Hi I’m Emily and we were all teenagers at one point and have crazy stories to tell so I’m going to tell you mine. It was a Friday afternoon in mid July and there was going to be a huge bonfire party that night but there is no way my mom would ever let me go so I came up with an elaborate plan to be able to go without her knowing. First, my friend and I needed to ask our parents if we could stay at each other's house, our parents don’t talk to each other so we shouldn't have to worry about them finding out. “Mom can I stay at Kaylee's house tonight?” I asked. “Sure sweetie what time are you leaving and when will you be home?” She always asked me questions like this whenever I was doing anything which I’m sure lots of parents do for a good reason too. “I’ll leave at 6pm and I'll be home at 3pm tomorrow.” “Okay sounds good sweetheart.” Our plan is to meet all of us (Jackson, Andrew, Bryce, Kaylee, and I) at this park we go to all the time. We always hang out there, we never knew the name of the place but we just called it a bad den because whenever we all meet up there you know something bad is about to happen that we aren’t supposed to do. It was about 5pm and I started to get ready. I wanted to wear this cute outfit. It was ripped jeans with a black cropped shirt that said Los Angeles on it in pink letters, but I can’t wear that out in front of my mom so I put a hoodie and sweatpants over it so I didn’t look dressed up and so she didn’t see it. It was about 5:50pm so I had to leave to head to the park. I told my mom goodbye, grabbed all my things and headed to my car. It was very nice outside around 70 degrees. I get there and about 2 minutes later Kalyee gets there and of course Bryce and Andrew are late like always, I don’t think they have ever been on time to anything in their lives. Kaylee and I were talking about our plan and going over it over and over again to make sure we didn’t miss anything because we did not want to get caught. Bryce, Jackson and Andrew do this stuff all the time but Kaylee and I on the other hand don’t so it was kind of scary for us. “Wait!” I yelled. “What?” Kaylee asked. “Where are we going to sleep? We both said we are sleeping at each other's house so we can’t go there and Bryce and Andrew snuck out so we can’t go to their houses either.” “We can sleep in our cars.” Kaylee suggested. I thought that would work so that was our plan. We took one car to the party to save the most gas and I was the oldest so I drove. We get there and it's a nice big house in one of those rich neighborhoods you always see like in the movies we couldn't believe our eyes. The music was blasting people screaming and drinking you know the typical high school party. Kaylee and I decided not to drink because we were going to drive and we don’t like drinking anyway. I saw my friend Cayden. We've known each other since 3rd grade and we are seniors now so that's a long time but I’ve liked him since freshman year. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and I didn't know how he felt so I didn’t ever tell him. “Hi Cayden.” “Hi Emily, how are you doing? Glad you made it.” “I’m good, this place is amazing you did good.” “It was all thanks to Jordan for letting us use his house.” “That's nice of him.” “Yea it was well I’ll catch you later I have to go do something alright?” “Okay have fun.” I said. After I left Cayden, I saw this weird man that I didn’t get a good feeling about but I brushed it off because it was a party I wanted to have fun and I didn’t know everyone. The party went on we had a great time listening to music dancing watching Bryce, Jackson and Andrew do stupid stuff like doing handstands on the kegs and all that. It was around 11pm and all of a sudden we all heard a gunshot followed by a deep unforgettable scream. We all ran upstairs to see who it was, Kaylee and Bryce were the first ones up there and grabbed me before I went in and said “don’t go in there.” I pushed them off and ran to the room and I saw cayden on the floor bleeding. I was so shook I just started balling my eyes out and yelled, “why, why him, someone call 911!” He saw me and said “grab a shirt and wrap it around my leg as tight as you can.” I got up and did what he said shaking and crying trying to pull myself together. He looked me in the eyes and said “I can’t wait for the ambulance, I need you to take me now please.” I said okay and asked Bryce, Andrew and Jackson to help me get him to the car. I was driving Kaylee was in the front with me and Bryce was in the back with Cayden. I was speeding to the hospital and got really dizzy so I decided to