I will never visit a carnival again

Amanda

"We have to stop and grab Amanda.' I explained as I continued giving directions. 

Kristin shot me another angry, confused stare. She looked at me as if I had just asked her to go pick up a hitchhiker or something. She pulled over to the side of the road. 

"Why would you want to invite her?" Kristin demanded, still not moving the car.

Ronnie piped up as well. 

"I don't want to hang out with her, she is such a downer." Ronnie complained from the back seat.

"She totally going to ruin the vibe." Ronnie continued.

I explained to all of them that Amanda had changed since we all last knew her. I told them that she had abandoned her asshole ex, and even reconnected with family. I explained that she was doing better, and I wanted to give her another chance to be our friend.  I also stated the fact that she was my best friend, and she was coming on this trip with us, whether they liked it or not. 

"Fine!" Kristin agreed. As she put the car in drive and proceeded driving down the road.

"But I swear to god, if she gets into her stupid Amanda bullshit, I will rock her in the face.' Kristin threatened. 

I sat there in silence as she followed the GPS and made her way to Amanda's. I began to feel as if though this entire trip was a waste of time. All they wanted to do was run each other down. They seemed to have completely forgotten, that this party was supposed to be fun. The gang was supposed to get together and have a blast for the first time in years. 

We drove all the way to Amanda's house, in complete and total silence. I sat there pondering just calling off the whole event. In my heart I just wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves and just get out of the car and hitch hike home. I couldn't believe how these people really were.

When we pulled up to Amanda's house, I told Kristin not to worry about blaring the horn. I told her I would go inside and get Amanda out myself. Ashlyn was a fighter, but she always had to have a good reason. Kristin blaring the horn, the way she did at the other houses, would cause Amanda to fly out of her house and try to fight her. I knew this, so I decided to go get her myself. 

I stepped out of the car and walked up to Amanda's house. Talk about a dump, it looked like she hadn't made a attempt at maintaining the place since she got it. Her grass was almost touching my knees. Her screen door was hanging off of the hinges. Her windows were cracked. The place looked terrible to put it into nicer words.

Once I was standing on her porch, I began pounding on her door. I waited for about 3 seconds, before being greeted by a sad, crying Amanda.

Her long red hair looked wild, as if she had spent the entire morning in a fit of rage and sadness. her brown eyes, were stained red from crying. 

"What?" She choked out sadly as she stared at me through the door.

I was shocked by this. Only yesterday we were chatting on the phone, she seemed happy yesterday, why was she so upset now? I sat there in confusion for a moment, before Amanda asked me to come inside. I agreed, as I wanted to make sure she was okay before I placed her into a car with people, who were already bad mouthing her.

"What's going on?" I asked, as I made my way into Amanda's house. 

Amanda's home was the textbook example of "Don't judge a book by its cover." The outside of her house looked awful, but the inside, the inside of her house was gorgeous. 

The white walls glowed from the lights she had on. Her counters as well as tables, were spotless. She looked as if though she cleaned the inside of this place daily. You couldn't find anything out of place in her home.