The Domino Effect

"It all started when Miss Awkwardness met Mr. Accident Prone, they fell in love and then they had me. Hi, I'm Lindsay and my life... it's pretty craz-" the brunette teenage girl shrieked as she was sent flying to the ground by a rowdy group of teenage boys who happened to rush past her, laughing loudly.

Within moments, Lindsay's face had collided with the gravel pavement. She groaned in frustration as she lifted her head to scowl at the bumbling boys.

"Watch where you're going, you doofus," one of the boys with a ruffle of messy hair called back to her while running towards the campus buildings howling with laughter.

Another chortling boy leaped to his side while slamming his palm onto the other male in a powerful high five. "Nice one, dude," he complimented his mate while adding a fist bump.

To her utter misfortune, the newly joined boy turned his plump face with cheeks dotted with scarlet pimples to Lindsay who was still pathetically on the ground trying to pick herself up.

"Maybe you should stop talking to yourself first, dork," he guffawed and joined his friend in a row of laughter filled with mockery before both of them turned on the heels of their dumb dirty sneakers as Lindsay would prefer to call them, and marched off to the school entrance.

"Ugh! When will they ever stop!!!" Lindsay groaned loudly in exasperation with her hands clenched into fists, still on her knees on the painfully hard pavement.

"Hey, are you ok?"

Lindsay could recognize that sweet feminine voice anywhere. It's by far the only voice from the entire sea of students at her college that could bring her true joy and comfort. It was none other than her absolute best friend Laila.

She looked up to see the sunny face of her bestie who had her long dark hair in twin braids around her slim face which was completed with a pair of light blue glasses. She had a look of genuine worry for her friend at the moment and was reaching her hand out to her in an attempt to help her out.

Lindsay gratefully accepted and hoisted herself off the pavement, her knees which were about to get blisters in a few moments silently thanking her.

"Thanks for having my back, Lai," Lindsay said while smothering her tattered hair until it looked decent enough so that the protocols wouldn't shave her hair off or something and send her home.

No kidding, it happened to one of the girls last term who was apparently bold enough to enter school with her hair dyed pink. She didn't leave, nevertheless, her once gorgeous locks are now shorter than a pixie cut. Well, at least hair can always grow back.

The two best friends started their slow steady walk to the college while chattering away.

After a couple of laughs over the latest funny videos they watched over the weekend, Lindsay started to speak in a low sad voice. "Lai, do you ever think I would grow out of my clumsiness?" her head was slightly bowed as she gazed melancholically at the little gravel stones that rolled down random paths as she kicked them absentmindedly.

Laila gave out a hearty laugh before stretching her right arm to wrap itself around her best friend's shoulders, drawing her into a warm side hug.

"Yeah, don't worry about it, Lindsay," she dismissed with a chuckle. "I'm sure it's just a phase. Plus, you're a wonderful and sweet girl. Everyone has their flaws and absolutely no one in this world is perfect. All you have to do is keep going and focus on your bright side."

"There is no perfect person in this world. We have to learn our own self-appreciation and we must love ourselves. The path that runs straight is just one path and consists of no fun at all. However, a path with twists and bends may be challenging to drive through but there is so much to see and experience in them. It's the path that gives birth to all sorts of brand new and wonderful experiences, the path that gives the ultimate satisfaction as the challenges posed give you the drive."

Lindsay let those words of wisdom sink into her for a few moments before its effect took over and she felt herself beam and her heart swell with euphoria at the comforting words spoken by her friend.

Even when the whole world seems to hate you, you can always count on your best friend to have you as their number one favorite person in this whole world, no matter how lame or imperfect you could think you are.

However, that single sliver of precious hope only lasted for a few moments as her mind started flooding her with the most embarrassing mishaps she had created within her life and other's lives since the day she was born.

There was that incident when she was just a 6-year-old toddler and she was at one of her father's glamorous parties hosted for his wealthy business partners. Her mother had just put her in the most gorgeous and dazzling diamond blue dress ever.

She had done a couple of excited twirls round and round in front of her proud mother as the sapphire silk swished around her little legs.

"Mommy, don't I look so pretty?" she had asked delighted while showing her mouth that didn't have her two front teeth yet.

"Yes, darling," her mother had gushed. "Like the little princess of ours that you are,"

"I can't wait to show Daddy," she had squealed ecstatically. "I'm going to show him right now!" she had declared before dashing towards the door as fast as a lightning bolt while unable to control the chorus of laughter she let loose.

"Lindsay, darling please be careful," her mother had called out and warned her but Lindsay was already out of the room. If only she had stayed a few moments to take heed of her mother's words that could have contributed at least in a minuscule amount to her fate.

The party had been in full swing downstairs, with thousands of guests laughing and drinking and acting merry and the music had boomed and echoed around the gigantic walls.

Lindsay had sped down the grand staircase illuminated with golden fairy lights wrapped around its long banisters.

Once she was at the foot of the staircase, she had scanned the vast sea of people for a sign of her father. She had to stand on her tiptoes and strain her neck like a giraffe to see anything clearly. Suddenly, she spotted her redhead father talking animatedly with a well-dressed and pompous gentleman. Her heart had started to pace as she had successfully found her goal.

"Daddy! Daddy!" she had yelled out gleefully.

She had started to make her way towards her beloved father, her eyes never leaving the gaze she had on him and not even daring to blink, afraid that she might lose him to the flock of guests within mere seconds.

She had squeezed her way through the parade of elite women, their strong floral perfume almost making her want to gag but she had resisted.

