A Place in This World

By Emmy Grace

Strong and willful, born into the peak of the social ladder in Birmingham, Alabama, Zoe Von Buexhoveden has always had everything she thought she wanted. Until she was involved in a drunken driving accident, and does not realize that more was involved than alcohol, and more people were to blame than herself. She still thought she had the perfect life, when a small slip of the tongue turns everything upside down and sends her on a wild chase for the truth. Winding her way through lies all around her, and interwoven with the stories of six Alabama teenagers through her tinted lens, Zoe steadily grows to know the true meaning of life and honesty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469158716

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

FRAULEIN EMIRA, THE Von Buxhoevedens’ live-in maid, served Zoë an appetizer of caviar and sparkling cider. Zoë nodded to her in a gesture as if to say thank you. Vater, you cannot be serious! We had this yesterday or maybe the day before, but twice in two days isn’t happening!

Oh, honey, I’m so sorry your palate doesn’t approve, but your mother vanted dis, and many people vould love to have appetizers like dis! her father replied in his tone only reserved for her. Marta, standing in the doorway of the dining room, laughed at Zoë and flipped her platinum-blond hair. When her father turned to look at her, he just smiled. Zoë scoffed and glared at the two.

Like you’re any better, I saw you give it a look too. Just because you play that stupid game of good girl, perfect girl, doesn’t mean I can’t see right through you! So fuck off. Her mother, trying to make peace, told her to say sorry and to not say those words in the house.

"Entshuldigung, Zoë said, not to her sister and father, but to her mother because she hated to disappoint her. She loved her mother as much as she hated her father and sister. Then she went on another tirade about her and Marta’s differences. Her father scowled; he hated when his beloved daughter was put down. Zoë smiled and slid behind her sister into the dining room, shouting behind her, You know you love me! ."

For dinner, it was Zoë’s favorite, lobster shipped from Maine that morning and sushi made by Taki, her favorite person on the staff. Her mother gave Zoë a warning glance when she opened her mouth to speak, hoping she would stay away from the theme she had left just a minute before.

So what’s planned for the summer? Because it is only two months away, and I cannot wait! Zoë asked sweetly, knowing full well the answer would be Barcelona, Spain.

Zo, her mother said calmly, realizing this news would be a shocker to Zoë and had to be addressed subtly to avoid a blowout. Your father and I decided to go to Germany instead b— Zoë’s father cut his wife off.

This is because your attitude needs a makeover. You need to improve your German, which at the moment is at the level of a first-year German student, and you need to rethink decisions you have made in your life.

VATER! I’m a senior. This is my last year at home. There is no way you’re shipping me all the way across the world to improve my attitude. When were you planning on telling me this anyway? Plus, I leave for Oxford in the fall. Isn’t that far enough away? Please, Vatti, please. Marta snorted into her water glass. The only time she ever saw her sister lose her cool and become vulnerable was when Zoë wanted something, and her father wouldn’t allow it. Zoë glared at Marta, gave her patented puppy pout to her mother, and eyed her father up and down. Her mother did not take Zoë’s side.

Zoë, being away from all the stress of the US and college will help ease your mind, and Germany is a wonderful place. I’m sure you will have a great time, her mother replied merrily.

Whatever, guys, have fun. I’m not going, I want to stay here and chill. Go with Claire, Joe, and Johnny to Barcelona, what we do every summer, not some stupid plan you guys weren’t planning on telling me anything about! Zoë slouched in her chair and shoved food into her mouth, waiting till the clock struck nine to leave the table. Three minutes to go.

Vater, I’d be more than willing to go to Germany to see my cousins and improve my German, Marta simpered to her parents. Zoë snorted. She could see right through her sister (she was so transparent). How was it that in times of need they were so close, but at any other time, they have the ability to tear each other’s eyes out? The clock struck nine, allowing Zoë to leave this mess of a dinner and go to her clandestine area.

Zoë, do not leave, we need to discuss the trip, her father shouted to Zoë’s retreating back.

You may discuss it without me being that I am NOT going to Germany! she replied civilly, amazed that she had managed to keep her cool even though her entire world had just been flipped upside down.

Zoë, you brought the topic up! her father yelled up the stairs.

