If You Are Reading, I Am Dead

Chapter Two

🌿How Roux Left🌿

Roux had been loyal. I don't blame her for a thing: anyone could be swayed by Sharell. I think I should write down, in each chapter, how she made a particular person leave me or hate me or die. Then you may get a sense of her 'style', and will be able to see in coming. Hopefully.

I know one thing about Sharell's style: it's slow going. She can't afford to kill someone too quickly, otherwise she might be suspected. She starts slow, and works her way up. This is how I think she started with splitting me and Roux up. It may have started before, so small even I didn't realise, but to the best of my knowledge, this is what I think.

Anyways, it had been a normal Sunday. Every sunday night we had a sleepover, switching houses between mine and Roux's. Roux wanted to invite Sharell. She seemed to be getting closer to her each day, but I didn't mind. Back then, remember, I thought Sharell was nice, albeit a little sickly sweet.

So Sharell came over to Roux's house, and the night began.

That's when that day became a little less normal.

Sharell made jokes at my expense a lot of the time. I wasn't used to it: I was that girl nobody messed with. But I shrugged it off; I couldn't take it seriously or I'd be called a baby. So I laughed too. So much so that I didn't realise when the jokes became insults.

Roux laughed along. She even threw in a few insults of her own. It hurt me, but I didn't let it show.

Fat, ugly, stupid: I started to believe them. I looked down at myself, at my thighs. They were rather large, especially compared to Sharell's...

I saw a glimpse of my glasses in the mirror. How unattractive. No boy will ever like me. Charlie will probably dump me soon...

I only got a B on the last maths test. Never mind the A I got on spelling, only a B in math? I really was an idiot.

And insult by insult, laugh by laugh, it killed me a little more. I still believe those things.

I went for a toilet break, chuckling at their latest insult: the Ugly Duckling. When I came back, Roux started being really cruel, only wanting to be liked by Sharell. The great woman herself sat back and let Roux do the rest of her job, knowing that hearing Roux say it would hurt me even more.

"You know, I don't see what Charlie sees in you... You're so ugly!! And dumb. I mean, if I were you I'd be really depressed... But I'd never be like you!"

I laughed.

After that, Roux wanted to hang out with me less.

"Um, Ives," (Ives was her pet name for me)

"Ives, me and Shar kinda made plans, and we hardly ever hang out with just the two of us, so can we cancel tonight's sleepover?"

Things like that. It broke my heart, but I let it slide. Who was I to say who Roux could and couldn't hang out with?

Eventually, Roux stopped talking to me altogether. But it was fine, I had other friends, and Roux was still my friend... Right?

That's when the last stage of Sharell's plan came into play.

Roux came over to me crying one Monday at school.

"Ivy... YOU BITCH!"

And she ran away.

I asked another of my friends, Sapphire, what was going on. She seemed reluctant to talk to me, and seemed to hate me as much as Roux did now.

"Well, IVY, you know how Roux was seeing Callus? Yeah? You know, the guy who you're CHEATING WITH?"

I was bewildered.

"Callus? I'm not seeing Callus!"

"Oh yes you are! Just cause Roux is best friends with Shar now, not you, you go steal her boyfriend and see him behind Charlie's back! You whore!"

And Sapphire ran off to comfort Roux.

Later, after school I sought out Roux.

"Roux... Whatever somebody has said, I am not seeing Callus!"

"Yeah, sure Ivy, you bitch. Callus himself came up to me and broke up with me because he said he was seeing you now! And you're only doing it cause I'm best friends with Shar, not you!"

This was pretty much exactly what Sapphire had said.

"Who is saying all this?"

"Shar! She is really clever too, and she's a good friend, she wouldn't lie! She knows you so well! I hate you Ivy. I really loved Callus, you know that. YOU STUPID-"

Sharell walked up.

"Roux babes, don't waste your breath, she's not worth it. Soon enough Callus will come back to you, because he doesn't want a whore girlfriend."

Roux turned on her heel and walked away. Sharell followed her, but not before winking at me, and whispering under her breath so only I could hear:

"That's what you get for not liking me."

It was a mistake on her part to mouth that to me, but I guessed she'd thought I would just get depression and never speak again or something. Doesn't work like that sweetie. I'm stronger than she thinks.

How else could I have lasted this long?

I eventually started to dig up the truth. Apparently, Sharell had given Callus sex if he lied about it.

Who's a whore now?'

You couldn't blame him though: Callus was a boy, Sharell was a very pretty girl. She had given him even more sex to 'dump' me and go back to Roux, saying he loved her, proving Sharell's prediction right. Roux eventually dumped Callus for seeing me at all, while he tried to tell her the truth. He was going to say what Sharell had done, he told me, (he knew he could trust me) because he did love Roux.

But he was killed by a pack of wolves before he could tell the truth.

Not really that mysterious is it? A certain somebody murdered him in the woods and made it look like wolf bites.

I tried, on many occasions, to tell Roux the truth. She just called me a liar, a backstabber, all sorts of things, and soon enough everyone was against me.

Charlie too.