She was the epitome of smoke and mirrors.
Long black hair that fades into silver, dark brown eyes surrounded by heavy eyeliner, and close to a billion piercings and tattoos. I heard that she gave herself the piercings.
Goes by Ambrosia.
Heard her real name is Amber.
She's 19.
Heard she had to retake her senior year because she never showed up to class.
We met on the first day of school. I was in the courtyard filling out my journal during lunch, writing my homework down in nice handwriting, thinking it would get me to do it. My boyfriend sat across from me, trying to plan my eighteenth birthday party.
"We should have a bonfire on the beach. Invite the whole senior class. Party 'til the sun rises." He fantasizes while trying to get me to look up at him.
"Yeah that sounds fun. I don't know. I don't really care what we do." I reply, drawing flowers in the corner of the page with a pink pen. I look up at him and rest my cheek in my hand.
We've been dating since freshman year. Pretty long for a high school couple. But Isaac and I are family friends, so it wasn't unexpected. He's nice enough for a teenage boy.
He opens his mouth to continue his plan, but some guys come up behind him and start telling us to make out. I uncomfortably smile, and wave goodbye as he leaves with the group of football players who made fun of me in elementary school.
I continue on my journal before I see coffin-shaped black nails, with ornate rings leading down the fingers, down to the hand with the rose tattoo. I look up, and Ambrosia smiles at me through her plum lipstick.
I'd never seen her before. Seen those pretty eyes and her pretty skin. Her words like dripping honey and her breathing like milk.
"Are you Cora?" She asks, my name like thick blood pouring from her lips. I widen my eyes and nod, mouth slightly parted as I look at the tattoos on her visible collarbones. She smirks and put her fingers under my chin, lifting my gaze up to her face. I blush and look away.
"Yeah, that's me. Cora. I'm Cora. Like Coraline without the line. That's me. Cora." I stutter out like an idiot.
She moves her hand away and brings my journal over to her. She flips through it with her long, deft fingers, and I'm too mesmerized to ask her why she came over here.
"This is pretty." She tells me, while sliding my notebook back over to me. I stare at her, confused but infatuated. She exhales and smirks again, tongue licking over her lip piercing.
"Similar to the artist in that way." Her lips move, and I hear the words she says, but mostly I just see her perfect teeth. I nod in response to her compliment, the blush on my cheeks getting brighter.
I start to ask why she came over here, but the bell rings, and she's walking off campus, cigarette in her perfect hand. I shake my head in an act of forgetting what just happened and shove my journal into my backpack.
Isaac appears behind me just in time to run ahead and open the door. I thank him and walk into the strong air conditioning of the entryway to the school.
"What did your friends need?" I ask him, while he walks me to English.
"Just talking about some fundraiser stuff. Sorry about them still doing the teasing thing. I asked 'em to stop, but you know how they are." He laughs it off, and I smile, telling him goodbye as I walk into the threshold of my classroom.
After an hour of talking about the syllabus, I can't recall one thing she said about the late policy.
But I can describe exactly what Ambrosia's tattoos look like.
The rest of the day goes just as well. I want her nails dragging across my scalp as we kiss against the brick wall of an alleyway. I want her to bite my lips so hard they bleed. I want her to break up with me and leave me crying at her doorstep. I want the drama. The blood. The tears. All of it.
I take out my journal in an attempt to look like I'm doing something other than daydreaming and a small piece of paper falls out. I lean down to grab it from the ground and see messy numbers written in black pen. I turn it over and see a note.
'Text me when you realize that you should dump your boyfriend'
I bite my lip and slide the note into my pocket, slowly waiting for the bell to ring, so I can take out my phone.
