Sunny and Alex

Alex

The alarm clock goes off at five in the morning. I roll out of bed and stretch. I lift my feet off the ground and reach for the ceiling. This makes my side hurt so incredibly bad, I ignore it though. It's a Tuesday morning, I've decided to go to school today. I open my door expecting my father to be at the door waiting for me to wake up. His bedroom door is open and I don't see anything or hear anything. I walk to the bathroom to take a shower. I remove my clothes and turn on the shower. The steam starts to rise as I start to clean myself. I wipe my body off and watch the dirt swirl at the bottom of the tub. I close my eyes as I rinse my hair. When I open my eyes I can see blood drip down the shower curtain. I can see my mother's body outside blood flying all over hitting the curtain. The blood washes down in big sheets almost like a waterfall. Like the ones up in Michigan by the lakes. I just continue to rinse off as I watch the blood pool on the linoleum floor. After all the dirt and my father's cologne is washed off I slowly turn the handle to turn off the hot water. I stare at myself in the mirror. I see my mother's face in the background, all of it happens in slow motion as she blows her face off. I get dressed in a crop top, jeans, and black combat boots. This shows off all my scars and my legendary gash in my side. The steam mats down my hair and sticks to my skin in big clumps. Just the look I was going for, stoner.

I walk into school with my head held high. No sign of my father this morning, Mr.Krags, or the school police. Everyone literally everyone is staring at me as I walk through the halls to my locker. I get to my locker and the popular crowd is surrounding me. They are saying stuff about how I look and rumors like I was kidnapped, some crazy man almost killed me, or I was pregnant with someone's baby. Okay maybe the second one is sort of true, but they don't know the whole story. I open my locker and look around to see everyone watching me. I grab my health book and head to my first-hour class. I see Ms.Springfield, my favorite teacher, at her desk filling out paperwork. She looks at me and gives me a warm smile.
"Good morning Sunny, you're looking good. Ready for a class project this week?" she smiles as she talks.                                                                                                                                                                                 "Of course I am, I always am ready for a class project." I smile as I walk to my desk. All the way across the room, farthest from the door. There I can stare out the window and get a peek at grades that sit on Ms.Springfield's desk. Every year I pick the same desk. Once class gets started Mr.Krags walks in with a person I've never seen before.l quickly grab my backpack ready to make a bolt to the back door out into the courtyard. He never looks my way and I settle back into my chair once he starts talking about this kid next to his side. He says he is a new student and is going to be joining first-hour health class. Oh, goodie another kid to find out my embarrassing past, present, and future. Ms.Springfield gives him a warm smile like usually and guides her hand over to the empty desk next to mine. He walks over and basically throws his backpack next his chair. Making the desk move an inch closer to mine. All of a sudden I get really self-conscious. Not my usual self-consciousness, no this was...regular teenage feelings. Oh dear god...am I...dying?

I quickly brush my hair with my fingers knowing that I never brushed my hair this morning. And I know it is showing. He sits down and flashes me a grin. Oh dear lord...Jesus Christ save my soul. I don't look back and stare out the window, feeling his gaze along with his grin.
"Alright, class...now that Alex has arrived we can start our class project. I will assign partners like usual," natural she waits for everyone to moan so she can assign an extra paper at the end. Her legendary trademark as she says, "We will be doing a project about teenage and adult love. Everyone will get a different stage and we will present in order of each stage." She calls out partners and each stage. I sit there waiting to be partners with some prissy little girl. Cough...Cough...Maggie...Cough. But my lord and savior Jesus Christ is being nice today and my partner is Alex. I pretend like nothing ever happened. I never thought I would have feelings like this toward someone...after everything my father did...does. We start to talk about our project. I can tell he is looking at my side, my face, hands, any skin that is bruised, scarred, or burned. I ignore his eyes and forget about the way he makes me feel. I know once he finds out about the rumors and what has happened he will not want anything to do with me. And neither do I...I don't blame him either.
"Hey, since class is almost over and this is due by the end of this week...we should do some of it after school. Should we go to your house or mine? Or somewhere else, I don't really care." He said this is a deep voice, charming, and sweet. Making me almost..well...die.                       "Um...yeah sure, maybe not my house my dad is like really over protective...so maybe your house if that's alright?" I say this as clearly as possible while trying my best to make eye contact.  "Sounds great. I'll meet you out by the picnic tables on the far side of the building." The bell rings and he gets up grinning and walks out the door. I get up once he leaves, grabbing my backpack and walking out as soon as possible.