Ok, here’s a little story I cooked up yesterday out of sheer boredom. I’ve decided to leave the R twins thing Sarah and I were writing since year 7 for later. Actually, I was hoping she’d do SOMETHING for a change. I’ve been working my bored ass off on that story which is now 25 A4 pages long [10 pt, Times New Roman font]. It gets lame in the end. What can I say? My stupid writers block was starting to get to me. It’s 11 A4 pages of sheer crap written in first person perspective. Rated PG for mild swearing and the word “sexual innuendo”. lol

Here’s a summary: A 14 year old girl dealing with loss of her parents[her dad killed himself, her mother’s in jail] and living with her alcoholic relatives and gay cousin. She just moved from “somewhere so near… yet…”. She hates her life, blah blah blah …just read it. I actually like the middle. The beginning’s a bit too over dramatic. I’d love to say that the story’s very deep and meaningful...but sorry. It isn’t

Try to guess who the characters are based on in reality. 50 bonus points if you sign my guest book with constructive criticism!! [Author Note: I have nothing against nerds, but apparently the character does, so I'm not trying to offend anyone. Not that all trekkies have these traits, but you get the point.] -Praseeda

Hating everything

The moonlight poured through my open window and onto my notebook as I lost myself to memories. It's one of those perfect summer nights where there's only the slightest of breezes; the rest is blackness pierced by stars and illuminated by a round glowing sphere. Sometimes an insect will let me know that they're there, singing a small song telling me about the lives that go on in my small yard. It's perfect nights like this that I can feel the magic flow in my blood, making its journey throughout my body with every beat of my heart.

Of course in Sugarhill, it’s always summer.

The magic is moving down to my pen and onto the paper, embedding itself into every word. As you take the words in as a reader, you're absorbing a piece of magic through your eyes and making it a part of you. That is how it stays alive through centuries and ages, magic never dies. It is passed on, reproduced, rediscovered, never dead.

I'm curled up on my antique iron framed bed. I found the frame at a garage sale about a year ago. There it sat, history and layers of tacky colored paint being the only thing holding it together. I fell in love with it instantly.

It must sound weird to you, someone like me talking about love. I bet you think that love exists only in happy worlds like yours, and death and destruction belong in mine. If you think that, then you're so wrong. They belong in the same world. They co-exist in the same society that created you. The same society created me. The same society that created everyone you know. Does that scare you? Good. Maybe you need to be scared. Maybe you need to feel a tidal wave of fear crash over your head and suffocate you.

Maybe it's time I quit babbling and got to the story already, huh? Time for me to get to the point. Time to tell you why.

I guess the best place to start would be three weeks after I moved to Sugarhill, California, after my father shot himself and my mother went to jail for drug dealing. I moved in with my aunt, uncle and cousin, all of whom had more problems than any soap opera and didn't like me anyway. I got there just in time to start my freshman year, in a school where I didn't know anyone, and didn't particularly want to.

The first time I saw my new school, I was trapped in a steel yellow cage surrounded by flesh and new clothes and someone's heavily overdosed perfume.(the school bus, for those of you who have no real imagination.)

I was dressed in the same thing everyone else was wearing; the drab school uniform that made me look like I worked at MacDonald’s to make ends meet, a silver cross under my collar bone and a red eyed ring I had found in the parking lot of Wal-Mart when I was real little. I Had sensitive skin and wearing costume jewelry meant suicide especially for my poor ears. But that day, I chose to wear a pair of earrings. A delicate pair of earrings, blue studded and so obviously fake that my ears were about to explode. SO sue me. My old black backpack lay helpless on the floor under my propped up sneakers. Back home, nobody would have thought anything of it, but I guess in Sugarhill, California, it wasn't the same as the gap khakis and button downs that everyone else wore for casual wear. Jewelry was probably a joke to them. The second I stepped on the bus, I heard snickering and whispering. Thus began Hell.

As the bus dragged itself through the parking lot in front of the school, I peered through the dust that marked the window to see the penitentiary of my next nine months. The gray stone building looked tired and stern. Even though I could see thousands of little clones shoving their merry little way into the open mouth, there seemed to be no life. The building radiated hopelessness. It pored out of every crack and crawled its way to place a scaly hand on my shoulder. I shivered as the bus finally settled itself to a stop and groaned its relief that the journey was over. Time to start my first year in high school.

