Chapter 2-Trying.

I glanced at my cut up face in the mirror. My reflection gave my stomach a real sickening churning. The scars were still there. I had no way of covering it all up. My eyes were blue, but looked gray all the time, which didn't look right with my thin, long, blonde hair. My hair could cover my ears and part of the scar on my neck, but nothing else. I wanted to get bangs, but people would still pull my hair out of the way, and show the scars off to their friends. "That scar was from… before he stood up Julie, or after?" "That scar was from a sick man… isn't it interesting looking?"

Everyone knew what had happened. The whole city. The whole state. No one had heard the gunshots, only the fireworks. It had been a whole month now, and the crowd was starting to lose interest in me. Thank goodness. I wasn't their centerpiece anymore. I didn't think I could take their touching and talking and whispering and mumbling and laughing anymore. Yes, laughing. They laughed at how I acted, always sulking, never talking, allowing my lips to dry up and crack when I moved them. Wouldn't you act like me if your whole family were slaughtered right in front of you, their blood still staining your whole body, after 6 million baths each day?

No one understood. And what's worse, they wouldn't even try to understand what I was going through. They just enjoyed using me as the topic of their lame discussions.

I hadn't talked for a good 3 weeks. The first few weeks were spent in the police station. They had me glance from picture to picture, trying to get out whom had done it. Even though the man had stood before me, I hadn't seen him. All I saw were his glistening, beautiful teeth. I wanted to smear his teeth with my blood, dirty him.

I was inside of my two-bedroom apartment most of the time. But I liked going out, letting the sky burn my skin and head. I enjoyed the clouds passing across the sky slowly. Plus, I had a job to keep going to. I was slowly catching up to my apartment payments.

As I steadily walked away from the mirror, I grabbed my purse, containing a gun for protection inside of it, and headed out the door.

I couldn't get a job anywhere because everyone thought I was a death magnet. Their naïve lives disgusted me. The only place where you didn't need any kind of resume to get into was the newspaper job. So I was a newsie. I was the only one who sold papers without screaming out the headlines. People just wanted to come close to me to see my scars, the pain in my eyes, and the story I had to tell without words.

But today was a different day.

A large, little, 11 or 12-year-old boy was following me around. "So what's it like ta be a freak? How does it feel to have blood sink trew ya clothes? What did ya Mudda' and sista' look like? I heard dat you had a dog too, and dat he was shot and they couldn't even tell dat he was a dog…"

I was good at ignoring people. It was what I did each day. But this boy was definitely having some kind of influence on me, and I wanted to stop him.

"Ay kid! What's ya problem anyway?!"

I turned to face the boy. There was an older boy towering over him. He had light, brown hair that was slicked back. A cowboy hat was hanging around his neck and a bandana underneath it. His eyes were brown, filled with anger right now, but obviously very gentle looking. He obviously could never hurt even a fly, much less a kid.

The boy crossed his arms, not letting down without a fight. "She don't mind. I'se jus' tryin' ta make her talk is all. My brudda' says she's mute and dat…"

"Well, ya brudda's obviously a dick, so don't listen ta him." The older boy made a fist and that scared the little punk away. He dashed the street. "Sorry 'bout dat. Kids dese days." He shook his head. He cocked his head slightly and looked into my eyes. He probably thought I wasn't going to say anything, so he started walking away.

I touched his arm slightly and he jumped around. "Tanks," I whispered. Those were my first words in so long. I had forgotten what my voice had sounded like.

His mouth almost dropped, but he saved it. "Sure. Kids dese days," he repeated.

I swallowed hard, opening my mouth slightly, bringing in as much air as possible at once. "Yeah," I murmured. My voice was scratchy, like a morning voice. It probably smelled like morning breath too. He took a step closer to me and I took a step back.

He looked like he felt awful for making me take a step away from him. His eyes dimmed slightly and his mouth opened like he was going to say something. But he closed his mouth again. Then quickly said, "Maybe I'll see you around sometime…"

"Sure." I turned slowly on my feet and walked back to my apartment, leaving my extra papers on a bench. Maybe getting to meet people wouldn't be so bad.

Read on.