Wounds

Chapter // 1

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Oh, good grief.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

I slammed my fist on the snooze button begrudgingly, and painfully rolled out of bed. 

It was going to be that kind of day.

Of course, three more cuts had shown up during the night. Of course, the blood stained my sheets. Of course, I would be doing laundry tonight.

Pulling back my pink and white polka dotted shower curtain, I inspected the three-- skinny, but oozing-- long slashes. They rinsed off quick but wouldn't stop bleeding. In no time, the entire shower floor was covered in a light red film. Gross.

Quickly washing my hair and body, I hurried out of the shower and dried myself off. Once sticking a Mickey Mouse Band-Aid on, I ran to look at my clock. 7:00. Damn it.

After brushing my teeth, pulling my blonde hair into a braid, and throwing on a tshirt and sweats, I ran out the door with a Honey Nut Cheerios cereal bar. Swinging my black Under Armour Hustle backpack on my shoulder, I hurried out the door to start my shiny, new Cadillac Escalade.

"These cuts are getting real old. The aliens couldn’t have picked a better place? Every. Night. ALIENS, PLEASE TRY MY LEG NEXT TIME!” I watched as Laurel threw her head back and beckoned to the blue sky.

The “aliens” were Laurel and I's theory about the suspicious wounds that everybody gets, starting when they're born. In the middle of the night, when you're fast asleep, the aliens from a foreign planet came to do experiments on you and take your blood for analysis. They were clumsy, which was why we were left with scratches, sometimes wounds. Once you got to your lucky number, whatever age that may be, your time was up and they had collected all of the data they needed. Voila, you were free from the strange blue scars.

Though of course, this was only a theory. Nobody really knows why the damn things show up, or even glow. There are billions of conspiracy theories.

“Did you get any notes from Mr. P’s class earlier?” I asked. “You were ogling at him again… I need the first half of them.” The moment I walked in, I immediately saw her staring at her since-elementary crush, Chris Luke’s, luscious brown locks. She’s grown immune to the pointed looks and throat clearing that Mr. P aims at her.

“I was not! Ever heard of multi-tasking?” She replied, shoving her purple Economics notebook to me.

“Do you think they’re too noticeable?” Laurel asked me, pointing to her cheeks.

It was normal for Laurel to come to school with a glowing blue face. The most common wounds for her were on the face. Some lucky ones only received them in a designated area of their body. Mine happened to be all over. I envied her; she was always glowing and sparkling.

Everybody’s cuts glowed until they were healed, and when they stopped hurting they scarred over in a permanent, lighter blue streak. The gleam never faded, but an afterglow stayed until the highly anticipated day where you suddenly never woke up again with the painful, blue marks.

“I didn’t notice.  But you look fine darling,” I assured her.

"Who's that kid over there?" I’d nudged Laurel.

It was during lacrosse practice that I noticed a new player standing on the other side of the field with three glowing blue slits on his left calf. He had on a pair of black Nike Rio shorts and a white tee with tousled dirty blonde hair. His green Nike Vapor Carbon cleats accentuated his green eyes that I could tell were bright, all the way from the opposite side of the field.

God, I love lacrosse players.

"Heather, he's Mrs. Sawyer's son. Off limits. Stay away. We're already getting married. He's mine." Ali had heard instead and decided to answer. She winked, signaling she was only joking.

Mrs. Sawyer was our principal. An evil, demon-minded woman. She could clear a path through a crowded hallway, like Moses’ parting of the Red Sea. Nobody crossed her.

"Who said? Maybe I've already claimed him. S’not like you can read minds,” I teased.

"Ha ha ha. Real funny, Heather."

Ali actually could read minds, but it was only when someone was thinking along the same lines as she was. Like if I was thinking about cheese pizza, and she was thinking about pepperoni pizza, she would “hear” what I was thinking about cheese pizza. It’s complicated, so for her sake at least it’s only within a mile radius.

“What am I thinking about, Ali?” Laurel smirked. She loved pushing Ali’s buttons.

“Oh, shut it,” Ali said, smacking Laurel with her purple and green STX stick.

The high shrill of Coach's whistle brought us back to reality, and we started our three mile drill.

"I'm going to barf."

We had all beat our times by 20-25 seconds; Coach had made us work our butts off.

You don’t get to be called “Elite” without working hard.

Coach Taylor announced to us that we would be scrimmaging with our boys Elite on Wednesday. Two days to prepare for humiliation. Even though our team and the boys team were both Elite, the boys was the highest ranked lacrosse team in the country. Our girls team was only ranked sixth. Heaven, help us.