Acquainted

S T A R

STAR LETITIA. a beautiful name for a beautiful girl, with an ugly past. At the age of sixteen Star was known very well in the small, conservative town of Ashbrook. Her mother was an infamous prostitute who had died of overdose when Star was four years old. Her father had left Star and her little step sister Syrena on their own because he never knew how to look after kids. For the two girls it didn't matter as much as their mother's death, their father was never around anyways.

Star ended up like her mother as expected, She had her brown slanted eyes which were framed with long curly eyelashes. She shared her mother's warm brown skin tone, her thin long nose. They had the same angular faces with high cheekbones and thick arched eyebrows. She was the exact copy of her mother. Which Star hated. She hated her mother for leaving her so quickly. She hated her mother for being the reason she was in foster care, and was only able to see her sister in school. She hated herself, for ending up like her mother.

When she went into Secondary school, Star promised herself she would never go near drugs. She had seen what happened to people whose lives were nothing but white powder and syringes. But her oath didn't last long after her first party, then she learned why it wasn't fully her mother's fault for leaving them so soon. But she didn't care, she was Star, she would never take the blame.

Star was evidently one of the prettiest girl in the whole town, and she knew that, She also knew how to use that. She would curse her mother for never coming home because she was coked up in some strangers bed, but the only way Star could find somewhere decent to sleep was if she waited in the alley ways filled with broke girls in short skirts and school shirts, sucking on lollipops, waiting for someone to take her home.

Syrena was the only person Star cared about. Her heart only had enough love for her little sister. Syrena Letitia was thirteen years old, but even though Star wasn't allowed to meet her because of her issues, everyday the older girl would watch her little sister, making sure she didn't end up like her and her mother. Syrena wasn't anything like the other women in her family, she was an innocent angel, and Star wanted it to stay that way.

The sixteen year old girl knew exactly how to get someone's attention, just one look would send a guy falling to his knees and girls rotting in jealousy. Because of this, Star thought she was above everyone else, she was better than them all. If someone tried telling her otherwise, she would laugh, she didn't care what others thought, she didn't listen to anybody but herself.

Although she walked through school hallways like she owned the world, with some new guy holding her waist every week; Star was no stranger to sadness, for it was the reason sex and drugs became her life. She could front to the town as much as she liked, but in reality Star was just a little girl who grew up too fast.

She would go home to strangers who only looked after her for the four hundred pounds the government paid them. She would go home to the small house which was not a suitable living condition, she would go home to the man and woman who would make her do all the work until she got sick of them and would complain to social services. Because of this, Star had a new house almost every four months.

No one told Star what to do, no one even dared to speak to her in fear she might do something to them. Star had a reputation for getting into fights with anyone who even spoke to her in a wrong tone. But still, the young girl always wanted to be centre of attention, and that is how she did it. If she couldn't make the town love her, she made them fear her.

And fear her they did. Mothers would cover their sons eyes, hiding them from this perfect vixen that captured their hearts. Wives held on to their husbands, in fear they would let them go for the younger, prettier girl. Girls would refuse to be her friends because they didn't want someone to outshine them.

But her name was Star, and she outshone them all. She didn't have to talk to anyone, she didn't have to look at anyone, she didn't need to like anyone; when she walked in a room she knew all eyes were on her, and they remained on her all the time.

She loved attention, she didn't mind the hate. But Star was only a sixteen year old girl, and she had her limits. She never smiled, she didn't need to. Star had been an emotional girl growing up, She had suffered the loss of her mother, had her sister taken away from her, and no one in her life. Star had no one, but she stopped feeling things a long time ago.

She was empty. She was lost. And that's where the coke came in. She had that harmful substance up her nose almost everyday, to get a taste of real life. A life where she's happy, where she doesn't have anyone watching her all the time, where she felt something. Anything.