Somewhere In The Woods

Chapter One - Maggie Marley

All my life I've wondered what the point of it was. The point of life as we knew it. I didn't wonder in the way most people wondered, in which they wished for death or something more permanent. I wondered why it happened like this, why everything aligned to create this moment, why I am in it. Life was a carefully balanced instrument, and I can't understand why I am a part of it. I crash through life a bit faster than everyone else, crash into corners that were meant to be stepped around.

I know life isn't easy for everyone else, but it seems like everyone else has something going for them. For me, all I had was that I wasn't dead yet. Some would say that's a lot, but to me, it's just a load of crap they try to keep us happy with. Maybe I'm pessimistic, or maybe I'm realistic. It all depends on your view on life.

My name is Maggie Marley, and that's the only cool thing about me. My fraternal twin sister is Annie Marley, the cheerleading star, the prom queen, the most popular girl in town. Sure, it seems cliché, but it's true. Annie is the golden girl, whom my parents couldn't be prouder of, and I'm the one they forget the birthdays of. Like today for example. It's Annie and my seventeenth birthday, and I'm home alone, unpacking my room while my parents and Annie are out at her cheer tryouts for our new school. It sounds like it would be difficult to celebrate one twin's birthday and forget the other, but somehow the Marley's managed.

We just moved to Salem, Massachusetts, where my mom is going to be the brand-new history teacher at my brand-new high school. My dad is going to go job hunting while the rest of us go to school, joking that he's not the academic type. Annie is already set to dominate the school, trying out for cheer captain, which she always gets, and is already chatting up three of the boys on the football team. I, on the other hand, have not left the house since we arrived two days ago.

While everyone else is off galivanting, I've been unpacking. A rather boring way to exist, but at least I'll know where everything is. But now, I was on my last box. Afterward, there wouldn't be anything to do, nothing to ignore people through. At least in my old town, I knew places to go when I didn't want to speak to anyone, which was more often than not. Here, I was left to go off searching, hoping I'd find something before my social meter was drained.

When I did leave the house, it was six o'clock, a time that I hoped wouldn't make for many people out. I put in my earbuds and I began to walk, heading in the direction I assumed suburbia ended. The weather was nice, but I assumed like most coastal towns, it wouldn't last long.

Even my shadow looked strange. It made my long limbs look monstrous, my dirty blonde hair looked frizzy and extra wavy and with the steadily setting sun, it was all twice as bad. My dad said once that I looked like uncooked spaghetti, and my mom agreed, adding that if I were a tree, I'd be a birch, thin, tall, and straggly. Not exactly what guys are looking for these days.

My parents didn't like my ear piercing, but they especially didn't like Annie's tattoo, so they let it go, which meant I got another one, both on one ear to make our anal mother annoyed. She loved things with symmetry, if one side had one, the other had to have one as well. It was just a little thing to annoy her, but she didn't have to look at it often.

Annie got a ridiculous butterfly tattoo on her upper back, one drawn with every color of the rainbow. Guys at our old school used to keep a count of how many of them had seen the whole thing, in other words, how many had seen her either top-less or in a bikini. Annie is the kind of girl that knew guys are players but decides to give them a chance and like him anyway. She had nice straight blonde hair and an athletic build. An ex of hers had once described her face as sexy and adorable, which I didn't understand. Meanwhile, boys tend to describe me as intense or frightening, which, wasn't always bad.

I found myself downtown rather quickly, making a mental note of where the high school was as I passed by. I could still hear the whistles and yelling of tryouts, telling me even if they did remember my birthday, we wouldn't be celebrating it tonight.