The first agonizing day was exactly like all the rest that would follow in the while that I stayed. I ate alone, I spent my time reading books that I couldn't recall anything about ten minutes later. Life settled into a mindless expanse of boring routine. I was ignored, except for when my merciless fellow students would decide to toss me around for their ego- swelling purposes. Being ignored was something I was alien to. I thought moving would mean a better start. What a load of bull! Being the topic of discussion for their idle chit chat, the high screechy cackle of their mocking laughter interrupting my train of thought. You know, all the normal things a teenage outcast goes through in their adolescent journey of self- discovery.

I tried to fit in, I really did. I just didn't try too particularly hard. I was never big on being social to begin with, so after a few half hearted attempts to be normal, I gave up.

The physical and emotional abuse-along with the constant humiliation, mustn't forget the humiliation-sent me home exhausted and with dreams of revenge. Often times I wanted nothing more than to cry myself into an emotionless oblivion, where there was only me and my books, but I never shed a tear. There was no way in hell I would give them that. They would never be worth soaked cheeks and a red nose.

The hours I put into dreaming about suicide can never be measured. Fortunately, I never got to the breaking point, even though I wanted to. I wanted to let go, feel the sweet release as my battered and weary soul was able to leave my body and move on to better places. Somewhere warm and nice where. I don't know. Someplace better, anyway. Using a switchblade to slice my wrists and ankles didn’t really work. I always ended up with blood soaked bed sheets and socks.

My life was hopeless. At least that's what I thought when I walked down the hallway at school, followed by cruel laughter and whatever they could get away with throwing at me. It's what I thought when my uncle came home drunk all the time. It's what I thought when my aunt took her frustration out on me.

You could say that my safe haven was Kyle, my slacker cousin. Kyle was usually high or stoned, but I don't blame him, look at his fucked up home life. Even when he was hepped up, though, he was full of sayings and comments and observations and theories that would always cheer me up or make me laugh.( actually, it was only when he was high. When Kyle wasn't high, he was asleep.)

Kyle didn't look too much like a stoner. He hated Strangefolk, bathed routinely, kept his hair and nails clean and trimmed, and was an amazing dresser.(later on, I would figure out that he was gay, and usually he just acted high, he never actually smoked anything.)

Let's see, yep, that about sums up my life at the time. Kyle was only home from college about one weekend a month, so mostly I lived in shadows. When I think about it now, I look back on those days, and I feel no sorrow or regret for any of my actions, only happiness and relief that they can never do that to me again.

Now that you've got the basic idea of my life up until the day the story really starts, I want to ask you a few questions. Have you ever felt like I've just described? Unloved, worthless, ugly, and stupid? Did you ever just want to get out? Find a magical white unicorn and ride off into the sunset with your knight in shining armor, was that your dream too? And did you think that it was a waste of time to even pretend that you thought it would come true? Did you ever just want to kick and scream and punch until they were all just a bloody heap of gore and bones? If you haven't, then close the book now and walk away. You're inhuman.

I was on the dreaded bus again. It was only twenty minutes, but it was twenty minutes of mental torture. Their high pitched squeals of laughter, sexual innuendos from the so called opposite sex. I stared out the window and pretended I didn't care. Suddenly, I felt a jolt of energy, like---

"Can I sit here?" Fuck no! I thought.

I slowly turned my head, praying that this wasn't some kind of joke (yes, I prayed, don't wet yourself) There was my prince. The one I'd envisioned at night, the one I waited for. [HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA, obviously that was a joke. I don’t dream. Gave that up AGES ago]. He was wearing the same old MacDonald’s uniform thing everyone had to wear but the obvious difference was that he being of the male gender, actually looked normal in the school uniform. What he did have were the most gorgeous green eyes you've ever seen in your life. His dark brown hair was growing out a bleach job. Ew.

I kept staring at him, and finally remembered to nod. I couldn't have taken my eyes off him if I wanted to, and believe me, that wasn't high on my list of desires.

"So what's it like here?" he asked me, turning those eyes to my notebook lying open in my lap. I quickly shut the book, blushing furiously at the prospect he might have read something. I hadn't spoken to anybody at this school anymore than I absolutely had to, so the thought of actually answering him never crossed my mind. I glanced at my watch briefly. It had been exactly three minutes and twenty-five seconds I had actually talked to someone at my school. It was amazing.

"Not the talkative type, are you? Oh, well, that's okay. Ever since I moved here, everyone tells me how great it is. 'Go here,' 'do this', it's fucking annoying. Maybe I want to sit at home and do nothing." I smiled weakly. This guy was very different from only everyone I'd met in that town. " I mean, It’s already been a year or so since I got here and they still treat me like I’m new!"

