Attention: This story is about self-harm recovery. That means that self-harm is mentioned often. I am not encouraging self harm in anyway and am writing this story to deal with my own personal experiences. If you are considering harming yourself please, please, please don't. I would give anything to be able to go back and stop myself from making that first cut. If you need help you should talk to someone that you trust like a parent, a therapist, a teacher, a guidance counselor, or a friend. If you need to you can private message me. I will always respond and I won't judge you. If you are a self-harmer you need to know that this story will most likely be very triggering and you should only read it if you are comfortable with exposing yourself to potentially triggering content. If you are unsure if it is a good idea for you to read this story I would suggest that you don't. I plan to have some triggering scenes occur before the self-harmer in the story seeks help.
In this story I wanted to explore what Kyle's life would be like if he wasn't so much of a jerk. So he won't act the way he did in the book or movie at the being. There will also be no magic spells or witches. His father may be slightly out of character but I tried my best. I would love to get reviews however I do not want particularly negative ones. It's fine if you don't like my story but please try to say something like "This isn't my thing." Instead of ripping my story to shreds and then analyzing each shred like a reviewer on my other story did. Also I do not own Beastly.
Kyle's high school was the kind of fancy school that had a coffee counter in the cafeteria. Standing in line at this coffee counter was where Kyle noticed her for the first time. There were two cash registers with a line in front of each and this girl was standing in the other line across from him. She wasn't very tall, maybe five foot two, but her height didn't really stand out. What stood out was how pretty she was. She had black-brown hair that ran down her back and side swept bangs. Her eyes were a shocking blue almost too bright to believe. They were lined with black eyeliner, thick but not overdone or Goth, which seemed to make them seem even more blue. Her clothes were pretty typical for a more rebellious teenage girl, a tee shirt from some band concert, skinny jeans and a grey hoodie. She reached for her coffee and handed the boy behind the counter her money. Her fingernails were painted black with pink glitter near the tips. "Thank you," she said with a smile, "Have a nice day."
The sleeve of her hoodie brushed against the counter and in the few seconds before she pulled it back down Kyle saw a bunch of straight red lines on her skin. When he was handed his coffee Kyle dropped a ten-dollar bill on the counter, muttering that the cashier should keep the change, and hurried after her.
"Hey," he said, "What kind of coffee did you get?"
She turned around and looked at him, "Uh, one of those icy caramel milkshake like things. You?"
"Just your basic coffee," he told her, "What class do you have first?"
"Sophomore English," she said, "We're reading Othello."
"Oh Othello," he said, "That's the one where, um," he paused, "I guess I can't remember, help me out here?"
"The psycho ruins the black guy's marriage and then everyone dies," she said, "One of Shakespeare's tragedies."
"How tragic," Kyle commented.
"You look really familiar," the girl said, "Do I know you?"
"Maybe you've just seen me around the halls," he suggested.
"No," she said, "That's not it. I just transferred here two weeks ago."
"Than maybe you've seen my dad," Kyle said, "Rob Kingston."
"That's it," she said, "You look like him."
"I'm not like him," Kyle said, "I'm Kyle."
"Nora," she introduced herself, "Nice to meet you Kyle."
"What's on your arm?" Kyle asked.
"What do you mean?" She asked, calmly.
"I saw like lines or cuts or something on your arm," he said. That's when something in his head clicked and he realized what they were.
"Oh it's nothing," she said, "My cat hasn't mastered the concept of a scratching post quite yet." Just then the bell rang, signaling that it was time for homeroom, "Well I got to go, see you around."
Kyle thought about Nora a lot that day. He mind kept replaying the moment where the cuts on her arm had been visible. He wondered if it had been better if he hadn't said anything at all. That night when he got home he asked his dad about it.
"What do you know about cutting?" He asked while his father was in between phone calls.
"You mean like self harm?" Rob asked.
"Yeah," Kyle said, "Like razor blades and stuff."
"We just did a special report on it," his father said, "Apparently it affects a bunch of teenagers. Personally I think it's stupid. Why would anyone be idiotic enough to do that to themselves? Not to mention how ugly the scars and cuts are. Although they mostly keep them hidden thankfully. No need to expose the world to your flaws. Why do you ask anyway?"
"Just wondering," Kyle said.
"Is there someone in your class?" Rob asked.
"Something like that," his son replied.
"It's awful to think that there could be people like that at your school," Rob said, "I pay good money to send you there. If I wanted you mixed up with all kinds of messed up kids I'd send you to public school."
Just then Rob's phone rang and the brief conversation between him and his son ended. Kyle went to his room and sat down in front of his laptop. He pulled up the Internet and typed self harm cutting into a search engine. Tons of results popped up including pages and pages of blogs dedicated to self harm. Some seemed to be focused on recovery but others seemed to be less positive. He scrolled through a few pages, mostly consisting of depressing posts and pictures. There were pictures of cuts and gashes dripping blood. Kyle closed the window. He didn't want to think of the kind girl in the cafeteria bleeding like that.
Instead he logged onto a social networking site and tried to find her in his list of suggested friends. Finally he remembered that there was a student welcoming committee and looked in the yearbook to find the name of their leader. It was Caitlyn Parker the daughter of a senator. Kyle visited her profile and saw that it said Caitlyn Parker is now friends with Nora Anderson. Bingo!
He sent her a friend request and then looked at her profile. It said that she had been going to another private school before transferring to his. Just then he
received a notice that Nora Anderson had accepted his friend request. He noticed that she was online to instant message.
Kyle Kingston: Hey. What's up?
Nora Anderson: Not much, you?
Kyle Kingston: Putting off working on homework.
Nora Anderson: Haha. Me too. I have to go. Bye.
Kyle watched as the green dot next to her name disappearing signaling that she was now offline. It was funny but now he was starting to miss her.