1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Billings Rev 2

Name: Chelsea Billings
Title: LOST IN TRANSITION
Age/Genre: YA Contemporary

Pitch:


When Vanessa Montgomery is abruptly dropped by her best friend, who also encourages the rest of their peer group to exclude her, Vanessa feels her life spinning out of control. Paralyzed by anxiety, she turns to restrictive eating. Then, just before she’s lost herself completely, she transfers to a new high school to start over.

Vanessa wants to forget what happened at Green Valley. And more than that, she wants to convince everyone around her that she’s “fine”- most of all, herself. But her past still haunts her. She needs to remember the traumatic events she’s repressed and come to terms with her experience in order to move on. But if the truth about what happened last year stays buried underneath the layers of self-protection that are preventing her from ever trusting anyone again, Vanessa risks distancing herself from her peers at her new school too, and spending the rest of high school as an outsider.

My intent is for Lost in Transition to educate today’s youth on the silent epidemics of anxiety and social/emotional bullying in our society via a fictional character that young adults will strongly identify with.

Revision:

Chapter 1
June- Summer after Freshman Year
Waiting for Bus to Camp

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” I know she’s asking because of everything that happened last year. I really wish she’d stop. I wish everyone would stop. I don’t know how many times I have to tell them I’m fine.

I give Mom a hug good-bye and close the car door. About a dozen other kids have gathered in the parking lot to wait for the bus, and they’re huddled in groups a few yards away. I smile and wave at a few, but take a spot by myself on a nearby bench. Of course, as soon as I sit down, I can’t help but worry that they’re talking about me, and thinking about what a loser I am for sitting here alone. I take a deep breath and tell myself to stop being such a freak. No one’s talking about you, Vanessa, I say to myself. Those days are over. Everything is okay now.

A low, thin layer of fog hangs overhead, and the air is misty: typical weather for a northwest Washington morning, even in the summertime. It’s not particularly cold outside, but I still can’t help but shiver. That’s one of the side effects of being underweight: I’m constantly cold. I take a deep breath and look around, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the window. The girl I see is perfectly normal-looking, with long blonde hair that reaches almost to her waist. I wish I were as confident as she looks.

A white charter bus pulls in just a few feet away from the Starbucks across the parking lot. I momentarily daydream about a Starbucks scone, but don’t consider getting one. It’s safer that way. I know that sounds crazy. How could a scone be unsafe? But eating one would make me feel “off”, because it would be against my rules.

A girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a woven purse slung over her shoulder, who looks to be about my age and has a breakfast burrito in her hand, comes out of Safeway and sees me. “Hey, are you here for leadership camp?” she asks. I nod and give her a friendly smile, feeling a wave of relief.

“Me, too,” she says, smiling back. “I’m Rochelle.” She puts out her hand.

I am struck by this gesture. I probably extended my hand to a dozen people during my first few weeks at Green Valley, only to be met with stares, the kind that read, we don’t shake hands in high school. That’s for, like, making business deals or something. At Green Valley I always got the feeling that you were already supposed to know who people were before you actually met them. Then when you had a conversation with them, you were supposed to know the right things to talk about, and you were supposed to talk about them using some kind of secret language. I was apparently absent the day they taught this language. I don’t care about that anymore, though. But Rochelle shaking my hand and introducing herself is still a refreshing change.

“I’m Vanessa,” I say, shaking her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” she responds. Another noteworthy pleasantry.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“It looks like they’re loading the bus.” She points across the parking lot to where kids have started to form a line in front of the charter bus I saw a few minutes ago. We make our way across the parking lot. As we board the bus, we are given nametags. They’re the stick-on kind that say “Hello, my name is…”

As we get on the bus, I think briefly about how Old Me (that’s me Before Transferring Schools) would have thrived on this kind of adventure. Old Me was the class president, and loved to be in front of crowds and give speeches and plan dances and do random things without caring what anyone else thought. Old Me also seized any opportunity to make new friends, and came away from any summer camp situation with a list of phone numbers and screen names of people to keep in touch with throughout the school year. That’s who I used to be, and I want to be that person again.

I purposely make sure Rochelle boards in front of me, hoping that she will invite me to sit with her. Inside the bus, the windows are tinted, and the seats are covered with a navy blue velvety material. Rochelle chooses a seat by the window and puts her bag on the floor, which I’m pretty sure is an indication that she expects me to sit in the seat next to her. I briefly second-guess this, but make myself sit down anyway. She seems to think this is perfectly normal, proceeding to unwrap her burrito and comment on the nice interior of the bus. I feel another flood of relief.

I wasn’t always like this. I used to have someone to sit with, a place where I belonged. I never used to over-analyze these kinds of situations, like some kind of pathetic social outcast. It’s interesting how when you have someone to sit with, or stand with, or eat lunch with, you don’t give it a second’s thought, but when you don’t have anyone to do those things with, it’s all you can think about. It also feels like everyone in whatever situation you are in is watching you, and knows you don’t have anyone to hang out with, and is thinking about what a loser you are and wondering what might possibly be wrong with you.

“That burrito looks delicious,” I say, gazing longingly at the mouth-watering mixture of scrambled egg, bacon, and potatoes Rochelle is holding in her hands.

“It is,” she replies. “I’m usually not much of a breakfast person, but it looked good, so I decided to grab it. Are you hungry? I have some snacks in my bag.”

“No, I’m good,” I answer quickly. “Thanks, though.”

“Okay,” she says. “Let me know if you want some.”

“Cool, thanks,” I respond, knowing full well that I won’t be asking for any snacks. I ate breakfast at home, and I won’t be eating again until lunch, no matter how hungry I might get in the meantime.

A girl sitting in front of us passes back a black Sharpie for us to write our names on our nametags. I give her a friendly smile as I take it, noting that now that I have someone to sit with, I feel a thousand times more confident than I did just a few minutes ago. I write my name, “Vanessa”, and draw a small butterfly underneath. This makes me think of Dean, and how just a few days ago I wore my butterfly necklace over to his house, feeling all symbolic. I thought our relationship was going to be like a butterfly: it started as a friendship, and I thought it would grow into something more, just like a butterfly starts as a caterpillar and morphs into a butterfly. All the signs were there. How could I have been so wrong?

Rochelle glances over and notices my nametag. “Ooh, I like the butterfly,” she says.

“Thanks,” I respond, and then decide to explain. “My name actually means ‘butterfly’,” I begin.