and I do not want to know. They swept Veronica and me into their world of rogue actions for mere days, yet they stormed into my life forever. Always, Jennifer