A Broken Concept

Chapter 2

The first time we talked was on that stage. I hated that stage, hated going up and hated hiding behind faces of different people. But most of all I hate going up there and being myself. That one thing that was harder to fake then all the others.

"I just don't understand why my character would like someone like him!" I growled at the teacher, frustrated that I had to work in such close contact with someone like him.

"Because I'm hot." He answered, that stupid smirk on his face, yet his eyes were hiding something. I didn't care. Frowning I turned to the teacher.

"I think my character needs a better reason then that." I rolled my shoulders, ready to storm out of the class, not all that worried about the circumstances or punishments of my actions. I hated this class.

"You know, I don't understand why my character is attracted to her either. It says in the script that you're a bitch." He said, not a hint of humour in his voice.

I turned away from the teacher to glared at him. "It doesn't say that in the script." I growled out.

He plastered a huge smile across his face. "It does in mine!" Turning around he walked away, his script dropped at the floor by my feet.

I growled, throwing my script at his retreating back, grabbing my bag and storming out of the basement drama room, officially pissed.

Who gives a damn about him anyway?

The door slammed closed as the teacher continued screaming our names.

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I was mad alot of the time those days, even my best friend went out of her way to avoid me. I skipped most of my classes, choosing to attend only when absolutely nessesary. My parents still refused to come to terms with everything and send off to school everyday as though I was perfectly fine. I never went to school then, instead taking up residence at a local Starbucks caffe, relaxing on the back couches with my personal favourite, strawberries and creme frapuchinos and a few books I snatched up from the library whenever I went to school. It was a much more comfortable life then I ever could have hoped for during the school year, and I enjoyed it to the fullest.

My parents got frequent phone calls from school about my absence, but no one ever took the question up with me, instead they pretended the messages were misinforming and quietly agreed to accept that the school was just run the wrong way.

I missed a few weeks of school by then, never once going back to drama class, mostly because I was still mad at HIM for walking away from me. That's why I was so surprized when one morning while I was enjoying my usual frapichino, a shadow fell across my book, interupting my reading session. I looked up, holding my breath and hoping I wouldn't choke on my drink I stared at him.

For a while he just stood there, looking down at me with those deep golden eyes, and I couldn't make myself breathe. I though maybe I was dying, right there and right now, but that wasn't it. I blinked a few times, but he was still there, his eyes still glued to mine.

I swallowed the drink, and opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again, not really having anything to say.

"You're going to fail drama." he told me. Not that I could care less, mind you, but something in those eyes disturbed me.

"I don't care." I told him. And I didn't. I was going to die, what did it matter to me what I was failing?

"Well, you should start caring. You're failing half of your classes as well." I glared at him then. What the hell? How did he know what I was failing? Who told him? That was private information, damn it!

"I don't care." I repeated again, this time through clenched teeth. Who was this guy? Honestly, you get paired up with some idiot, and he thinks he's your father or something. I huffed mentally, picking up my book, and focused my eyes on the text, though not understanding a word I read. I knew he was still standing there, staring at me with his stupid golden eyes.

He wasn't moving. And after a while i backed down. Making a big show of putting down my book I raised my eyes to glare at him. "What?"

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. Not to be mean, I could see it, but just as a question.

For one panicking moment, I felt my eyes water, felt all the pressure that was building up behind the emotional wall I build up break loose, but I pushed it back, blinked my eyes and it was gone. I was afraid of what I'd do if I didn't get away from him. Somehow, this one boy I hated almost made me tell him everything.

"Nothing." I said, picking up my bag, my book, and leaving the now melted drink by the couch, hurrying down from the second floor of the caffe. Running and feeling the tears fall down my face. Before I flew out of the caffe, out of the corner of my eyes I saw his blurred image, standing on top of the stairs, looking down at me.

And I hated him. Hated how he was taller then me, how I was always beneath him.

I hated him because he made me feel something I didn't want to feel. Not now. Not when I was dying.

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I wanted everything. I don't know why, but one day, I just woke up and decided today is going to be different. I went to the mall. I found the slttiest skirts there were, and some tank tops that left little to the imagination. I bought heels all in different styles and colours. I changed in the public washroom in the mall, stuffing my old loose clothing in the garbage.

I realised as I walked around the bathroom in heels, seeing a strange new girl in the mirror, that I wanted to be pretty. But that I couldn't be. So I wanted something else, something close. I wanted guys to look at me. To want me. So I would dress like the people dancing on tv. I would make myself into this person they wanted, if maybe just for a while.

I remember walking out of that bathroom, I remember the whisling, and how I turned a flipped my hair, just like it said in the magazines, and I winked at them, just like the pretty girls in the movies do.

