Sympathy For the Devil

4

 I crouched beneath the bleachers next to the football field and filled my lungs with pleasant pollutants that would lead to lung cancer down the line, no doubt. I let the high elate inside of me until I felt something again. It never made me feel happy, but it did let me feel clarity, which I craved these days. 

I placed the joint beneath my lips as my body was scorched, igniting a vicious flame within. I sputtered a cough until I got used to the sensation of not being able to breathe. I spread out, making ground angels as the bleacher stairs reflected in the light making stars form in my vision.

 Beneath the cracks, I saw the clouds move and swarm together as the world tinted gray. My world was not only tinted with the vicious shade, it was enveloped in it. I exhaled a shaky breath as I took another hit of the joint. Each time, I slipped further away, almost falling asleep, but the moment the body hit the pavement; the moment her body hit the pavement in my mind beneath the squeezed shut blinds, I woke up as if 1000 electric volts coursed through my veins, zapping me to the world of the living. 

Reality is a fucking bitch. 

My hair fell out of my topknot, spilling along my shoulders, and dancing on my torn fabric viciously. Jaggedly cut midnight hair full of too much hairspray to mat it down straight. My curls still wanted to come out to play. Peaks of ruby red were mixed into the dark shade. I could never truly escape the color. My hair was as fussy and stubborn as I was. 

Sometimes I wish that I lived in Bumfuck nowhere with no sign of civilization. A ghost town where I wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. Even living in a crowded city, people noticed me. I'd like to blame it on the unfortunate hair, but it primarily has to do with the fact that everyone knows my dad. 

Since everyone knows my dad as the Sheriff of the 20th precinct in Manhattan, everyone knows the tragedy my family faced last Spring. Even the national news covered our story.

I popped a stick of winter fresh in my mouth and chewed ferociously until the taste of weed became faint. Each flavorless piece of gum was stuck beneath the bleacher where the permanent words Ellie Lucas is a fucking slut were written, visible for the naked eye to see. Maybe Dad was right to worry if he knew that I was falling down an all too familiar path of the sadistically depressed. I was just like her after all. That's why mom left me the note. It was the blueprint. 

...

By the time I finally headed into school, it was already time for sixth-period chemistry. 

I saw Julian in the hallway with his headphones on, but he ignored me and headed in the opposite direction. I sulked into Science with heavy footfalls.

I handed my pink slip to Mr. Florian who had his legs sprawled along his desk, preparing for a nap. That's why his class is designed in modules where we teach ourselves and he can't be bothered to demonstrate what it is we are learning and apply our learning to something that we can relate to whatsoever. Did he even get his degree? I have serious doubts. 

I excelled at science, but my former friends were both in it, Li and Sam. This year they partnered up for class labs together, leaving me with Bennett Porter, who constantly tries to work up the nerve to ask me out in between girlfriends. As a result, chemistry is the most awkward class of the day. I don't know why Bennett has been so persistent lately. Maybe he thinks if I'm alone I'll off myself too. Like mother like daughter.

"Don't worry about the lab, Elle. I got this." Bennett did his best at a George Lopez impression as I groaned and slumped deeper into the blue swivel chair. "I know you've missed a lot of the Chromatography unit. I am available after school in between soccer practices if you ever need help catching up." He chuckled nervously tossing his pen in the air and catching it as he bumped into a beaker nearly smashing it before my reflexes kicked in and I held the beaker before it reached the tiled floor.