Dear Richie

May 1 Age: 15

Dear Richie,

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't really celebrate it this year.

I used to have one close friend, but she drifted away when she became a freshman and I was still an eighth grader.

I miss her everyday. But I can bet that she probably doesn't even remember me. I see her sometimes walking down the hallway with her friend, I think her name is Chelsea or Kelsey or something, but she never glances up at me. She never acknowledges me.

It's as if I'm completely invisible. Or I've been erased from her memory forever. She doesn't even give me her smile that is always imbedded into my memory.

I don't want us to be that way. I lost one friend, I don't want to lose you too.

Melanie is a great friend, but her and I don't connect like my old friend and I did. Melanie still doesn't know me that well. Annaleigh, my old friend, she went through thick and thin together. She knew me inside and out. She accepted my awkwardness.

Melanie, she's been trying to change me into a lover of vampires since the first day I met her. She's been trying to change the way I dress. She's been trying to change my taste in music. She's trying to change me.

She doesn't know me. And I don't think she really cares that she's doesn't, because she's so set on me becoming her clone.

We haven't talked in months and it really destroys me that I only can stare at you from a distance, because you're still upset.

You told Veronica that I don't like her. Well, I already know that she didn't like me to begin with, but now she's more open about it.

I think she was practically begging for a reason to hate me.

Melanie stands up for me sometimes, when things get too rough, but that's only when she's around. When she's gone, that's when things get heated.

Veronica found out that it was my birthday yesterday. And, to my luck, Melanie was sick that day.

So I was left alone and defenseless.

Great.

She came up to me during lunch break. I didn't bring anything with me that day and I didn't feel up to grabbing a lunch in the cafeteria or at one of the local fast food places.

I sat on one of the many hard benches that stood outside the cafeteria. She approached me, her hot red heels clicking with every step.

"So isn't it the spoiled little princess," she took a seat beside me, her dark skirt barely covering her thighs. "What are you doing out here all alone?" She faked sympathy, giving me a pouty lip.

"Beat it, Veronica," I wasn't up to her smack today. "I don't feel like digging a hole for you."

"Oh, baby is finally using her big girl voice."

"I said 'beat it'."

"Leia, I know you're just jealous," Veronica laughed.

"Of what?" I fired back. She wasn't going to leave if I didn't say anything anyway. "You have nothing that I want."

"Except Richie."

My heart fell, and my must've too or else she wouldn't have noticed my hurt.

"I knew it," she cheered under her breath. "I knew that you liked him. Why else would you stare at him like you do?"

"So?" I tried to play it off. "Just because I stare doesn't mean that I...like him."

Veronica laughed again, standing up. "Princess, you better come up with a better excuse if you don't want him to found out," she turned away but then said one last thing to me before leaving, "if he hasn't figured it out already."

I hate her.

I hate her soul.

I hate how she has you.

And I'm sorry.

But I guess I'm not.

Love,
Leia Meadows ❤️