I suppose you could say that Hayden almost didn't graduate.
Her teachers told her she could have had a 4.0 average.
Her parents told her she could have made the perfect addition to a college campus that September.
Everybody told her she was more than capable of having her name down on the honour roll.
They really should have known better than to waste their breath.
Hayden Gaskarth just wasn't listening.
- - -
"Relax," Devon laughed. "You're making it sound like I'm some kind of drug pusher."
She bit her lip, "I really don't know about this, Dev. I mean, I don't want things to get out of control..."
Devon rolled his eyes.
"Honey, you really need to lighten up," he told her. "Live a little, or something."
She sighed.
At times like these, Devon's words usually did very little to shake the sinking feeling in her stomach.
Still uncertain, she cast a glance to the right where her best friend was standing.
"Are you sure about this, Hayden?"
Concern filled Hanna Roberts' voice, so much so that it almost made Hayden want to smile.
She was eager and willing to match Hayden hit for hit when it was little more than child's play, but as soon as somebody raised the game, Hanna always wanted to skip her turn.
Hayden, on the other hand, barely even hesitated before throwing the dice.
A wicked grin spread across her pretty face.
"Sweetheart, she addressed her friend, the corners of her mouth twitching. "Since when was I ever sure about anything?"
- - -
She hadn't always been a problem child, but by her senior year, Hayden Gaskarth was wild.
Once she had turned seventeen, it seemed like Hayden's personality had flipped a total of one-hundred and eighty degrees.
It had happened practically overnight.
Gone were the straight-leg jeans, and in their place came faded drainpipes that hung dangerously low on her hips.
Gone were the t-shirts embossed with cute and witty slogans, and in their place came leopard print vests, the kind that were strategically ripped in places so as to leave just enough to the imagination.
Gone was the watermelon lip balm that she had always worn, and instead you could no longer catch Hayden without her lips painted cherry red.
For those who had known her the longest, though, it wasn't merely the physicalities that marked Haydens change.
Where there had once been an innocent look in Hayden's eyes, you would now find something entirely different blinking back at you.
Everybody wondered what the new Hayden Gaskarth had done with the sweet little girl they had once known.
Her parents were horrified at the clothes Hayden suddenly began to wear, or rather, at the lack thereof.
"In my day, Hayden Marie, we called those belts rather than skirts. For goodness sake, go upstairs and put some clothes on!"
Her teachers were shocked at the change in Hayden's test scores and at the hard-faced attitude she all of a sudden seemed to have developed in their classrooms.
"Education gives you choices, Miss Gaskarth. If you don't have choices, how are you ever going to make any worthwhile decisions?"
"I've already made a decision, Mr. Ridley," Hayden smirked, sitting back in her chair. "I do prefer my vodka triple distilled."
Her friends didn't understand why Hayden had suddenly stopped talking to them, or why she had stopped answering her phone.
That isn't to say, however, that everybody saw Hayden's transformation as necessarily a bad thing.
There were plenty who had seemed to take a liking to the change.
There were plenty who found themselves having a much more interesting Friday night with Hayden now than they ever would have done before.
There were a few people in particular who seemed to like the new version of Hayden Gaskarth a whole lot better.
She was reckless.
She took chances.
She seemed as though she was up for anything.
All of a sudden hanging out with Hayden meant that something big was bound to happen.
They liked that.
The problem was, those people just happened to make up the very worst kind of crowd that an intelligent, beautiful, seventeen year old girl could fall in with.
This life can turn a good girl bad.
Hayden Gaskarth was the living proof.
she was the sweetest thing that you had ever seen
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