Crescent Cusp

This is shit, and I acknowledge that, so I'm putting it up on Wattpad in the hopes that some kind soul will tear it to pieces and really help me turn it into the story I want.

Critique. Comment. Thank you.

~

       A flame ignited at the tip of the steel lighter. Venus dropped a flimsy business card on top of the flame and watched with bored eyes as the paper turned black and charred away. She let out a sigh, rolling her thumb away from the circular switch.

       March was inching closer to April and Venus’s school was off for Easter holidays. She sat on some poor soul’s tombstone, in some poor town’s cemetery, on her poor ass planet she felt had gone to shit. Her days had been filled with lurking in the shadows and loitering in cemeteries, aggressively hissing at those who came to visit loved ones, and now with her last free day drawing to a close, Venus felt she had wasted it.

       Venus felt lonely. She was the only living amongst the dead in the cemetery, and the only dead amongst the living in her town. Isolating herself from her schoolmates—all of whom she felt had failed to connect with her disconsolate being— she spent her time decorating her body with metal and the darkest colours of the earth.

       A bang of thunder boomed above Venus and evoked a response of fear from her. She dropped the lighter into the soil and shot up straight before shaking her long black bangs into her eyes and falling back into a shrug. She knelt down casually in an attempt to play off her reaction and snatched up her lighter, lighting it in anger against the decaying tomb before breaking into a sprint towards the cemetery gates.

~

       Venus’s eyes fluttered open and she greeted the sun with a growl. It barely shone from behind layers of dark clouds, but it was present nonetheless, and Venus refused to awake happily when light still played alarm clock.

       Easter holidays came to an end that day, and so she stumbled her way downstairs with a purposeful grimace on her face.

       “Do you want breakfast or something?” Venus’s mum called from the laundry room.

       “No,” she responded, although quickly stuck a few pieces of toast in the toaster.

       A sigh sounded from the laundry room, and Venus filled with satisfaction.

       “Do I smell toast?” her father said, entering from the living room in dirty construction clothes.

       “Maybe.” Venus stood in front of the toaster. “Or you’re just going senile.” She reached behind her to pull her toast from the slots, clutching it close to her back. “Think I’m gonna go with the latter.”

       “Drop the bullshit starvation act,” he sighed, rubbing sawdust out of his hair. Venus dismissed his comment and ran out the door.

       She arrived at school after a short time and cut around the back of the school, entering the doors to a usually scarcely populated hallway. The back doors were Venus’s entry of choice, as she had far less a chance of seeing many of her cruel schoolmates.

       Venus skulked to her locker, staring at the shoes of passersby.

       “Hey,” Jose greeted, giving Venus a slight nod. He was leaned against her locker and balancing on his shoulder. Jose was a boy who frequently gave Venus trouble, from his cocky advances on her sister to his sly digs at her eccentric clothing choices.

       “Go away,” she replied shortly.

       “Hey, all right, bitch. I was just gonna ask for your science notes.”

       “You can’t have them.” She opened her locker stiffly as Jose moved away, listening quietly to his muttered insults. She felt a hand reach over her shoulder and pull her binder from the bottom shelf. Venus watched with dark eyes as he sifted through the disorganized papers before pulling out the sheet he sought.

       Jose handed Venus her binder back, folding up her notes to stick them in his pocket. “Hey, you’ve got some good drawings in there. You could be an artist. ”

       She tilted her head lightly, staring at him with weary eyes.

       With a chuckle, he walked away. “Kidding.”

       Venus ran her tongue along her teeth in agitation and shot to her classroom, ignoring the mischievous smiles she received when she entered.

       Hours drifted on and the final bell rang, sending Venus stark out of the school. Her lack of participation in class and social interaction portrayed school as a depressing waste of time to her, and while she had an appreciation for the dark and depressing, school certainly did not fall under the “good” of that category.

       But it’s not as though Venus naturally isolated herself; as though she had sought to remain friendless.  Her attempt at making friends had gone wrong when she realized how little in common she had with her schoolmates.  True, she had been appreciative of her gore and glum since childhood, however she was not always cold towards people. The malice in school had turned her from a young girl with odd interests to an outcast with hate for everyone.

       They ridiculed Venus. They harmed her. She had no logical reasoning as to why, and so she formed her own answers. Her answers varied from her having a different way of thinking to her being completely separate from the human race.

       Passing a large black dumpster smelling of foul smoke, Venus quickened her pace when she heard voices.

       “Venus,” a female voice called out. Venus continued walking with a rigid frame.

       “Someone go get her,” the voice said in a quieter tone, and Venus broke into a teasing sprint. She heard lazy footsteps behind her for a few blocks until they stopped, at which point she halted to catch her breath.

       Venus glanced down at the circular shapes permanently painted into her skin, the memory of her schoolmates crushing their lit cigarettes against her arm fresh in her mind. She ran her fingers over her scars before looking behind her and raising her middle finger with an exhilarated laugh to accompany it.