“Stella! Get your scrawny little ass out of bed now!” hollered my step-mom from downstairs. I lazily got up and went over towards my dresser and pulled out a fish net t-shirt, ripped jeans, bra, and underwear and changed into them. My step-mom absolutely hated when I dressed like this, so I wore this all the time just to piss her off. I opened my faded, and peeling white door and ran down the stairs. The house was filled with the smell of bacon and eggs, and I knew that I wasn’t getting any of it. I made my way to the kitchen to find my step-mom making out with my father. “Ugh,” I said making them break apart. “Stella what have I told you about dressing like that,” said my step-mom putting a hand on her hip. “And what have I told you about making out with my father in the house Erin?” I asked grabbing some orange juice from the refrigerator. “This is my house and I can do what I please!” she yelled slamming her fist down on the counter. “Oh no, this is not your house just because my father married you a year ago does not automatically make this your damn house!” I screamed taking a step towards her. “Both of you stop it right now!” hollered my dad now standing up from his seat. “Oh baby I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to yell,” Erin said wrapping his arms around my father’s neck and kissing him. “You make me sick,” I said under my breath while walking towards the door. “Stella Paige Santiago get back her and apologize to your mother right now!” my dad bellowed from the kitchen. I completely ignored him and walked out of the house.
The air was freezing outside today, but I really didn’t care right now, all I wanted to do was get away from this small ass town. I was heading to an abandoned pool place downtown. They shut this place down six years ago, I have no idea why but I’m glad they did. Now all the outcasts and freaks come and hang out here all the time. Half of Salem, Massachusetts was popular kids and the other half was the freaks, outcasts, weirdo’s, just anyone who didn’t fit in. This is where I belonged, this is where I was meant to be. “Hey Stel! What’s going on?” asked my best friend Chris walking towards me. “Ah, nothing much just sick and tired of Erin being at my house and taking control of my dad and my life,” I told him as we approached the gates of hell, as everyone calls it. “Tommy! Let us in!” I yelled up to the lifeguard tower. “Nah, I’d rather not,” he smirked.
“Bastard,” I mumbled under my breath. I started to climb up and over the gate, same with Chris. As soon as I dropped down someone caught me in their arms. I turned around and saw my other best friend Johnny. “Hey Johnny, how have you been?” I asked hugging him. Johnny had jet black hair and wore steel toed boots all the time. “Uh, I’ve been good, dad got out of jail finally, brother started coming home again, what about you?” “Oh god don’t even get me started, Erin never likes anything that I do or say, I can’t go one day without being yelled at, and she seems to have the need to invade my privacy. God that woman drives me crazy!” I yelled. “Oh, sorry about that, but tonight you can forget all about it,” he smiled and gestured for Chris and I to follow him.
We were all running to god knows where when suddenly Johnny stopped in front of a huge crowd of people. “Johnny what’s going on?” I asked looking at all the teenagers dancing like freaks and just having fun. “Well everyone wanted to get together and throw a huge party to forget about life for a while.” There were lights hung up, and this colorful power type thing was in everyone’s hair and on their clothes. “Come on!” said Chris and Johnny grabbing both my arms and pulling me towards the crowd of people. We spent a good few hours just dancing around and acting like complete and utter fools. Suddenly everyone was scattering all over the place. I had noticed that the police had shown up here, so I got Chris and Johnny and we booked it out of there. We ran as fast as we could, we just couldn’t get caught by the cops.
We found ourselves in Johnny’s yard laying down on the ground. “Well that was interesting,” I laughed sitting up. “Yeah it was,” they agreed. I laid back down on the uncut grass and just looked at the stars. There had to be a million of them out tonight. Thoughts were running through my mind when I realized something, we have to go back to school tomorrow. As if Johnny read my mind he spoke up, “I wish today would never end, I don’t want to go to school.” “Well I think we better call it a night,” sighed Chris standing up. “Ugh, I don’t want to go back home and see Erin,” I groaned sitting back up again. “Well you could always spend the night at Anne’s apartment, she says she wants to hang out with you more,” suggested Chris sticking out his hand and pulling me up. “Yeah, I’ll see you freaks tomorrow, when hell begins,” I chuckled. “See ya later girlie,” Johnny smirked. I flipped him off and started to run down the street to Anne’s house. She only lived about three blocks down. I knocked three times on her door when she opened it up. “Hey Stel! What’s up?” Anne asked. She was wearing all black, had a nose ring and earrings all up her right ear, and had pink highlights in her brown hair. “Um, I was wondering if I could stay the night, I just don’t want to go home and see my step-mom.” “Oh of course you’re always welcome here and you now that,” she said as she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside her apartment. It had just a plain grayish couch, a white rug, coffee table, a few lamps, two bedrooms, and a kitchen. It wasn’t fancy it was just normal. I saw that Anne put up a few paintings that had to deal with the problems of the world, death, being different, just adding her own style to it. “You can stay in the guest room, it’s down the hall first door on your right, if you need anything I’ll be in my room, which you know where it is,” she smiled and I returned it.
I made my way towards the guest room and opened the door. Her paintings were also in here as well, it had black and purple walls, two windows, and a king sized bed. I had barrowed some of Anne’s pajamas, the pants had Friday the 13th written on the and the shirt had The Pumpkin King on it. I went over to the bathroom and looked at my self in the mirror. My jet black hair was still straight as my bangs covered my right eye, my earrings were still in, all my earrings went all the way up my ears, my green eyes were really bright for some reason, people say they’re as green as grass or sometimes even greener than the greenest grass ever on this planet. I took off my mascara and eye shadow, went back to the room, and got into bed and went to sleep.
