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Prologue The Girl Who Cried Wolf
THEY told her she was crazy, that she was going insane, that it was all in her head.
Why should they believe her anyway, when Jia Li had always been known as Woodsboro's loose canon, the girl having a record of spuing the most unbelievable stories? As one does breathing, Jia Li fabricates lies. Okay... maybe that's being a little dramatic. But that's what the townspeople of Woodsboro would have you saying and thinking of the young girl.
The street was dead quiet as Jia Li's huffing filled up the atmosphere. Her dusted-up Converse scratched the blackened street road, the same roads she'd known her whole life. She knew how to get everywhere just by being the latchkey kid who walked everywhere. She was now second-guessing her decision to leave Mindy and Chad's end-of-summer party early, and she honestly could hardly remember what exactly she was leaving the party for anyways, but it seemed too late to go back now.
Everyone at the party had seen her stumble her way out into the chilly, dark night. Thankfully, this time she hadn't thrown up on anybody or made a scene, but she still knew what they thought about her. Jia Li was currently trying to untangle herself from the devil's clutch – aka confining herself to a strict alcohol-only high, which many other students at her high school did too but she still sat apart from those classmates. Woodsboro would never accept her, no matter what she did now to try and erase her past.
When Jia Li was in seventh grade, she was in a car accident with her mother and brother that left her in a coma for three days when her mother's Honda collided with a semi-truck in an intersection. When she came out of it, there was one person and one person sitting at her bedside — Tara. But despite the comfort she received from her best friend, she was still unable to leave what had happened in the past. Her brother had to get a leg amputated... all because she was distracting her mother while driving. Someone could've died she kept reminding herself. Someone could've died because you were an idiot.
Ever since the accident, things hadn't been particularly right in her mind. Hence the new best friend she had become acquainted with. She still couldn't understand why her friends were mad about it — weed was legal in most states now anyway.
Jia Li fastened her jacket closer to her body as she crossed her arms over her chest. It was getting chilly out, something she did not take into account when she had left the Meeks-Martin residence. It was already past midnight when she left, so it was surely creeping into the early hours of the next day. She stopped in her tracks, realizing her muscle memory was taking her back down the road that would lead her to her dealer – and honestly, a part of her contemplated still going down that road. She knew he would be awake and more than willing to sell her something to help her sleep better. But she sighed, what would they think of her? Reluctantly, she turned to go down a different street, hoping she was drunk enough to just crash out when she got to the comfort of her bedroom.
