The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks - Marcus

Amidst the turntable crowd at the Carnival, Ronnie once more runs into Blaze, and decides to stay with her so as to avoid her father. She is not looking forward to going home to the death silence of his bungalow. Ronnie is introduced to Blaze's boyfriend, Marcus, who has a skill of playing with ball lit up on fire, and who takes a keen liking to Ronnie. "Instead, he stared at Ronnie, liking the purple streak in her hair and her tight little body, the glittery affect of her eye shadow. It was sort of an upscale, trampy style, despite the stupid shirt she was wearing. He liked that. He liked that a lot (pg. 46)." As soon as Blaze is out of earshot, Marcus tries his best to seduce the new girl with the purple streak in her hair. Ronnie finds it offending that Marcus would hit on her while dating her new friend Blaze, so she excuses herself from Marcus, leaving him alone, without any prize whatsoever.

Marcus consistently tries to get Ronnie to become interested in him, and it is when Ronnie is invited to another party with Blaze, Marcus, and their pals when things go seriously wrong. Marcus makes his move on Ronnie public, in earshot and view of a watching, clearly disturbed Blaze, making it look as though Ronnie both tried to kiss him, and take him for a midnight stroll along the beach.

The reason why I blogged about this part is the way Ronnie felt. She had just started to feel welcomed by some sort of people in her new summer home, and was almost becoming comfortable with her friends. But just as most things were going pretty smoothly, just as quickly, she lost her new friend, as Blaze thought it was her who had tried to seduce Marcus, and felt betrayed by Ronnie. It was a sort of chain, as Ronnie was friends with Blaze who introduced her to her sort of "possey," and as soon as Ronnie is excluded by Blaze, she is most definitely excluded by the whole party. In the real world, many situations tend to "blow up in people's faces." So many times have I and no doubt many other, been excited for something, or just gotten used to an idea, when that excitement, or idea, is pulled out from under us, and ends just as quickly as it started.

Ronnie must have felt the same way. Discouraged, dissappointed that things hadn't turned out the way she had planned, and most of all, humiliated, because she had been blamed for something she hadn't done, and was unable to convince her best friend of it. In real life situations, I've viewed, this happens a lot. When someone is blamed for something they hadn't done, they immediately think to persuade someone that they are innocent. But when no one believes them, they feel helpless, like they're now the only person in the world, and they only feel like that because of someone else's mistakes.