pull over. I know, I know my friend was dying but I didn’t want to get into a car accident so I had Bryce drive and I watched Cayden. We got to the hospital and I ran in and said “we need help right now our friend got shot.” They said over the speaker “We need anyone, a doctor or nurse who is not with patience to come to the front ASAP code blue.” Doctors and nurses came running asking me “what happened?” And asking him “what his name was and if he could feel his leg, do you hurt anywhere else, what year is it?” They got him on a bed spread thing and rushed him. I was holding his hand when they took him in and a nurse grabbed me and said “you can’t go back there.” I was sad but I understood, I waited in the lobby with Bryce and Kaylee. It felt like a movie sense and it felt unreal. Luckily he had just turned 18 so they didn’t need his parents' consent but we still needed to get in contact with them, I told the doctor I would do that for them. I called Barbara which is Cayden’s mom's name. “Hi Barbara, it’s Emily I’m at the hospital with Cayden.” “Oh my Gosh, is he ok? What happened?” “We were at a party and he got shot in the leg. He's in surgery right now we got here about 20 mins ago.” Oh no, do you know who shot him? I’m getting dressed now and coming down, does your mom know what happened and that you are there?” “No, my mom doesn’t even know I was at the party. She thinks I'm at Kaylees and Kaylee's parents think she is at my house.” “Oh honey, okay we will figure this out later, are you okay?” “I’m doing okay. I'm just worried about him and scared to tell my mom.” “It will be okay, I'm on my way now.” Kaylee and I started talking about what we are going to do with our parents and worrying about that and then we started talking about Cayden and I started crying again. Someone from the party brought Andrew and Jackson so now they are here with us. Then Cayden's mom came running in asking where her son was and asking if he was okay, I went up and said this is Cayden's mom. They told her he is in surgery right now we won’t know anything until he is out and we don't know how long it will take either. I took her to where we were sitting to wait with us and talk to us about everything that happened. The police showed up to ask what happened and asked us where all of our parents were. Barbara said we are texting them all now. The doctors came out and said “he is good. We got the bullet out but part of his shin is shattered. He will be awake soon if you guys want to go wait in there for him.” It was almost 3am and I still haven’t told my mom what happened, what do I say? How do I tell her? Will she be mad?” Barbara said I need to tell her so I decided to call her. Ring ring. She picked up the phone, in her tired voice she said “Emily, are you okay? Why are you calling me at 3 in the morning?” “I’m at the hospital with Cayden. We were at a party and he got shot.” “Emily June Smith! How dare you go to a party without telling me and going behind my back! We will talk about this later. Anyway are you okay?” “Yes I am okay and so is Cayden he just got out of surgery.” “Okay good what hospital are you at?” “Good Sams.” I said “Do you need me to come down there?” “No it's okay I have my car and Barbara is here she said I can stay at her house tonight because it's closer and so I can be with Cayden and help her.” “Okay that’s fine but we still need to talk about you sneaking out and not telling me where you were.” Okay we can talk about that tomorrow.” Barbara came out and said Cayden is awake and wants to see you, I went in and asked how he was doing he said “I don’t know i'm on a lot of drugs.” We both started laughing, even after getting shot he still has his sense of humour. I asked “do you know who shot you? The police have been asking all night.” “Yea it was some guy I was getting my weed from.” I asked “was he wearing a black jacket and skinny jeans?” “Yea how did you know?” “I saw him at the party and got a weird feeling.” “Yea his name is Jeff I didn’t have the money so he shot me.” “That's so messed up we need to tell the police and get him arrested.” “Yea I’ll tell my mom and she can go to the police.” We spent the night at the hospital and I went home the next morning. I got grounded for not telling my mom but I was still able to see Cayden but that's it. After about a year he was fully recovered and back to normal but he had PTSD like i’m sure anyone would. From this I learned not to trust everyone, tell your mom everything you are doing and trust your gut when it comes to people. I’m very thankful he is okay and that it didn’t go worse.