THE PROLOGUE
2:33 AM
Contacts; Alexis Rhodes. Compose new message.
"Hey, Lexayyy! Sup?"
No. No. No. Erase that.
"Alexis. Hey there. Long time no-"
Nope. No way. Not that either.
"I have been thinking about everything you said lately. Like, all the sudden it just hit me. Rather like a truck- a bulldozer... attached to the front of a freight train. Look, you've been on my mind ever since that day. I really like you. You're incredibly beautiful. Beyond that! And your smile, your voice, your hair, the elegant way you would draw or card or summon a monster... I think... I think I'm in love with you! Please..."
I stared at that message slate for the longest time. I read the words over and over again. Stared at them while my finger hung over the send icon. I had been alone in my bed just watching the cursor at the end of the text blink. It started to fall into sync with the clink of water dripping from the bathroom sink. And then it collided the measure of seconds. Tik tik tik. Watching, waiting for... I don't know... something. It would have been grand if she'd been the one to text me first. Even better, if she simply knew what had been on my mind since leaving Duel Academy. But a whole month had gone by since then, so I knew she wouldn't. It was all up to me.
I missed Duel Academy. I know I dropped out, and therefore you might think it'd be stupid to miss it. Why give up something you love? Well... that seems to be a habit of mine. There's a lot of things that I love that I have to let go. Ice cream, for one. It's about time I lose some of this flub on my sides here. But also passed pets, old clothes... the love of my life. You know that old saying; "If you love someone, you have to let them go?" Yeah, well it really pisses me off. Because fate seems to be pushing that motto on me like it's a brand name sponsor that I'm supposed to represent. Hurray... being forever alone. I let things go because I love them. Sheesh, that doesn't sound very loyal, trustworthy, or romantic in the least! Nothing says "possible future-wife" like dangling you in the wind and watching you blow away. Bye, darling!
Anyways... about Duel Academy. I was only there for a short while. Three months to be exact. I totally could have been an Obelisk Blue! Well, that is, if I had talent and or skill. Which I don't. So, you guessed it. I was a Slifer Red. Another statistic in drop out pool out of the red dorm. But the school was nice and the food was good and the work I could handle. But, even for being a Slifer, I was in the Obelisk Dorm. All girls are for now due to the lack of female housing facilities in the other sects. Which, naturally when being housed with about a hundred other females, is where the problems began. Girls too have their fights for dominance, though in more discreet and soul shattering ways. Male lions will be all like in your face, trying to rip your throat out. Lionesses? Nah. They'll have to seclude you from the hunt to make you feel like you're not good enough. They'll not share the kill, because you aren't worth it. They'll make you so much of an outcast that in a lot of ways you end up making yourself fail. A slow painful death that rip out your soul instead of just your insides. Indirect murder.
And nothing sets you up for natural selection like homosexuality. Yup. That's me. The rainbow licker; Candace Vaughn. And though I don't go out of my way to flaunt and sway my lesbian-ness, at Duel Academy... it was kind of hard to miss. Because there... I met Alexis. I never really belonged anywhere, per se, until I found her company. I had friends before Duel Academy. I did. But never love. Never that true companionship, best-friend-ness that one secretly seeks whether consciously or not. She was the only one... never mind. It was too late to start reminiscing, allowing all those razor memories to come back. Swallowing them back was hardest; trying to act like nothing happened, but you can still feel the blades of yesterday scraping down your insides. Might've been easier to just rip yourself open trying to give your heart to someone than to deny it all. But whatever.
I feel like forever has gone by sitting beside myself in my bed. I still hold my phone over my head, facing off with the unsent text and the name of the haunting recipient. God, she's so beautiful... but these words are nothing. I can type and text and stare as long as ever, but no words would ever encapsulate the hurt and the passion and the weight and the yearning and the fear and the hope and... everything. Seeing my heart's sporadic speech couped up in one little text box made it all feel so flat... so pathetic. Like it wasn't good enough and everything I've been mulling over and letting thump through my heart was a waste of pain. I couldn't...
Backspace, backspace, backspace...