Once Upon a High School
This is not your ordinary Cinderella story. There is no prince or princess. No kingdom or castles unless you count a small two bedroom house a castle. Let me introduce myself, my name is Kim Crawford. I am seventeen years old and I am so happy that this is my last year of high school. My best friends name is Grace Benward. We are both shy and do not like big crowds. I tell her everything except one thing. I get abused everyday by my father. I do not tell her because he is the only family that I have that lives around here. I cannot risk leaving her alone in the school.
"Hey Dumpster Girl!" a high pitch voice yells out. Donna Tobin, the biggest mean girl of all mean girls. She is dating the most popular boy in school. Jackson "Jack" Brewer. We all use to be best friends when we were younger but everything changed once we came into high school.
Seaford High School is your typical high school. You have the jocks, preps, nerds, band geeks; whatever is at your school is probably at mine also.
"Did you get that outfit in the trash again?" she said. She smirks. I do not say anything.
"What? No words to say? Well then I see we are going to have to do this the hard way. Jack! Brett!" she yelled. The two boys immerge from the crowd and come up to me. Brett holds me with my arms behind me as Jack punches me in the gut. Brett drops me and they both start kicking me. Donna then comes up to us. She tells them to stop. I look up at her. She smirks, pulls me up by my hair, and then slaps me across the face. All three of them and the rest of their group walk away.
As you can probably tell, I also get hurt everywhere that I go. No matter where I am Aurora always manages to find me and hurt me. I am walking home from a long day at school. I hear someone following me. I turn around slowly. It is Jack.
"Hey!" he says.
"Hi?" I replied wondering why he is following me home.
"Why are you following me?" I straight out and ask him.
"I live right beside you. Remember? Our windows to our bedroom are across from each other?" he questions. Oh my god! Does he hear me scream when my dad beats me? Should I ask him? No, I cannot, he could tell Donna and things with get worse.
"Do you hear things in the middle of the night?" I blurt out. Crap!
"Yeah, why?" he asked as we continued walking down the sidewalk.
"What do you hear?" I ask without thinking, again.
"Screaming." He looks down. "And I know that it is you. You are getting hit by your father."
"How do you know?" I asked while stopped walking.
"I saw you. It was years ago though. Did this go on through middle school and high school?" Jack asked also stopping.
"Ten years; Ever since mom died. Apparently I look like my mom and it is my fault for her death." I said quietly.
"Ella, I had no idea."
"No one knew. No one can know." I demanded. He nodded. "Why have you not told anyone? Why not go tell Donna or your parents?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.
"I do not know."
"What do you mean you do not know? I bet you're dying to tell someone." I said as I continued walking.
"I would not tell anyone if I did not get permission from you first. This is a serious problem, but it sounds like you did not want anyone to know so I kept it to myself." Jack yells, as he runs to catch up with my fast walking.
"Thanks. Listen I have to go or my dad will be mad at me. I will see you soon. I hope." I whispered the last part softly, hoping he did not hear me.
I get home and see bottles everywhere.
"Hello?" I yell.
"Kimberly!" a voice yells back. Crap!
"Hello daddy," I whispered. I then feel a numbing feeling against my face. He just slapped me across the face. Twice in one day and the same spot.
"Where have you been? You have been gone for over nine hours," he yelled while grabbing my throat, pulling me up to face level.
"I had school today. It was the first day back from summer break," I said, kind of. What? He was grabbing my throat. I could barely breath.
"I do not give a crap where you were! You left my house dirty." He yelled. I looked around, beer bottles, cigarette packets everywhere.
"I did not leave those there. I do not smoke or drink. I am perfectly healthy." I whispered. He drops me and walks over to the fridge, grabs another beer, and comes back.
"Go to your room, NOW!" he yells. I get up quickly saying nothing back.
When I get up there, I start bawling my eyes out like crazy. I forget about how Jack may hear me. I sit on my bed, for what feels like hours, when I hear a knock on my window. I walk over. It is Jack. He is in his room, which is literally two feet away from mine.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"What happened?" He asked looking worried.
"Nothing to your concern." I snapped.
"Kim, please. I want to help!" He begged.
"Sure you do. Why do you not just go back to Donna and tell her everything that is going on. She would so love you even more for that!" I snapped again.
"I would not tell her anything. Please I really want to know what is going on with you if I want to become friends again." He pleads.
"Who said anything about being friends again." I said.
"That is what I am trying to tell you. I want things to go back to he way they were before high school." He told me.
"I am going to regain back your trust first. Then maybe we will see where it goes from there." I told him. He smiles.
"Now, will you please tell me what happened." He pleads one last time. I explained everything that happened after I left him. When I got to the part about dad beating me, his expression got angry. It was like he was going to jump into my room, run into my dad's room and kill him.
"That is horrible! How can you live like this?" he asked when I was done.
"I just have to learn how to get through the pain." I tell him.
"Plus the pain I cause everyday at school only makes it worse for you." He puts his head in his hands looking really guilty. I do not blame him.
"You know something?" he says.
"What?" I question.
"I never wanted to hurt you in the first place." He replies.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Donna is blackmailing me into hurting you. I do not want to play football all my life. I want to be a journalist. Travel the world." He explained.
"But why is she blackmailing you?" I asked confused.
"My dad wants me to go to Alabama University, but I want to go to Stanford University. I got an acceptance letter from Stanford saying I got in but he does not know about it yet. Donna found out and she said she would tell him if I did not do what she says." He explained again.
"Oh."
"I can not let him find out, but if it means saving you from both monsters then I will risk it."
