Growing Up too Fast
There comes a point in everyone’s life, when we start our transition from children to young adults. This is a very testing time in one’s life; especially young woman, because we are finding out who we are as people. Everything is questioned, like what we should wear to “fit in”, how we should wear it, how to do our hair and makeup for that day, and many more wonders. There is so much pressure to look and feel older because at that age, being older is “cooler”. In the short story “Where are you going, Where have you been”, a fifteen year old girl named Connie, is in this transition, when she suddenly finds herself in a horrific situation, where she realizes maybe she isn’t as old as she thought she wanted to be. When Connie was out one night with her friends, she noticed an attractive guy in a gold convertible and they happened to make long eye contact as he mouthed the words, “Gonna get you, baby”, to her. By the way Connie dressed outside of home; it was no surprise she was getting attention like this from men. The following day her family was at a barbeque, leaving Connie home alone with plenty of time to complete her chores. She heard a car drive up to her house and a man got out of the vehicle. As she came to the screen door to see who was at her house, she was caught very off guard; she had no clue who this guy was standing outside of the door. He said his name was Arnold and she shortly realized he was the guy in the gold convertible from the night before. At first, Connie was somewhat intrigued by his charm and wit, until he started to reveal all sorts of personal information he knew about her. The longer she looked at him, the more she started to realize he was much older than she was, possible even in his thirties. Connie grew to be very scared, and told him that he should leave; she even started coming up with petty excuses, like washing her hair and doing the dishes. Arnold, starting to grow impatient with her and said he wasn’t going to come in the house, but she was going to come out to him, or her family would be in danger. At that moment in time, Connie realized she was not as old as she was portraying to the public; she was too young to handle the situation she was in. She started to tremble with fear, and there was nothing more she wanted than to be out of this situation. Connie knew what she had to do in order to keep her family safe, and that was to go with Arnold; knowing she would more than likely never see her family again, and possibly lose her life when she left. It was obvious that Connie’s family was more fond of her twenty-four year old sister June, by the way they treated her. Her mom was always saying Connie should be more like her sister. “Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister?” she would say “What the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk”. She chose not to let her mother’s words bother her though, because Connie thought her mom secretly liked her more since she was the more attractive sister. Weather her theory was correct or not, Connie’s looks were certainly very important to her, as it is to most developing young teenagers. However, Connie focused a little too much on trying to look older and more attractive. When Connie told her parents