Ripped [TO BE PUBLISHED 2016]

7

It's only mid-October, but all of the leaves are already on the ground. The wind whips at my hair, biting at my skin.

I watch as a pair of girls in crop tops and tight jeans walk by, giggling to themselves. I wonder if they're talking about me. I am not a stranger to the rumor mill. At least they aren't pointing.

"Cigarette?" Cassie asks, handing me the pack. I take one, but don't light it. Cassie doesn't seem to notice.

"I hate teenage girls," I mumble, watching as another gaggle of teenagers walk by, girls draped all over jock-trimmed bodies and buzz cut hair. They hardly give me a flicker of a glance. I chew lightly on the tobacco, its pungent taste leaking through the paper.

"They only care if you're pretty or dying," Cassie says, taking a puff of her cigarette. "And you, darling, are neither."

I snort. That was one of her more encouraging talks, that's for sure. Although, she's right. I'm not exactly teeming with social acceptance.

But still. I see. I see things that other people can't, things that other people ignore, and that should count for something.

"Are you going to class? Or are you cutting again?" she asks, smirking.

I look at her, smile. I do not particularly want to. I do not want to sit in classrooms with empty wandering minds and futures set on destruction. I do not want to be surrounded by plastic teenagers with hopes to growuphaveacareerfallinlovegetmarriedandlivehappilyeverafter because things like that are only hopes and nothing more. I do not want to, and that means that I won't. Nobody will miss the small girl that sits in silence. Nobody will notice. The office will call my mother, but she will not be home. That is how things are. That is how things are always going to be.

The bell rings overhead, signaling tardies and detention and probably another suspension if I skip class again. But did it matter? Did it ever matter? Would it ever matter?

No.

"Let's get out of here," I say, swinging mybackpack over one shoulder.