"What do you mean?" I asked again.
"I want to be your friend, not your bully. I want to hang out with you, not hurt you and say mean things about you. I hate doing that stuff. I want to be your friend." I was shocked. Everything he said was true. I can tell in his eyes. They were looking right into my eyes.
"Oh my god." I jump through my window and engulf him into a big hug. I hid my face in the space that connected his neck and shoulder. He suddenly wrapped his arms around me. This action made me hold on to him more and start crying.
"Hey, it is going to be okay. Everything will be okay. I promise." He told me. I nodded my head.
The next day, Jack and I walked into school together. Everyone is staring at me. Donna has a killer look on her face. She walks up to us.
"What the heck are you doing with my boyfriend!" she yelled in my face. Jack pulled me back behind him. Donna noticed this.
"What the heck are you doing protecting her? You hate her remember?" she yelled at him this time.
"Actually I do not hate her. It is just the exact opposite. Yes, I love Kim Crawford!" he yelled for the whole school to hear. I stood there shocked. What was I supposed to say? The boy who has bullied me for the past four years just told the whole school that he loves me, so I ran. I run to an empty classroom. Suddenly I hear footsteps, heels actually. I knew it was Donna following me.
"What nerve do you have to steal my boyfriend?"
"I did not steal him away from you!"
"Yes, you did. He loves you and not me. I will ruin you for taking him away from me." She said getting in my face then turning around and walking out the door. I sit down on the floor and start sobbing. I hear the door reopen again but did not look up.
"Go away!" I cried wanting to be left alone.
"Why I need to talk to you about something!" the person said. It was Jack.
"Oh. Sorry, what is up?" I said whipping my eyes.
"Come with me." He said pulling me up but keeping hold of my hand. We walk out into the hallway and towards the lobby of the school. He told me to close my eyes. I did so; he guided me until we suddenly stopped. He let go of my hand and told me to open my eyes. I gasped. In front of me was Kim down on one knee holding a ring box opened with a sapphire ring with tiny diamonds around it. Above him was a sign that said "Prom?" on it.
"Will you please go to prom with me?" he asked.
"It would be my honor!" I said while tears came out of the corner of my eyes. He stands up, puts the ring on my finger and kisses me. My first kiss. It was magical. Everyone started clapping. I felt happy.
"Will you be my girlfriend?" Kim whispered in my ear. I nodded. Okay, now I felt even happier.
Days pasted and tonight is prom. During the week a lot of crazy things happened. I confronted to the police about my dad abusing me. I am now living with Jack and his family. Mr. and Mrs. Brewer took me right in after they heard my story. They were also happy when we told them that Jack and I were dating. Mrs. Brewer is letting me wear her prom dress that both her and Rosie, Jack's older sister wore. They told me it was their prom that they meet their "Prince Charming". Both wearing the same dress, shoes and hair clip. I was really excited for tonight, but also really nerves about if Jack will like the dress on me.
I start to descend the grand staircase in the Brewer home. I started to get butterflies in my stomach once I saw Jack in his tux holding a corsage. It was a wrist corsage and around the flowers were tiny diamonds. As he put it on he noticed I had the ring on. The same one he gave me when he asked me to prom. He smiled as his mom got a quick picture of the moment. Soon it was time to go. We hopped into the limo that Jack had rented for the night.
We pulled up to the hotel where the prom was being held at. There was a big banner that read, "Once Upon a Time." We walked inside, and saw a lot of people dancing.
"Would you care to dance?" Jack asked.
"I would love to but I do not know how?" I confess.
"It is easy. Come on." He said pulling me to the dance floor. He showed me where to put my hands. He guided me across the floor. It felt like we were the only two people on Earth. I suddenly hear words being mumbled across the room. I look and see Donna. After a few minutes her mumbling magic or something comes from her finger. I fly backwards and crash into the punch bowl.
"Kim!" Jack yells. He runs up to help me up but Donna just uses her powers and send him to the other side of the room. Donna walks up to me as she does so she starts saying a spell. As she cast it on me, Jack comes up in front of me with a reflective plate. The spell bounced off of the plate and right back to her. She turned into a frog. Everyone started laughing.
"OMG! I am a slimy frog!" she cried as she hopped away out of the hotel.
"Jack! You saved me!" I cried thanking and hugging him. He hugged me back.
"Everyone can I please have you attention." Our principle said over the loud seniors.
"Everyone, I think it is time to announce our prom king and queen." He announced. Everyone started cheering.
"Your prom king is…Jack Brewer." Jack gave me a reassuring look before walking up on stage. He puts the crown on his head. He then grabs the crown for the queen.
"Now your prom queen is…Kim Crawford?" I looked shocked. I slowly walked up to the stage towards Jack who was smiling so happily. Everyone was actually clapping.
When I got up on stage, Jack put the crown on my head. He then put his arm around my waist as we posed for the picture for the yearbook. Next we walked down to the middle of the dance floor for our solo dance.
"Oh my gosh. I cannot believe this is actually happening to me." I whispered to him as we danced in circles.
"What winning prom queen?" he replies.
"Yeah, that and actually beating Donna at something for once." I laughed.
"Well get used to it!" he said also laughing.
"This feels right you know?" I said. He smiled.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. When I danced with Donna I would feel uncomfortable. Now dancing with you feels more like we are made for each other." He explained. I smiled as I laid my head on his chest.
"You are my one and only queen." He whispered.
With that we ended up going to Stanford University together. After we graduated, we moved into small house together. We are living happily ever after.
~Fin~