I remember I made it to school by lunch time that day. Surprizing the hell out of everyone, including my best friend, who asked me who I was when I talked to her.

By the time lunch was over the whole school was buzzing with the news.

I was a hooker, I was a stripper, I was a whore.

The rumors never stopped.

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I didn't go to school for a while after that either, returning to my boring lifestyle of living in the caffe, taking up the couch from nine to three every school day.

The waiters all knew me by now, smiling and waving and not judging at all.

We had conversations about the weather, and about tv, and about dogs and cats and elephants. I knew Scarlett, who was so strange to me then. She was gorgeous though, long red hair matching to her name, and crystal green eyes that shone in the sun when she laughed. She dropped out of highschool when she was still 16, just like I was now, and worked here ever since, now already 19, and living in a small appartment a few blocks from here. Her boyfriend was there sometimes.

We bacame friends ever since I started coming to the caffe everyday. she was usualy bored since no one came during the day, and sometimes we'd play cards until someone would walk through the door, ringing the bell hung above the door, and she'd run off, her hair flashing behind her as she'd smile and greet everyone.

On the weekends, we'd go over to her house sometimes, and just sit on the old worn couch and watch tv. Sometimes not tv, but just commercials. We would look at the pictures of people who's lives had changed. Some girls who had horrible skin, who looked so unhappy and so broken, and then they'd smile and cry of happiness when they were fixed. Scarlett would stare at the tv, and tilt her head to the side, watching someone else's moment of happiness before it was over, or before her boyfriend came home and changed the chanel to watching foorball, after which I was politely shooed out of the house.

He seemed nice sometimes, but sometimes I wondered why Scarlett was with him at all. I heard them fight a few times. About work, about money, about the appartment. I think he hit her too, but when I tried to mention it she'd change the subject before I realised it.

But sometimes he would come home happy, and he would take her in his arms and swing her around and she'd squel and hug him, and they would laugh, and I would think myself crazy for thinking he would ever hurt her.

Scarlett's appartment was like a second home to me then and I was happy. I got used to watching tv commercials with her, and after a while I was just as happy to see the other people transform to someone not so broken. We would both sit on the old worn couch and hold our breath as the before pictures transformed to the after, and we'd laugh and clap and be excited with the people on tv.

Because somehow, when I watched it, I though if they could be fixed, maybe I could be too.

And Scarlett wished for something as well.

But I never asked her.

But just then those pictures and our laughter carried everything bad away.

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I came back to school just in time to meet our new transfer student.

He was tall and dark and handsome, if you were into the whole destruction and danger kind of thing. Which I was. I went to school more often then, except I still skipped drama, refusing to go back there and face HIM.

I didn't think he had any more control over me, but I was still not ready to go back and prove myself wrong. So I stayed away, only occasionally flashing myself around the hallways, making to sure to run into the new bad boy in school, making eye contact, and mysteriously sashaying away.

He seemed interested, and I was intrigued, but school was taking its toll on me, and after a few weeks, I decided to go back on vacation.

I retreated to my couch in the caffe and long chats over card games with Scarlett.

Life was good again.

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My problems started when Kikyou decided she wanted to be my friend. I fought it for a while, but then I gave up, decided I had nothing to loose here. She wasn't so bad after I got to know her better. She knew a few good stores and hang out places. But after we joined forces, everyone else seemed to turn on us. I guess this was coming for a while, but I didn't realise just how it was going to come out.

The first hint I got was when my locker was burned down. After I managed to kick it open, a few dead snakes fell out, and by the way they looked, I'm assuming they were still alive when they were put it there. They just never made it through the barbeque.

Kikyou's locker was burned as well, but the inside was filled with huge spiders. I guess her cheerleader status of being untouchable died with the uniform.

We didn't go back to school for weeks after that.

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I figured out that despite Kikyou's self-proclaimed goth status, she was lonely. She changed because she was sick of it all. The fake laughs, the rumors, the desception and backstabbing. No one really wanted to talk to her anymore, and she assumed they fit in together. I can't say we were best friends, but we got along better after that confession.

We spend time at her house, mostly beacuse her parents weren't as nosy as mine and were mostly never there.

She had a huge house, just as it is expected of a cheerleader, and a ton of clothes.

There, we could act like normal girls, and laugh, and whisper, and tell secrets. Though the biggest ones all went untold.

Most nights, we fell asleep on the floor, wrapped around in blankets in front of the tv, people still babling on because no one bothered to turn it off.

I remember those days because she still seemed so different to me. I always remembered her as the cheerleader. Always with a smile and a blue uniform.

And then I would remember my own scarred wrists and wonder how it was that we ever became friends.