CHAPTER 2

ZOË RAN UPSTAIRS to grab her cell phone; luckily, she had not missed any calls from either Claire or Johnny. Zoë opened the leaded side window of her room. Its two-story height and the large french doors in the middle offered the best view in the house of the city and the sunrise. The doors opened unto the cherry deck, the only one on the east side of the house that did not reach Marta’s room but connected to the guest room and the bathroom. When she was younger and her cousins were over, they loved to sneak onto the deck secretly to play games late at night. As they became older, this secret site became a place to drink and smoke. She kicked off her flip-flops; grabbed the side of the deck; jumped onto the rose lattice just off to the right; climbed down, pinching her feet on the thorns; and landed in the backyard. All of a sudden, everything seemed to become a blur, and only the backyard was in focus with vibrant colors. She felt like she was being watched by something, but everything was so blurry that she couldn’t be sure. Bugs seemed to be everywhere, and her fear of bugs only heightened her state of panic. The feeling came and went, but it left Zoë with an uneasy sensation.

When Zoë reached the ground, she unzipped her shorts, pulled off her tank top, and landed a perfect dive into the glistening, calm water of the Olympic pool. The water seemed to be like a rainbow, trying to pull her under. Zoë jumped out of the pool and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, everything seemed to be okay. Zoë got back into the water, trying to calm herself down. She loved watching the ripples form once she was in the water. Just to forget everything, just to jump into the water in underwear and bra, even weed couldn’t replicate that natural high. To Zoë, her two favorite natural highs were running two miles in the rain and forgetting all her problems and jumping into water so tranquil that it mirrored everything around her. It was relieving to not have to answer to the calls of her father or her friends and just forget everything she was suffering from. Zoë floated restfully on her back, pulling lint of her bra, contemplating the last tumultuous two years of high school and the scars the years had left mentally and physically.

During Zoë’s sophomore year of high school, she had dated a guy, a junior, whom all her friends hated. Yet Zoë had loved him and thought of him as the most amazing miracle. Then the relationship came to a point where he wanted more, and when she wasn’t ready, he finally took the law into his own hands and assaulted her, leaving marks on her ego and a jagged red scar on her right leg that was slowly fading. Zoë had not known what to do and didn’t tell anyone till months later. Her friends were shocked that she had kept quiet for so long, yet like every girl in this situation, she assumed that she deserved it. Her favorite song, Pretty Girl by Sugarcult, said it best,

Pretty girl is suffering, while he confesses everything

Pretty soon she’ll figure out what his intentions were about

That’s what you get for falling again

You can never get ‘em out of your head

It’s the way

That he makes you feel

It’s the way

That he kisses you

It’s the way

That he makes you fall in love

She’s beautiful as usual with bruises on her ego and

Her killer instinct tells her to beware of evil men

Then, she had to deal with the betrayal by her former best friend. Jemma had decided to hook up with Zoë’s ex-boyfriend. Even when she didn’t want to think about the incidents, they haunted her in her dreams. A reflection from one of the pool lights lit up her knee and the old scar on her leg. She suddenly remembered the pain that she had experienced when she was still a naïve and sweet daddy’s girl. How did I let myself become this way? What happened to me? How did this affect me so much that I reinvented myself as the bitch? She was the one who could make you cry before you could even defend yourself. Granted, she was always popular, but now people worshipped the ground she walked on. People loved to hate her behind her back and suck up to her at school. She couldn’t care less; the only people who truly mattered to her were Claire, Joe, and Johnny.