" I know," I said, unable to stop myself from letting the words pop out, "I just wish I could let them know what stuck up assholes they all are!”

" Exactly," He laughed, and it was nothing like all the others, I kept the memory of it.

" You just move here too?"

" A month ago."

" Where from?"

" Somewhere so near…yet…." I stopped myself. I was NOT going to blurt out a melodramatic soliloquy in front of some guy who I just met.

" Why?" I paused. This was the part where he decides I'm too fucked up to ever talk to again. "Um, family problems," I improvised. Yeah, you could call it that.

"Oh," he said. He looked at me for a moment. " What's your name?"

"Amara."

" I think I love you, Amara." I blinked and stared. What the hell was this guy going on about? Not funny. The joke wasn’t funny at all. Pretending to be nice to me just to mess my already lowering self esteem. Not funny.

" I know it sounds weird and all, but I really think I do, it's like there's an unspoken connection between us."

I blinked and stared. What the hell was this guy on?

"I'm not kidding. Stop looking at me like that."

I blinked and stared. “What the fuck-“

The bus jerked to its stop outside SugarHell High. (Isn't that such a creative name? I thought of it myself.) I stood up and grabbed My Trusty Friend the Backpack. Shoving him out of the way, I half ran to the entrance.

Since moving to Sugarhill, I hadn't exactly had a normal teenage girl experience. No friends, no giggling in front of the bathroom mirror while gossiping. How I missed my old school. [Not that I giggle or anything…]

As was my routine long before I was stuck at Sugarhell, I headed to the bathroom to ask my friends what to do. In my haste to get away from creepy-guy-with-gorgeous- eyes, I had temporarily forgotten that I was miles away from happiness, and was brought back by the glare of the girl I walked into when I ran in the door.

I gripped the edges of the chipped yellow sink, and took some deep breaths. I also forced my heart, which felt like a wild bird on my chest trying to get out, to slow to a semi-normal pace. I felt very stupid. Obviously, the kid was just like everybody else. It didn't matter that he was completely different. He was just like them, he was playing a sick joke.

I mean, just because a guy says he loves you doesn't mean that he loves you, right? Especially when it’s all a sick joke.

Right. I think. When I was finally as presentable as I was going to get, I left the smelly bathroom. Unfortunately, I left at the same moment that a giggly group of sophomores decided to show up. One of them looked at me with contempt and bad breath before shoving me into the hallway. (you know your life is pathetic when sophomores push you, a helpless freshman around.)

For once, rather than just standing back and laughing as I ungracefully fell to the muddy unforgiving cold tile, I felt a pair of arms shoot out and catch me. I would like to say that I turned to my now savior and said some sort of gracious thanks to which they replied, and we walked off, arms linked, friends forever. Lucky me, however, I got to be clumsy and stupid.

At first it was shock that someone would actually do something like that-for ME no less- was what kept me from moving away. Then that turned to indignation as I saw the kid from the bus.

I yanked myself out of his grasp, only to fall backwards on to My Trusty Friend the Backpack. I heard laughter somewhere, but not as much or loud as usual. It was like no one even noticed me.

He reached a hand out to help me up, but I dragged myself up and turned to go to class. Suddenly I realized my homeroom was in the opposite direction. I spun around angrily on my foot, and of course stumbled because I have no grace at all, but I apparently had a smidgen of luck that fateful day, because I didn't actually fall. I stomped away, and I heard him laughing behind me, and let me tell you, that pissed me off even more.

Somehow I made it through homeroom and math without doing anything such as punching a big gaping hole through the ugly pastel painted bricks in the wall. I didn't find it weird at the time, but I should have, because I never get all worked up like that for anything. For anything, dammit, anything at all. I mostly sat quietly and hated my existence. But that day, I could feel my veins throb with pulsing life, my insides burning with emotion.

I hated him. I hated that someone who looked so kind and be so cruel.

Except I didn't hate him. Deep down, where thoughts go when you don't even acknowledge them, I definitely DID NOT hate him. In the warm haven of NOT GONNA HAPPEN, I believed that he was being honest with me, that it wasn't a joke, and we'd ride of into the sunset on a black stallion. [er…well, maybe not]

But, being the untrusting and often disappointed person that I'd become since moving to wonderful Sugarhill, California, I chalked it all up in my NOT GONNA HAPPEN file. And there I sat, hating and not paying attention, until the bell rang and I was that much closer to getting the hell out of there.