Red.

1

He has haunted me since the moment I met him. In my dreams, nightmares, and thoughts. His eyes are everywhere, he is everywhere. I was never the same after him. I never will be. He toyed with my heart and ripped at my soul.

I have lived in fear since the day I escaped from him. I know he is still out there, where I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel eyes on the back of my neck but when I turn around no one is there. I would brush it off as my imagination; that I was just being paranoid. But in the back of my mind I knew I wasn't. I knew I had very valid reasons to be on edge.

He was the boy your parents warned you about. He was the boy your priest told you to stay away from, for the devil lived inside him. He was the boy that gave you such a high it was like flying, but what comes up must come down.

He may have had a large impact on who I am as a person, but he wasn't here now. I have the freedom to be who I want to be. I didn't want to be the girl that took the easy way out. I didn't want to let something that happened to me in the past affect what I do in the future.

My determined manner dissolved slowly as I pulled open the high school front doors, anxiety replaced it. I had been so wrapped up in getting here, that I didn't remember what classes I signed up for. My eyes quickly scanned the area, looking for the front desk. Spotting it, I made my way through the sea of students to get to it.

A stout lady sat behind the desk, a computer in front of her and a phone pressed to her ear. She was chatting away, her fingers flying over her keyboard. I cleared my throat and her beady eyes looked up at me.

"I'll have to call you back Susan, one of them is trying to talk to me. Yeah I know, the rotten little things." She gave a light laugh and set the phone back into its holster.

"What can I do for you?" She asked in a falsely sweet tone, as if I didn't hear her last comment.

"I'm a new student here and-" I began, but the lady sighed and cut me off.

"Of course," she said dismissively, opening a cabinet door and pulling out a pile of files. "You aren't the first to come to me for their class schedules. Name?"

A rush of relief came over me. I wasn't the only one unprepared. "Marietta Legato." I answered, tapping my finger on the desk. The bell rang, students began to head to their classes. Within seconds the hallways were deserted except for a boy sitting in a chair off to the side of the front desk.

"Grade?" The stout woman's voice brought my attention back to her. "Um, eleventh." I responded a little late, my thoughts still on the mysterious boy sitting a few feet from me. His head moved slightly, yet his face was still obscured from view by the hood thrown over his head.

"Here you are Miss Legato, there is your class schedule, a map of the school, and a late pass for your first class with Mr.Kern. Get along now dear, you don't want to be even more late than you already are. You're first class is with Mr.Kern, room 212." The woman said, pushing a couple of papers and a sticky note with thin, slanting writing across it towards me. I took it and began to walk away, but I quickly doubled back to face the woman again. "Thank you." I said, and then began walking down the hallway.

I spent a little over ten minutes trying to navigate the hallways, the map clutched in my hand. I began to panic after five minutes, surely I would have found my first class by now? But the map the lady had given me was printed badly, there were spots on the paper where ink should be, but wasn't. Dammit, I thought as I passed the same painting of Columbus for the third time. Where the hell am I?

I turned a corner and collided with a hard surface. I must have hit it pretty hard because I fell back, the papers the lady had given me flying out of my hand and towards the floor.