As close as she considered herself to be with her friends, she longed for the relationship she once had with her father. She and her father no longer got along since her drunken-driving accident. It was her sixteenth birthday; she had just gotten a new car and her license. Marta, Claire, and Johnny had prepared a surprise party with beer and expensive liquor. Zoë had gotten wasted and decided to go for a drive despite the protests of her sister and her two best friends. She went for a drive through the hills of Birmingham, hit a post, and sliced her back open from the metal of her shattered car. She woke up in the hospital two days later with her mother by her side and her sister asleep in an armchair. Her father was nowhere to be seen. Zoë didn’t remember any of this, but she knew that the accident ruined her relationship with Marta. Marta was blamed for it, for hosting a wild party, and for not stopping Zoë. For all the money she had, Zoë wished she could spend it all to go back and fix everything, to get rid of the scar on her back, and above all, to get rid of the mental scars that never healed, to go back to the profound relationship with her sister and feel once again the love of her father. But, oh well, that’s old news; life can’t be fixed. Just learn from your mistakes. But when she considered things more deeply, what troubled her the most was the feeling that she might not be learning. Something unseen was stopping her. If she could only find out. Everyone was hiding some secret behind the accident. Perhaps her whole life might make sense again. The one thing about that night that really bothered her was that she had not thought she drank that much. Also, she had been drinking since her youth as German families so often do, and it never went to her head. That night, she remembered a different sensation.

Zoë resolutely got out of the pool and decided to stop begging God to change the past. She grabbed her clothes, threw them up onto her deck, and climbed the lattice. The window was still open, allowing a breeze into her room; she climbed into her room, making sure not to leave wet footprints on the wood floor. Her room was huge; it was completely white with wood floors and a white four-poster bed with a blue comforter and two beautiful Persian cats she had gotten from her grandmother for her tenth birthday. Zoë had just finished reading War and Peace and named them Natasha and Prince Andrei. On her white desk was thrown carelessly her iPhone with a blue monogrammed case along with a Macbook that she got as a present from her cousins and a regular Mac that barely worked but she couldn’t part with it. Zoë walked into her closet, grabbed her Princeton plaid sweats along with a Juicy zip-up that she had forever, and ran into her bathroom. She took a quick shower and threw her hair up into a messy bun on the top of her head. Her Mac started singing Pretty Girl, meaning that Johnny was on. When Zoë had just gotten her Mac, she had programmed the IM to sing a different song for each person. Even though no one seemed to use AIM anymore, Zoë couldn’t help holding onto the old days when life seemed simpler.

partyrockstar: yo babe sup?

bitchin’n’chilln: nm just had an amazing natural high

partyrockstar: let me guess! Since its not raining you dove into the pool w/ just ur bra and undies

bitchin’n’chilln: yep it was awesome, but it was hard to get into the high b/c ive been bothered, ever since I heard hes goin to prom with Jemma! Wat am I gonna do?

partyrockstar: I dunno you cant miss prom ur gonna be the queen, so maybe make her life a living hell ur good @ that!

bitchin’n’chilln: um she did used 2 b our other bff, I dunno if I can b that mean to b a beeyatch to her? Im nervous 2 c him, I mean she has all the rite 2 bring him to prom so I guess im just gonna have to grin and bear it, but deep down he still loves me and wen he sees me @ prom hes gonna leave her and come begging 4 forgiveness and im gonna bitch-slap him! O yeah payback =) this will b awesome thanx

partyrockstar: easy there tiger, but I guess ur good to go so l8r

bitchin’n’chilln: um yeah and let me guess u been smokin and u have the munchies and ur about 2 go 2 taco bell, and if u r pick me up a taco any kind

partyrockstar is away at 10:30 pm

bitchin’n’chilln: u suck ass!! I love u so pick me up a taco, I kno ur there 8) and wat did I say bout smokin on skool nites?

partyrockstar: i’ve got the munchies call the cell cuz im goin to TACO BELL =)

bitchin’n’chilln is away at 10:32

bitchin’n’chilln: So I take a sip and chill and I take a dip and chew lookin for a quick escape but it all wears off to soon, some boys they love to lie, some boys ill never trust it’s all a compromise maybe I expect to much

Auclairdulalune: hey Zo I kno Ur thur its meeeee, give me a ring, OMG stop dreamin’ bout J.W. & answer Ur phone or IM

Auto response from bitchin’n’chilln: So I take a sip and chill and I take a dip and chew lookin for a quick escape but it all wears off to soon, some boys they love to lie, some boys ill never trust it’s all a compromise maybe I expect to much

bitchin’n’chilln: o hey let me turn my away message off, and hell yeah am I here, Somethin importante going on?????

Auclairdulalune: Anyways just got amazing dirt on u kno who!!!

bitchin’n’chilln: K. u have