She even had to get down on her little knees and had to crawl on her hands and knees through the spaces in between the standing, almost tipsy gentlemen's legs. Fortunately for her, the red carpet was soft and furry so her palms didn't have to suffer.

Exhausted but not just quite enough, she had finally reached the other end of the room until she was just standing right behind her father.

"Daddy," she had called out behind him having to yell her voice out to be heard over the bombarding music. Her father had been taken very much up by surprise and had spun around to stare right at her daughter's smiling sparkling and innocent amber eyes.

"Lindsay," he had exclaimed and instead of sounding as happy as Lindsay had been to see him, he had sounded almost fidgety and anxious about having his daughter present at his lavish party. "How did you get over here?"

"This your daughter, Ronald?" the other extremely large gentleman with a red, glazed face had asked while peering over Lindsay's father's shoulder. He sounded as if he had seen Lindsay as something disgusting that someone had squished on the road.

"Daddy, look at this dress that mommy picked out for me," his daughter had burst out and had proceeded to do her signature twirl, the same series she had performed proudly in front of her mother earlier, to her father.

However, Lindsay's moment of pleasure was only temporary before she was once again captured by her troublesome best friend, disaster.

Unfortunately for her, no one, not even Lindsay herself had noticed the twin dark blue ribbons hanging loosely around the sides of her dress which were supposed to be tied around her petite waist.

They were streaming across the floor as she spun. It wasn't long before a random person decided to take a few paces back and mistakenly ended up stepping on one of the midnight blue ribbons.

The abrupt action rudely halted Lindsay's graceful spinning. "Woah!!" she shrieked, her eyes widening as she had gradually spun herself into the ribbons and she was almost strangled in them as if she was tangled up in a cobweb of blue ribbons.

She had ultimately felt herself losing her balance and had gone crashing forward to her father's distressed figure.

The series that followed was a horrific domino effect because as soon as Lindsay had crashed into her father, she had caused her father to stumble backward on his heels, shoving the dignitary behind him and sending him hauling towards the buffet table behind him with an ear-splitting and heart dropping crash.

A chorus of horrified gasps and looks followed. Lindsay who had been lying on the floor on her stomach and face, had slowly propped herself up on her shoulders and sat back on her knees while she had held her throbbing forehead where she had hit it gruesomely.

The crash had almost made her vision blurry but she could see sufficiently.

However, she had wished that she might as well have been blind because the scene was the last thing in the world that she had wanted to see.

There was her father still on the floor leaning against the long toppled-over buffet table, his hair drenched in punch juice and his tuxedo completely ruined with stains of food all over it.

To his side laid the impertinent man who had an entire bowl of jelly dunked on his head.

He was fuming and frothing at the lips. Lindsay had heard her heart in her throat and the blood rushing to her face.

She had gulped at the angry man's expression and had sought comfort by turning to her dad. Alas, he was also glaring unmercifully at her. Lindsay felt her heart plummet to the depths.

The glare never left her face, her father had gotten to his feet and had proceeded to make haste and help the jellyhead man. "A million apologies, sire," her father had profusely apologized to him as he helped him up to his small, chubby feet.

"My daughter, well you see, she's a bit eccentric," he had tried to explain. Lindsay, though no one offered to help the little toddler up, too got to her shaking feet.

Eccentric?

She had thought with her brows furrowed. She had no idea what that word meant but judging by her father's intonation it hadn't sounded like a nice compliment.

"My baby!" a highly disturbed woman had shrieked as she ran towards Lindsay. Her mother had run towards her in heels.

Now that's impressive!

She had engulfed Lindsay in a bone-crunching hug. She had briskly broken the hug as she had rapidly said, "Are you hurt? Does it hurt anywhere?" she had said while roaming her eyes all over Lindsay.

"Leanne, take her to her room, please," her father had coldly said.

As her mother gently dragged her by the arm, upstairs, Lindsay had looked over her shoulder with sad little eyes at her father's face. He had stared back at her and his expression screamed only one word:

Disappointment.

She had gone to bed in tears that night and in the morning she had tried to plead with her father to forgive her. He had just coldly dismissed her yet he had ordered her that whenever any parties were to take place, she was to stay to the side of the hall, maintaining a safe distance from the guests and she was not to touch anything without prior permission. She hadn't been in an adequate position to protest.

Lindsay came to from her painful flashback and she was mildly surprised to find her cheeks wet. "Aww, Lindsay, you're crying," Laila remarked sympathetically.

Lindsay took a few deep breaths to prevent herself from succumbing to a fit of uncontrollable sobs and swallowed a couple of times to get the lump in her throat to leave.

I will not be clumsy or imperfect ever again. She strongly thought to herself. Perfection exists and I strive for it.

With a determined smile engraved on her light lips, she confidently took a few bold paces front. "Yeah, I'm going to be perfect!" she declared confidently. "You'll see, Lai, I will never stumble again," With that, she started to strut forward with so much power in each step.

"Wait, Lindsay! Hold up- "

Laila didn't even have enough time to complete her warning before she winced as she saw her friend walk straight to a random orange traffic cone in the middle of the path, colliding with it and sending herself, once again to the floor, along with the traffic cone.

Laila at once rushed to her side and picked her up again.

"Only ice cream cones are good. All other cones should die."

Laila struggled to contain her laughter at her friend's angry swearing, and off they went, merrily strolling away for another day of college. With all her days filled with constant chaos, Lindsay would have never imagined that she was in for quite an unexpected day, that would definitely sweep her off her feet.