Snakes & Scoundrels

10: hailey & me

𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫

Golden. 

She was golden from head to toe. 

She was a thousand shades of gold that made new mosaics each moment in the warm summer air. I guess from afar you could say her soft curls were the color of rich cream, but up close it was a chorus of hues. Her hazel eyes switched like seasons, from new daylight to hearth-glow-golds, yet woven too with such heavenly browns. Buttermilk and moonlight had interlaced together to make her skin glow by day and flow by night. 

Her dark lashes flip a new chapter every time they sweep up her cheeks. Her cheekbones pop up whenever she switches to her bitch-face, but they come full to light when she smiles. Not the pity smile, she does that just for the sake of not seeming too numb. Her real smile. It barely comes out now. It barely came out ever. It only ever fully appeared in those two weeks when we were lost in a different city, like a film scene. 

But I'd memorized how she looked. Every giggle, every blink, every smile, every curve, every curl--every inch of Park Tesni Mellon. 

That girl was golden from head to toe. 

An it-girl by default. A balance of magnificence and mind. She was human sunshine.  

Of course, the contrasting dark personality only made this girl more alluring. She was twisted with clarity. She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it. The word fear was absent from her dictionary. You could put her in any Hunger Games and she would come out without a mere scratch. 

It does something to the world when a girl with no flaws walks it like she knows it. It terrifies people. To an extent where they would collectively do everything to bring her down. 

Well, you can't starve someone god is feeding. 

She's the strongest woman--person I have known in my life. She isn't afraid to fight, she will never stay down after a fall, and like a phoenix, she always rises. 

Despite her insulting wit, cut-throat honesty, and lack of sensitivity, she's still the main character in not just her life, but in so many others. She doesn't give a fuck about it though.

You don't move past Park Mellon without getting a look at her. If it's your lucky day, she'll probably even look at you with her hazel gaze, even if it's for just a second and there is a line of savage comebacks darting towards you, that sight is worth every cuss word. 

I had never hated this woman despite her stubborn belief that I did. Not when she embarrassed me ruthlessly in seventh grade, not when she punched me in front of a huge crowd, not even when she switched my yearly health report with a fake one that marked me HIV positive in junior year. Mom was weeping while I was getting tested again, my father was preparing my funeral guest list--and I still didn't hate her. 

Yet.

That night changed everything. 

I've known Park Mellon for six and a half years. I've hurt her for eight years. And I've hated her for nineteen months now.  

Three knocks later, Hailey enters my dorm room. Or suit. This is what you're allotted by default when your father is responsible for funding half of your college institution. I can't really rebel and beg for a smaller room, and moreover, if I'm in the right mind, why would I?  

"Hey," I hear her say and I know she's pressing her lips to a small smile. "You took off without having lunch. I was worried." She sits on the edge of my bed while I rotate rhythmically in my desk chair. "Is it okay that I followed you?"