prologue.
She woke unwillingly from the rays of yellow-gold rays of sunlight seeping through her window, the birds chirping loudly outside the window in a nearby tree. Besides that, the whole ambience had a unusual, but nice placidity to it. She opened her eyes slowly and darted them at her alarm clock, reading "7:15AM".
"Crap!" She whispered under her breath, scrambling out of bed almost at the speed of lighting, before crumbling back into her bed, defeated, completely embarrassed at her idiocy.
It was Saturday.
She opened her phone, and then sighed and sank back into her bed. Still no reply. Why would there be? She had thought that that self-deprecating comment was hilarious, but in the eyes of others, apparently, it wasn't. She was just trying to get involved in the conversation, building up the courage to finally speak up for herself, but it ultimately ended up smacking herself in the face, as always. Why did she even bother? She rolled over and buried her head into her pillow, unsure of whether to cry, scream or both. She settled on screaming into her pillow. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed some more, but stopped almost immediately after, tears began venturing their way down her face. Of course.
She realised for a split second, that the mask she wore thick on her poisoned skin formed cracks, the truth, always came out as sharp cuts, as she sat alone at night with her demons on her back like wings of death, but she never knew how to get better. Those days dragged by longer and it took the sun so much time to rise, when she lay alone on her bathroom floor watching the rain run down her window and her pale, bruised cheeks; her mind never settled when she closed her tired eyes and she saw flashes of her future that caught her breath in her lungs which made her gasp the toxic of realisation; she was never as good as she'd dreamed. At night when the fatigue eventually drowned her and bit at her cold hands as she fell down the rabbit hole and into a crumbled wonderland. Life never held her back but dragged her down and nailed her to her grave as she lay down the blood red roses at her own funeral. Her eyes never left the sight of the void in which she could never fill whatever risks she took, the whispers around her drove her insane as the judge of society shunned her to an eternal anxious jail she gradually built herself as she sat on the cold seat of loneliness. She was never alright from the day she realised, this wasn't her life but her hell, she'd already died centuries ago but the pain that she held close to her shattered heart had stitched her mouth and mind closed and opened the door to limbo would never leave her side.
She was right. No matter how hard she tried, she always felt unwanted, always felt rejected by her peers. She was constantly lonely, engrossing herself in her work to occupy the time, isolated in her bedroom. It wasn't fair and she couldn't deal with it anymore. Maybe college could change that for her, change how people thought of her, make people like they - just feel wanted. It had worked for her older brother, so surely it could work for her. He'd graduated now though, and was working towards becoming a police officer in Illinois. He'd never told her where though. She had no clue why, but if her brother was keeping something from her it was probably for the best. Her brother was her best friend and she trusted him more than anyone else in the world. The thought of a better life, the thoughts of finally ending high school and never having to see all of the people that had made her life a living hell, the thought of a new chance at a new place with new people, the thought that she'd meet people that accepted the fact that she was a human being too, that's what she'd cling onto in times of desperation, like now.
She sighed and tried to fall asleep again, but couldn't. However much she tossed and turned, wriggling around trying to find a comfortable position, her loneliness taunted her mind and every inch of her being, so much that she was used to these sleepless nights. She got up after the realisation that she wasn't going to fall asleep hit her, and she sat at her desk got out a few textbooks and began taking more notes. She'd lose concentration only if she heard another sound in the house, or she'd gaze outside, looking at the rows of flowers scattered across the garden, neatly organised in colour coordinated patches, gleaming and gently swaying and whistling in the sunlight. Patches of crimson, amber, fuchsia and magenta roses and tulips, lavenders, snow-white lilies, bright orange marigolds, and a variety of blossoming trees surrounded the chartreuse coloured grass, enclosing it in its almighty beauty. Next to her was a bookcase filled with various genres of fiction, particularly the romance and mystery novels she revered. The thoughts, stories occupied her mind as she went about her day and it made her feel less alone. It helped her, she could relate to characters in books, more so than actual human beings. Her mother had told her it was unhealthy though, the amount of time she spent inside either working or reading. Her mother told her that she needed to go out more often, go make new friends; she'd never listen, never understand, that it wasn't her habits that were unhealthy, but the habits of the people around her and their pre-informed opinions which had no basis to them.
That's what she'd always tried to tell them but it didn't always go down so well. She'd always been labelled the know it all, the teacher's pet, the loner, the castaway, the smart-ass; she'd always been seen as overly astute and intelligent. She'd thought they were all jealous of her capabilities and that's what powered her forward even further to succeed; that she could get her revenge on them in a different way. She'd tried to change their preconceptions but she'd had to learn the harsh way of the opinionated mind of a teenage girl, the mind which never forgets about this one thing you did one time, or this one thing you said one time. Any attempt to try and alter their preconceptions was another feeble attempt that would make her feel worse off than she did before.
She put away her biology books after a while and debated climbing into bed again and trying to sleep, but she knew that wasn't going to be happening, and instead settled on reading through college letters. She'd got offers from all the colleges she'd wanted to go to, and now was the time that she needed to pick. All the typical universities someone of her academic capability would choose - Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Northwestern...but the one that really stood out to her, the one that she really wanted to choose, the University of Chicago. She'd always wanted to visit and in truth she'd really wanted to get as far away from these mean girls that have haunted her for every second of every day of her life since middle school; Chicago seemed far enough away for her. She wanted to jet off right now and never look back, away from the disconcerting looks from her parents, away from the people that had never appreciated her, the teachers that never let her show her full potential. This was her second chance, her new chapter. Where she'd meet new friends, unlock her potential, be the best version of herself, meet people that made her feel happy and wanted. People that were the complete opposite to her parents, her so called friends, her teachers. She was settled on it. She was going to leave all of this behind and never look back. It felt like a weight had been taken off her back, a weight she'd been carrying for years; it felt like she could finally breathe again.
Chicago. That's where she belonged. That's where her life would change forever.
