wReckless (Under DeConstruction)

Prologue

"You have pretty eyes," he said brushing my hair out of my face and placing my glasses on the table gently. Suddenly it was 50 degrees hotter in the room. "Maybe you should try contacts," he added as he smiled and walked out of the cafeteria with his friends like he hadn't just sent me into cardiac arrest.

Maybe this new city wasn't so bad after all. Maybe there were a few nice and decent people here, who could actually muster up some form of mannerable hospitality from their dank souls and extend a welcome to me.

And maybe I spoke too soon.

The feeling of something thick and cold being poured over my head quickly erased my previous thoughts about welcomes and decent people. I squeezed my eyes shut as whatever the ice cold substance was cascaded down my face and slid down my shirt causing a violent shiver to creep up my back. In the pit of my stomach something dark and unnamed stirred. It was a foreign feeling to me, but simultaneously familiar. I couldn't quite put a name on it or even describe it other than to say it felt dangerously unstable.

"Like I said before, you don't belong here. You have my permission to go kill yourself now," the voice was more chilling than the substance that I was now dripping with and I knew instantly that the voice belonged to Whitney. The girl who seemed to have a personal vendetta against me, for reasons unknown.

As cold as the green apple smoothie was--yes I did lick my lips a little--my anger was flaming. I could physically taste the rage on my tongue as she stood there sneering down at me. My vision went red as I quickly imagined how I could hide her body if I accidentally killed her on purpose. The thought took me by surprise because I hadn't been that vicious in a long time; it was so unlike this version me.

Then my reasonable side came back to me. There were two things I knew. The first was that I was weak in spirit, and therefore, I couldn't fight her physically or verbally. The second thing was that I had the stamina of Forrest Gump, so I pushed my chair back, stood up without facing her, and I did the thing that seemed most natural to the new me.

I ran.

My feet carried me away from the noise of students in the cafeteria who were jeering and laughing at my expense. I ran away from the taunting, away from the humiliation. I don't know what I was running towards, but I knew that I wanted to run away from myself, and become someone else. Someone strong and vicious.

I was pathetic. A useless waste of space. I wished I could get away from the loser that was now me.

I know in the movies, I would probably break out in a musical number. A sad song about finding myself, or being all alone. Right about--if this were a movie-- the rain would start pouring and the thunder would crackle in the sky, but my life wasn't a movie and unfortunately Mr. Bad News didn't watch the weather forcast and say, "Umm, she's goonna have a bad day, make sure it's raining."

Instead of singing a musical number and running through the rain until I tripped over a piece of randomly raised pavement and then laid down helplessly in the middle of the sidewalk, I ran for fifty minutes on a perfect sunny day until I hardly recognized my surroundings. I slowed down and let the tears of frustration and loser-ness fall down my face. My life made me want to find a jagged razor and slit my wrist the proper way.

I used to be someone else. I was someone wild and practically crazy, in a good way...I think. Then everything changed. I don't know who I am now. I'm not even sure if I want to know.

My mind must've went into another dimension because by the time I came back to it was all almost completely dark outside which means I had be aimlessly wandering for 3 to 4 hours now. I checked my phone and unsurprisingly there were no missed calls and no unread texts, nothing.

I slid down a wall near an alley and let my head slump on to my knees. I would go into fetal position, but the street wasn't the cleanest. I did have "breakdown standards" if such a thing even existed. Feelings of worthlessness, self pity, anger, frustration, loneliness...a whirlwind of emotions washed over me, but the most dominant feeling being that unnamed feeling in my gut.

Everyone else was putting me down, I should just join the crowd. "You're just pathetic Paige," I told myself angrily. 

"Yes. You sure are," a female voice purred. I lifted my head off my knees to peek into the alley where the voice generated from wiping away the tears to see more clearly.

"Who are you?" I asked suspiciously and a little annoyed.

"A friend," she replied with her head down. There was a shadow cast on her from the chest up as she leaned on the wall with one foot propped up.

No one had befriended me in this shallow uptight town and now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe that she--this mysterious stranger of the Alley-- wanted to be my friend. No one wants to befriend a loser and even she just admitted that I was pathetic.

"But you don't even know me," I countered as I stood to my feet.

She smirked at me, brushing off her fire engine red pants and pushing off the wall to stand upright. She was way taller than me and had a killer shape with curves in all the right places. I gulped as I took her in. I still couldn't see her face, but I could tell just from being in the same proximity that she beamed confidence, was sex on wheels, and had an aura of danger that radiated off her like heat from the sun.

I knew I should've run far, far away from her, but she was just so alluring. I was curious about her and her aire of mystery, and oddly enough, she looked familiar. Like someone that I used to know. Maybe a friend from my home.

Her stilettos clicked on the concrete as she continued to make her way over to me, and she stopped when we were a few yards away.

"I think I know you better than you know yourself," she says in a seductively low voice. "I'd like for you to get to know me."

Instincts made my body take a step back.

Through the darkness of the shadows I could see her smile at my retreat. Revealing a set of perfectly white teeth she delivered a smile that was neither friendly nor dangerous, but more of a warning that said: Do not run.

"Roxie. Roxie Black." She stuck out her hand.

My instincts were telling me to run. Run far away from this girl, but her mysterious nature and that warning smile kept me glued in place. Who was I--the Village Loser--to turn down a friend? At this point in my life if a hobo offered to be my friend it'd probably be in my best interest to take him up on his offer before he realized he could do better.

"Paige Evans," I said trying to appear as confident as she did. I smiled back nervously and shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you Roxie."

She stepped out of the shadows finally revealing her face and quirked an eyebrow at me. "Are you sure?"