Stella was shipped off to a boarding school for troubled kids after her foster parents died. For the next seven years, that is where she's been, but she's back, and things are not the same as they were before.
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"What?!" I yelled and stood up from the sofa. Almost simultaneously, as I yelled, the door opened. I whipped my head to look at the entrance, my eyes gradually widening as we made eye contact. The person I've hated for the longest time, my nemesis, the bane of my existence, the person that vexes me most in this world, walks through that door each other. He starts to look me up and down with wide eyes, and my face slowly twists into complete anger.
"What are you doing here?" I say through clenched teeth. He blinks a few times, then recovers quickly.
"What are you doing here?" he says with a surprisingly deeper voice than I remember.
"Didn't we tell you Stella is living with us?" Oliver said, coming downstairs with Jackson in tow. "Actually, she's living with you since we don't live here anymore. Stel, did I not tell you that?"
"No, no, you did not."
"Sorry," A few minutes passed by without anyone saying anything; the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"Sooo are you guys just going to stand there or say something?" Jackson said, looking back and forth at me and Dimitri.
"Humph, I'm leaving," I say, then march upstairs without giving a second glance at Dimitri. As I walk upstairs, I see even more pictures of all of us. I look around, trying to remember the way to my room, when I see a picture of me at age 10. I was pretty tall for my age, wearing my point shoes. My dreams were filled with dance, the melody of my bare feet on the hardwood floors at home as I practised.
I gulped then shut my eyes. After taking a deep breath, I opened them again and started to look for my room. I found the door to my room with a 'do not disturb' sign written in bright red Crayola marker plastered on it. I turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open. Everything was the same, practically nothing moved out of place.
My pink fluffy duvet was laid to perfection on my bed, the shimmery white canopy still hung over my bed, fake white fluffy cloud lanterns almost covering the ceiling with decorative stars and a moon. Small knick-knacks were replaced on my bedside tables and my desk. Posters of prime ballerinas adorned my back wall, and my first ballet shoes hung on the knob of my closet.
I slowly walked over to them and picked up one of the shoes. It was so tiny and worn it made me smile, remembering how much I practised day and night, doing stretches and homework at the same time. It made me even sadder that I could never do anything like that ever again.
My hands started to endure a sharp stabbing pain, the feeling of glass. I dropped the shoes, my breathing quickened, and panic set in. I frantically rubbed my hands together and on my jeans, but it wasn't enough. I flipped over my empty, shard-less hands and felt myself start to calm.
I blinked away my tears; crying had never solved anything; why would it start now? My door opened, and I looked up to see Oliver.
"Hey."
"Hey, something wrong with your hands?" A tense look plastered on his face. Oliver flopped down on the edge of my bed.
"Umm, no," I said, hiding my hands from his inquisitive gaze.
"Sorry, we didn't tell you sooner."
"It's whatever; I survived 7 years of hell; what's another year or so?" I said, walking over to my bed and sitting down next to him. Oliver looked over at me.
"I don't know why they sent you away; I'm so sorry." Oliver said looking off the the side.
"It wasn't you that did it," I said, then fell back, laying my head on my soft, comfy bed.
"Nonetheless, I'm sorry; if I knew sooner, I could have done something." He said looking down at my laying frame.
"Like what? You were 16 at the time," I said, sitting up.
"Ugh, I don't know, but I would have convinced them."
"Oli, it's okay, so what's up?" He sighed.
"Well, you're going to have to go to your new high school a week from now." I sighed.
"Okay."
"And if you need a bigger room, tell us," Oliver said before standing up and walking out of my room.
——
I didn't sleep, not even a wink, I laid there in bed staring up at the paper cranes I hung up on my ceiling. When I left for the boarding school, I felt like my life took a pause, like the chapters in my book suddenly just stopped, but now I can feel the chapters writing, and I'm sure, like my whole life, it will be a shit fest.
I turn over to my bedside table and grab my phone. I turn it on, and on the screen it reads 3:00 a.m. In the morning. I pulled the covers off of me, stood up, and searched through my closet. I saw a lot of old clothes and a lot of pink. But through all of that, I found a big, puffy knitted cardigan that isn't pink but more of a lavender. I smile to myself as I touch the soft material. I remember going to the mall with Melissa and seeing this cardigan on a mannequin. I wanted it so bad, and she said it wouldn't fit on me because it was for women, but she got it anyway, and I wonder why.
Shaking off memories of Melissa and Tyler for now, I put on the cardigan, enveloping myself in its warmth. Despite the AC being off, I expect the heater to be on. Quietly, I crack open my bedroom door, glancing around—no sign of Dimitri. Slowly tiptoeing downstairs, I search for the thermostat, but I forget its location.
"Where is the stupid thing?" I said it under my breath. After some searching, I couldn't find the damn thing, so I gave up, grabbed some water from the fridge, and went back up the stairs. That's when I begin to hear noises—soft and subtle at first, but gradually becoming louder. I followed the noise and the closer I got to the more familiar these sounds became, a cracked open the door in his room, and I was not ready for the things that I was about to see.
Dimitri's back was facing me, his flared back muscles on display, and in front of him was a woman, moaning and screaming for him to go deeper. My eyes widened. My nose flared, and my lips quivered in shocked and disgust.
Yes, oh my god yes" the girl screamed. Dimitri just moaned and granted, going deeper and deeper inside of her. I then catch myself in my frozen state, and as quick and quietly as I possibly could, I closed the door and tried to run to my room, but I tripped.
A loud thump in the whole entire house could be heard, and I paused for a moment, thinking that maybe they didn't hear me with the loud noises that they were making in his room, but I wasn't going to wait around and find out. So on feathered feet, I ran to my room, shut the door quietly, then jumped into bed, covering myself with the blankets and shutting my eyes.
"What was that?" a soft feminine voice asked.
"No fucking clue, hold on, let me go check it out." I could hear Dimitri's footsteps walking down the hallway, and in front of my bedroom door. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and my eyes were shut so tightly that it hurt. I heard the door click open, and for a moment I stopped breathing, not wanting him to hear how out of breath I was. After giving me a long look, he closed the door.
"It was nothing to worry about it." he said, pulling the girl along with him back to his room until I heard his door shut, I kept my eyes closed.
I put a hand to my chest, then let out a big, long sigh.
