The Tattoo

| Chapter 7 |

The next day after school, Isaac, Samantha, Anthony and I were gathered in Anthony's room for the English project.

It was a long, awkward silence, until Isaac decided to speak up. "So... what genre do you want this novel to be?" He asked.

"I don't know," Anthony said. Then turning to me, he asked, "Any ideas, Crystal?"

"No," I replied.

I was normally quite good at stories. In fact, I have considered becoming a writer when I grow up. I've actually written a couple of novels myself on my laptop, and all of them had been horror or mystery or thriller. I was going to suggest those genres, but I was afraid of the others wouldn't agree to it.

Oh damn, what ever happened to my confidence!

"Um... maybe horror? Or mystery? Or thriller?" I asked.

"Yeah! That could work!" Isaac smiled and I shot him a smile of my own.

"Yeah, great idea! I want it to be really scary that stupid Ms. Callaghan would get nightmares!" Anthony chimed in.

"What do you think, Samantha?" I asked the quiet Samantha, who was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

"Uh, yeah, great idea..." Samantha said. It didn't take a detective to see that Samantha hadn't been listening and was lost in her own thoughts. But I didn't blame her. This house—Anthony's house—probably brings up a lot of memories for her when they were dating.

Anthony, Isaac and I talked about how we wanted the plot to be and the characters and everything. We had different ideas, obviously, so I suggested that we sort of combined everything together.

At some point, the three of us got a bit annoyed at Samantha for not pitching in any ideas. Her reaction was nothing like I expected. Tears began streaming down her face uncontrollably and she ran out of the room. I ran after her.

"Sam!" I called out. Samantha stopped running.

"Hey... I'm sorry for getting annoyed that you weren't saying anything. We all are. We just... we care about your grade, okay? And we want you to just include some things as well, since it's your grade too..." I said.

"I know... I just—I—I hate Anthony! I can't believe you're being nice to him, after knowing what he did to me!" Samantha was yelling.

"Sammie, I just care about my grade, alright? This has nothing to do with what happened. It's been a while since that incident, anyway, why don't you just forget about it?" I was talking to Samantha quite nicely—at least, in a nice tone. But Samantha, unfortunately, was a bit more... aggressive.

"Forget about it?! FORGET about it?! What he did to unforgettable, Crystal! How could you tell me to—"

"Samantha, I think you should calm down—"

"CALM DOWN?! What is wrong with you?! I knew it! You're taking Anthony's side! I should've known you're a fake friend and you don't care about me! I should have fucking known you're just like Carmen!"

I just stood there, with my mouth slightly parted, too stunned to react. What did she mean?

"Oh, you don't know, then? Apparently your 'best friend', sweet Carmen didn't tell you? Of course she didn't! You're the only one who cares about her and she obviously doesn't want to lose you. Even Andrea hates her, Crystal! But anyway... Carmen is now friends with Anthony, too, you know that? And the more shocking part? She was the one who convinced Anthony to do what he did to me."

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Thank you so much for reading! What do you think of Carmen now? ;)

- Jasmine -