I'll Never Let Them Hurt You.
Part One – Cassie's POV
"Leda Helena Cooper! Hurry up and get your ass down here! I've been ready for 45 minutes!" I yelled up the stairs.
"Gimme 5 more minutes Cass," my best friend mumbled in reply.
Y'know, there's only so much a person can look at a wall without going completely insane. I sighed and leaned back into Leda's sofa. Generally, a girl would spend a lot of her time with her best friend, whereas Leda and I spent all of our time together. You see, my parents were rarely home because of their 'working life'. Right now I was beginning to forget what they looked like, even sounded like. I may be 18 and just finished college, but growing up without parent figures in your life makes you long for them. I literally craved their attention; I would even get into trouble in school just to be able to have a lengthy conversation with them.
Leda didn't have the amazing upbringing she deserved either. People that treat their children like a punching bag don't deserve to be breathing in my opinion. The excuse 'I have a short temper' just doesn't do it for me, sorry. There is absolutely no excuse. Leda's 'parents' weren't alcoholics, weren't drug addicts or anything of the sort. They simply enjoyed causing people pain, whether emotional or physical. My best friend received both. Her mother, once a trained psychologist took on the job of making her daughter feel like utter shit. Her father however, chose the opposite and beat her until she was on the brink of unconsciousness. Pretty sadistic if you ask me. Leda put herself into care, if you were to ask her, she can't even recall the amount of homes she's been in.
I was dragged out of my train of thought by feet clomping down the wooden stairs. You know in movies where they have the typical wedding? The bride's walking down the aisle, the groom looks around, gasps speechlessly and his eyes kind of pop out of his head? That's exactly what I did when my stunning best friend came into the living room (no, I'm not a lesbian by the way).
"Fuck-ing hell..." I pronounced each syllable with such force.
"What? Do I look horrible? Oh! I'm going to go change; I knew this wouldn't be a good idea Cassie!" She cried and ran back up the stairs.
God, I hate how self-conscious that girl is!
I just sat there, sat there shocked at Leda's reaction. It wasn't until she slammed her bedroom door that I jumped up off of the sofa, which I'd pretty much moulded into after sitting in it for so long, and ran up the stairs. Jesus Christ, I didn't realise how many stairs this house had! Her house kind of reminded me of a lanky guy; it has 3 floors and an attic but only one room on each floor. Guess where Leda's room was? Yep that's right, the freaking attic. Now I'd never been amazing at sports at school. 100m sprint I'd be all up for.
I reached the ladder to the attic, gasping for breath by now. What I was wearing didn't help either! My breathing was clearly super loud cause Leda swung her 'door' open before I'd even reached the top of the ladder.
"What the fu-"
"Don't you 'what the fuck' me, I was about to 'what the fuck' you!" I panted.
"Why?" She giggled at my fatigued appearance.
"Oh, erm, I dunno... maybe at the fact you just screamed at me and ran up here to your upstairs dungeon!"
"But Cass! I look freaking stupid. I look about 12 years old!"
I took in her appearance once more. She was dressed in an absolutely stunning black dress cutting off way above her knees. It was laced with several different neon coloured strips of lace, no doubt added on by Leda, on the skirt part of the dress. Typically, she had a matching set of The Nightmare Before Christmas necklace and earrings. Oh, she had a badge on as well... why am I not surprised. Another thing about Leda, she is obsessed with NBC. Moving my eyes downwards I noticed her signature knee-high converses, finished with neon laces. Gosh this girl has a thing for neon.
I now flicked my eyes up to her face. My best friend was oh so beautiful. After the years of emotional abuse from her mother however, she now believed that she looked lower than ugly. I tell her every day how stunning she is, I'm not gonna stop until she realises it either. Leda seems to hide behind her make-up, she does it amazingly though. Tonight she had gone for her 'opposite' look. Her top eyelid on her left eye had bright green eye shadow whereas her right had bright blue. The bottoms of her eyes also went in with the 'opposite' look, the left having bright blue eye shadow, and the right having bright green. It was rather entrancing to look at. She'd finished it off with a thin outline of eye liner and mascara. There was something different about her though, something I couldn't quite put my finger on...
"Well, my over analytical mind tells me you look like a hot 18 year old ready to go to a party," I replied (no, still not a lesbian).
"Really?"
"Yes L, take my word for it! But... what's different? I know there's something..."
"My hair, stupid!"
She looked at me stunned, as if I should know. It's not my fault, she changes it all the time, it's hard to keep bloody track! Her hair was now bright purple. When I say bright, I mean bright! It was straightened with the top half pinned back with a black bow clip. Her fringe however, stayed unclipped. Her hair looked rather... elegant... compared to the rest of her crazy look. All I could think was: I fucking love it!
"Ah, yeah... sorry. Can we finally go now?!" I pleaded.
"Yes! I can't believe I'm agreeing to this though, you know I hate parties! If you weren't my best friend there'd be no way in hell I'd be going through with it. But first..."
"What?" I asked nervously.
"Look in the fucking mirror to see how amazingly beautiful you look," She pulled a full length mirror out from behind her wardrobe.
I reluctantly looked at myself to see a stranger looking back at me.