Long Hair & Lipstick ~ Ryden

II

Long Hair & Lipstick: Chapter 2 - Brendon Urie Is The Eighth Wonder Of The World

(Rylie's P.O.V)

I lie stomach-down on my bed, feet moving about in the air behind me and eyes glued to the bright screen of my phone and the messages that pop up every time something is sent to the kik group chat. Four out of five of my friends I'm currently talking to, I met online, save Joan walker who I met in school years ago, before my mother decided it best be that I'm homeschooled. I don't seem to click with other teenagers offline, with my awkwardness and silence, that's why I'm browsing the net whenever I can get the chance.

There's no better place than the Internet, the one place where I feel safe from teasing remarks from rude students passing through the halls. The people I talk to online can never assume who I am with one quick look. I give them little bits of who I am piece by piece through friendly conversations that are too hard to find offline. The friendships I maintain on there are built on trust, mainly because they don't know if I'm who I say I am, or some pedophile. There's quite a few things about me that I tell them about, and they claim to have a gut feeling that I'm telling the truth.

And here's the brief explanation on who I am:

I'm Danielle Rylie Ross II (or likeaross as people online know me for. I think the username is funny. As in "Like a boss". Get it? This is why I only have one friend in real life), who is a closeted little lesbian that can't manage to find a girlfriend. I am named after my mother (Danielle, if you couldn't guess) and I would've been named after my father, George Ross II, if I was a boy. I go by "Rylie" because the sound of "Danielle" being called in my directions brings back memories of a father related past I'd really rather not dwell too much upon.

I play the guitar, sing just a little, and write songs. Music is a big part of my life. It helps keep me from completely losing my mind, and it makes sure my heart is intact, but I don't show anyone what I can do due to how personal my music is to me.

That is about as much as I let my friends know about me.

What they don't know is that when I wake up in the morning I find as though it's a miracle I don't hear my drunken father screaming my first name out with a threat trailing behind it. They don't know that I flinch whenever someone so much as raises their hand even slightly because I can still feel the sharp sting of a strike, just like every time my dad came home drunk, before my mother and I left him. They don't know that when I write lyrics, I write them because I can trust the page in front of me to not retort with a sentence I fear could send me spiralling into self-hating thoughts.

There's a lot they don't know, but my friends are still the only people I trust in this cruel world, even though I have yet to see most of them in person.

There's Joan Walker, as I have previously spoken of. She's got brown hair and brown eyes, which is about as plain as people get. But Joan isn't a boring person. She's fun and loyal, which is all I could ask for in a friend. Her kik username is bass-icwhitegirl. She was one of the two kids in my school that didn't giggle with their friends about the bruises my not-so-sober father marked me with on the previous nights. The other girl fell out of touch with me when I stopped showing up to school.

There's also one of my internet friends, Ty Joseph. "Ty isn't short for anything" was the first sentence she ever messaged me. Some jerk gave her the wrong kik username she managed to find her way through to me by accident. Hers is justthebestfren. But she's so much more than "just the best fren". Ty has this soft and soothing voice with a caring personality that no one can resist. When you're having a sleepless night, she'll call you just to sing you to sleep and whisper sweet sentences until you're taken away by a peaceful slumber.