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The stars will cry
The blackest tears tonight
And this is the moment that I live for
I can smell the ocean air
And here I am
Pouring my heart onto these rooftops
Just a ghost to the world
That's exactly
Exactly what I need
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Chiara walked into school, her shoes squeaking on the black and blue linoleum tiles. Her hair was soaking wet and heavy with water and her uniform was in almost the same condition. The storm outside seemed to be drowning Upper-East-Side Manhattan and she sincerely hoped by the end of school today all the rich old ladies with perfectly groomed snapping dogs and all the delinquent supermodels who lived there would be dead.
The bell rang as she walked quickly through the halls. Students crowded out of class and she hastened to the girls bathroom on the first floor. She pushed her wet hair behind her heavily pierced ears and pushed in through the swinging door. She stared at herself in the mirror, glaring at her reflection.
Her hair hung around her face making her look like a tan teenage Samara. Her grey eyes seemed filled with hatred. She frowned at looked at herself closer in the mirror. Where they turning... blue? Shit. Possibly the only thing she liked about her eyes was the color, and now even that was rebelling against her as well.
She couldn't even believe she'd come to school today. Hiding in the bathrooms while the maids swept would have been easier than showing up to History class looking like a drowned rat.
She squeezed her hair out over one of the sinks, hoping no one would come in and disturb her. She grabbed a handful of paper towls and cleaned up the majority of her eyeliner which had leaked over her face in the rain. Cleaned, she dug her precious eye-pencil out of her bag and began again on outlining her eyes.
The door swung open suddenly, making her jump. Three figures came in. As she looked up, she wished she hadn't.
"Oh... it's just you." came the high, nasal voice of Jenna Rodriguez. Captain of St. Andrew's competetic cheerleading team and royal bitch. She was exactly the person in all those teen flicks who made the poor sad ugly-pretty girl feel like shit. She was followed by her two friends, Marisa and Calla, who were so blonde, so blue-eyed and so bone-exposingly skinny Chiara couldn't tell them apart.
"It'd be a waste of breath to say 'hello' to me, wouldn't it?" Chiara asked, folding her arms. She didn't want to look at them. She turned back into the sink, starting again on the task she'd begun.
"You look tired, Chiara." Jenna said, leaning against the aisle of sinks and smiling at herself in the mirror. Chiara looked up at her. She wasn't even paying attention, just adjusting her light brown hair around her perfect face. "Did you have a busy night?" she asked, finally remembering she was speaking and flashing her reflection a white smile.
Chiara sighed, putting her pencil back in the bag, finished.
"Don't start again." She said. "Please." Jenna seemed unfaltered. The two of them faced each other.
"That's the best you can come up with?" Jenna asked, her perfect lips in a smirk that would have turned on any male beyond the age of nine. "I really thought you would have killed yourself by now, Chiara." she said slowly, knowing how much pain it was causing. Chiara couldn't bare to look at her, she looked back at the mirror, at herself, hating the reflection she saw. Jenna didn't stop there. "I mean. Think about it. Your father's a workaholic bringing in the big bucks, but he barely has time to even remember you exist. Your mother's dead. And you're just their one little mistake and went off and wasted all your," she came closer to Chiara, like a tiger about to pounce, "flowers." she smiled. "What's the point of living? No one likes you. No one even bothers to remember about you." She folded her arms, finally backing away.
Chiara looked over at her again. She didn't have the strength to glare. She felt tears coming. Everything Jenna had said was true, except for the whole deflowering rumor. Chiara, at sixteen years old, was still a virgin and she doubted she could say the same for Jenna.
Three identically evil smiles looked back at her.
"Don't think no one knows, Chiara." Jenna went on. "Late for school. Tired looks. Absensces. It's only obvious what you're doing." Chiara felt the tiniest ray of strength.
"And what," she began, fighting back the urge to scream, "is it, that I am doing, Jenna?"
Jenna glanced upwards. The lights were flickering wildly.
"I think that-" she began, looking back at Chiara and freezing. Her blue eyes blinked in disbelief. She stuttered to talk. Chiara felt confused. The three of them pressed them selves against the wall, frightened. The flourescent lights continued insanely. Chiara felt strongly empowered.
"Are you so insecure that you have to prey upon the one person who doesn't fall for your sweet, stupid disguise!?" she shouted suddenly, sure this would be drawing attention from outside. "Is it worth the effort to make my life so much hell!?" The was a sudden crash behind her, followed by another, and another, and another. Water sprayed everywhere as the sinks broke from the walls. Jenna screamed.
Chiara whirled around to glance back at the damage. Instantly, she was soaked again by the water that spraying from the back of the pipes and over the floor. She caught her reflection in mirror and tried to hold back a scream herself.
Her eyes. They'd become a vivid electric unblinking blue. She tried to tear herself away from her frightening reflection. She stepped back and crashed into the metal stall door which from the door frame, sparking like a cut power line.
Chiara looked back in the mirror, staring at herself in the blue eyes again. She glared at Jenna, Calla and Marisa, about to blame them, but they'd disappeared. The door was a crack open. Chiara pulled the rest of it open, sparks shocking off the door handle, but not seeming to hurt her.
In a split second she was out in the hallway, the lights above flickering. The school was in shadow one moment and the next a lit line of lockers, leading her towards her goal. The door and her escape into the city. Not hesistating to see who was around, she ran.
She crashed out the door and down the steps to the front of the school. She stopped and glanced behind her. A group of horrified students were staring out the windows, pointing and gaping at her.
Chiara looked up at the sky, at the rain. It hit her skin, sparking. She glared back at the school and ran down the street and away.
She collapsed against a wooden electric pole, alone in the streets of New York. No one wanted to be out in this rain. She glanced back up at the grey-purple sky and the humming powerlines above her and started to cry.
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Whoo hoo... re-wrote the first chapter... now I'll get restarted on the other stuff. Wanted to use those lyrics... even if you don't like Story of the Year - Anthem of Our Dying Day, those are still good lyrics for this chapter...