Teardrops

Chapter 1: Teardrops

Chapter 1

There was something about the smell of water that made me happy. Rain, lakes, rivers, the ocean.... But tears don't really have a smell, or maybe it was that when you're crying you can't smell them because your nose gets runny and gross and well, you know...

The sky outside was dark and gray and gloomy and seemed to be glaring at the world as if daring it to beg for sunshine. But at the moment, I didn't care for sunshine. I had everything I needed right there on the window seat with it cracked open just wide enough to let the breeze and the smell of the rain wash over my face as I read a good book and sipped hot chocolate while wrapped up in a blanket. After all, it didn't get much better than that did it?? When I checked the time, however, I stifled a 'fudgebiscuits'; 1:30 am, with school tomorrow.

"Joyz." Reluctantly, I stowed the book away and turned the light off. For what seemed like hours I lay there in the darkness with nothing but the sound of the rain, waiting for sleep to come. At first I thought about my book, but then the voices caught up to me. Jessica's high, thin, condescending voice piercing my mind and making me squirm, "OMG she's so annoying!! HEY YOU, no one likes you, *****!!" The laughter, oh the laughter! And then there was Peter.

"JEEZ Shelly how DUMB can you be??" It was always the same laughter... Not real laughter, just high, raucous squeals that hurt my ears almost as much as they hurt my broken heart.

"I'm sorry!!!" I screamed into the pillow. I wasn't scared of being overheard, even though my parents were only a few inches away on the other side of the wall. They never seemed to care anyways. I rolled over restlessly and stared upwards into the blackness and tried to remember what happiness felt like... The book, the book, I tried to get myself to remember but I couldn't.

"What was it about?" I whispered. Some stupid little love story, I guess. I always seemed to be reading those.

Sighing, I leaned back and pressed my palms over my eyeballs. Jeez didn't they ever shut up??? The answer, my dear friends, is of course not. Unless I was reading and got so lost in the characters I truly forgot. That was always nice. I love books! But they only last for so long before you run out of pages.

"Geez, Shelly, why do you have to be so pessimistic all of the time? Can't you be nice to people?"

"FIGHT BACK!! fight back you slimy coward!!"

"Didn't anyone tell her not to wear sweats with boots? Oh yeah, I forgot, she has no friends and a mother who can't dress herself properly, let alone this misfit over here."

Was I angry? No I was disappointed. Sad. I believed every word they said. But what they didn't know is that my mother didn't love me. She said she did but...

My alarm went off. I rolled over and stared at it for a minute before shutting it off as if the action of shutting it off would be admitting to myself that I had to go to school without any sleep and a tortured mind. I lay in bed numbly, refusing to get up. A few minutes later, the beast walked in. (I meant my mother!)

"SHELLY WHY ARE YOU STILL IN BED?? AND WHY IS YOUR WINDOW OPEN???? IT'S RAINING!!" Feeling stubborn, I don't bother to reply. I simply push myself up out of bed and close the window, and then I push past her standing in the door way like a giant, beet-colored garden gnome from Harry Potter. (For those of you who are uncultured enough to have not read Harry Potter, they are described as ugly.) I didn't make a sound or say a word and I was proud of myself for managing not to flinch when I squeezed past under her glare.

When I had finished attempting to drown myself with freezing water from the bathroom sink, I returned to my bedroom. What oh what to wear? As if it mattered. The girls who were mean to me would be mean and have something to say no matter what. My 'best friend' had gotten a boyfriend and seemed more and more distant all of the time. I pushed that out of my mind.