Freshman year was the year for taking chances. I often found myself doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without ever second guessing myself. I was living in a beautiful house in British Columbia, Canada. My family and I had moved there in time for my sister and I to enroll in our new schools. Making friends wasn’t a big challenge for me, but keeping friends was.

It was a Wednesday night when my parents discussed going out of town for the upcoming weekend. My parents had never left me and my younger sister by ourselves for a long period. When they told us that they were leaving for the entire weekend and wouldn’t be back until Sunday night, freedom felt like it hit hard. My dad had made it very clear that we needed to stay home by ourselves and not make bad decisions. I promised both of my parents that nothing out of the ordinary would happen while they were away.

The next day at school I told my best friend Courtney that my parents were leaving town that weekend. Within minutes she had me convinced to have a few of our close friends over to spend the night. At first, I knew it was a bad idea because I promised my parents that no one other then my sister and I would be in the house. But as I thought about it more, I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to really get close with the friends I had made at my new school. I agreed to a small get together at my house on Saturday night and told four of my other friends about it.

Saturday night came and I was excited about getting together with my friends. My parents called to make sure everything was going smoothly and I felt guilty about lying. I’m sure that if I did tell them that my close girl friends were over, they wouldn’t mind. I told them that it was my sister and I watching movies at my house, and that was my first mistake of the night.

Everything was going great. We had music playing and we were sitting around playing games, having a good time. Courtney ended up getting her boyfriend to buy us some beer, so when he came to drop off the beer at about 9oclock, he showed up with a few of his friends. They asked to come in for a and at the time, it seemed reasonable to let them in for a few minutes since they had done us a favor. One thing led to another and it was 10oclock and they still hadn’t left. Between the 8 or so people that were hanging out in my kitchen, we had finished off the beer and wanted more.

It wasn’t more than 15 minutes later that there was a knock at the door. It turned out to be one of the guy’s friends, bringing us more drinks. I was having a great time and actually felt like people were starting to be comfortable with me. As it got later more and more people starting showing up. I remembered everything after that because I was so paranoid that things would go wrong. I was taking shots with these guys I had met for the first time tonight in my kitchen and after that, it seemed like the night went so fast. My small get together turned into 30 people spilling drinks everywhere, dancing, and going crazy in my house.

I had no idea what to do. It was nearly midnight when two of the guys in my living room started yelling at each other. No one really knew why they were so mad, but I remember feeling my stomach twist inside of me knowing that something bad was about to happen. Yelling turned into screaming, and the screaming turned into pushing. It was seconds before they were rolling on the ground punching each other. A few guys jumped in between them to stop the fight but it was too late. The outburst of fighting moved into the living room where they slammed into a wall where a huge antique painting hung on the wall. The picture fell and shattered into a million pieces, and there was an enormous hole in the wall.

At that point my stomach was in knots. I knew there was nothing left that I could do. I started screaming and pushing people out the door. No one was really listening or caring that my house was being destroyed, so I ended up standing on the kitchen table and tricking everyone into thinking that the cops were on their way. Kids flooded out of my house. I followed the crowd outside and it seemed like I was standing in a circus ring. There were people puking in the street and beer bottles being thrown into the neighbor’s yards.

My house looked like the inside of a dumpster. There had to of been over 100 beer bottles scattered throughout the house, cat food dumped out on the floor in my kitchen, broken glass everywhere, and cigarette butts smashed into the couches and kitchen table. My head was spinning and I couldn’t tell if it was from the many drinks I consumed, or the thought of me never being able to look at my parents again because of the guilt I would have for the rest of my life. They trusted me, along with the 40 people that had come to destroy my house and I completely threw every last ounce of that trust out the door.
The hours passed as I took on one room at a time. I must have filled at least 15 trash bags full of waste. I spent all night sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing the floors, mopping, soaking up beer that had been spilled on the carpet and most of all, worrying. It was about 5am and I put on a heavy coat and walked to the gas station a few blocks down the road to find super glue. I knew it wouldn’t completely fix the damage of the broken picture on the wall, but I was determined to try. It was a complete fail and time was ticking away. There was nothing I could do about the broken picture or the hole in the wall that was about the size of a soccer ball.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone on Sunday when my parents had called to tell us that they were on their way home. I was dreading it with everything in me. The worst part was, my “friends” that I worked so hard to make happy were the first ones out of the house. No one stayed to help me clean up or try to put my house back together. I felt tricked and alone. It was a terrible feeling causing me to have big knots in my stomach and tears form in my eyes.

I stayed quiet in my room for most of the day until I heard my parents walk in the door later that night. My heart was racing as I slowly walked downstairs to meet them. Before they had walked away from the front door, they hugged my sister and I and asked how our weekend was. As my dad was walking towards the living room, he began to tell my sister and how proud he was of us that we were responsible during the time that they were gone. Just then we heard my mom let out a huge scream and call my name. Everyone stopped and stood in dead silence for a solid five seconds. My dad made his way over to my mom in the living room and we followed.

My parents were disappointed in me and it made me sad that I didn’t do what I should have. It turned out that the family that lived across the street was a part of the company my dad worked for. So, Monday morning when he went into work, my dad got in trouble for leaving my sister and I home alone in a company house. It wasn’t his fault that we destroyed the house, because I promised I would take care of things. I went back on my word and put him in a terrible position. I was lost and didn’t know what to do. All I could feel was guilt and stress.
In the end it was a big lesson learned, but I can say that I learned who my true friends were. I learned a lot about the importance of my parent’s trust. They set rules for a reason and I definitely learned the hard way that things could go from good to bad, really quick, if I don’t follow the rules they set. It took time to gain my parent’s trust back. Although it was hard to fix all the damage I had done, as well as suffer the consequences from my parents, that night was a big learning experience.