Chasing Hearts

Prologue

This was senior year. This would be the year when I would finally be the real me.

Not the girl who bullied others for her own satisfaction. Not the girl who denied herself happiness. Not the girl who would avoid human interaction in preference of her own solitude.

Not the girl who wallowed in her own self pity. And definitely not the girl who drove Jessica Adams out of the state.

Who is Jessica Adams you might ask?
Well she was the girl who was always happy. The girl whose smile could light up these dimly lit halls.

She was the girl I hated.

So I broke her. I taunted her, caused her to make a fool of herself and reminded her how worthless she was everyday. I crushed her to pieces and wiped that perky smile off her face.

But none of this was my fault. Maybe if the two people I had loved, maybe if my parents, hadn't chosen to abandon me at such a young age, maybe things would have been different.

Maybe I wouldn't have been a complete and utter monster.

Maybe I would still have that joy, the happiness that a person should have. But no, they had a decision to make in their hospital beds, whether they would close their eyes and never reopen them, or fight to live for what they loved.

Fight for me.

But they didn't fight. They let themselves be taken from this world. They had given up, they had chosen to leave. And abandon me.

But this is all in the past. My parents are in the past. The old me is in the past.

Jessica Adams is in the past.

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Author's note: Photo of Elle Fanning as Jessica Adams to the side.