Her Name Was Mallory

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"Wait, I'm confused" I said and he was quick to respond.

"I'm not, I'm Aiden" he said as a smirk appeared on his face.

"What I mean is, I do not know how you know my name. I have never seen you before"

"You are the topic of the week. Everyone here is talking about the new girl, however the only one who has talked to you or even knows your name is Chris. And I figured I should properly introduce myself, since I did not get a chance to earlier today"

"Oh I see, okay I guess it makes sense" I said and sat next to him on the couch.

"So Mallory, tell me about yourself"

"I do not talk about myself with others, I keep to myself" I did not intend to sound mean, but it would have been really stupid of me to open up to someone I just met. Even though he was asking for basic information, I found no purpose to it.

"Well, then how about I tell you about myself first that way you feel more comfortable talking to me about yourself?"

"Okay, but I will only say basic, boring things that no one cares about nor remembers"

"Deal! Okay, well my name is Aiden Castellano and I am 15 years old. I go to a Christian School as do most of the people here and my favorite color is blue. Your turn" he said and I really had no idea what to say about myself. It had been a long time since I had talked about myself to someone and I was just nervous and scared. I really did not want to encourage him to keep talking to me. I was not sure why, but there was something in his eyes that made me feel strange, almost uncomfortable.

"I am 14 years old, I attend a public school and I hate every color except black" I tried to maintain a monotone voice that did not show any interest in keeping a conversation going.

"Sounds interesting, are you goth?" he asked, with curiosity in his eyes.

I cleared my throat before responding, because if I was being honest I was not sure what I was at this point, other than a mess of course. "Um, no. No I am not goth" my response did not seem to convince him but either way he took in that answer. Before either of us was able to say something else, someone interrupted our...silence I suppose.

"Hey Aiden you coming to play tonight?" it was chris who was at the entrance, he was now dressed in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. In his hands was a basketball and a look of excitement was on his face.

"Yeah, tell the guys to wait for me!" Aiden said and turned to look at me with a look of pity on his face.

"I have to go, but hey it was nice talking to you" he said and I nodded without saying anything else.

Once he left, I was able to be alone and it was a great feeling. I had been encountered with many emotions for today, and something inside of me told me there would be much more to come.

* * *

"Mallory, Mallory wake up" I felt someone pull off my blanket and my body was instantly hit by a cold breeze.

"Let me sleep, I'm cold" I responded and proceeded to hug my body and close my eyes again.

"Are you crazy, it's time for school!" mom would be persistent, and so I decided getting out of bed would be for the best.

Prior to getting out of bed however, I went on my phone and checked all social media. I had a couple of messages from people in Seattle. Most of them were apologizing for all the evil things they had said and done to me.  I did not care for their apologies, it was already too late. I was not going to lie to myself, being here is somewhat good for me. I was felt as if I was able to breathe and release all of the burdens I had been carrying with me for what seemed forever. Something one does not often think about however, is that the things that we go through whether good or bad, would build our characters. For me, this is what people had created. I knew deep within me that changing would now be hard for me. I hated to let people in because I was terrified of what they could do. I had wrapped a cast around my heart, except this was different. My heart would not heal, not today, not ever. I supposed at some point if I stopped thinking about all I went through in Seattle, I would stop feeling. But I knew that bringing it up, would always bring a cloud of sadness. There was no way to repair anything now, it was sad but afterall that's what I had learned to be just sad. Thinking about these things was nonsense though. It was time to put in practice what I had learned, which was to be heartless indeed. I had to overcome everything, somehow I would find strength and bravery.

But of course, that's easy to say when things are going rather well.

* * *

The crowded halls made me feel anxious, almost insane. It took a lot of me to not push people around to get to class. After a couple bumps and curse words I had hissed at people, I was able to get to class. I found myself waiting outside of the classroom, the teacher had not dismissed her other class yet. Looking around, I found Daniel. Daniel was the typical soccer player, that all girls drooled for. I could not help but staring at him, not because I found him handsome but because I was trying to understand why girls found him so attractive. His haircut was odd, and his nose was too big for his face. I found no interest in continuing to look at him, not only was he unattractive but it would also be weird if someone caught me staring. And apprantly...

I jinxed myself.

"Would you look at that, the new girl can't keep her eyes off of Daniel" said a guy, whose name I believed was Gabe. I did not respond to his comment, I would simply ignore it because bringing more attention to it would be worse.

"Well of course she is not going to say anything, everyone knows she is Daniel's little whore" he said now loud enough for everyone around to hear

Without hesitation, I slapped him across the face. My hand came in contact with his cheek, provoking a loud sound as well as many gasps. Others applauded me, they felt as if I was a badass. I really was not but if there was something I had promised myself since that day was that no one would ever all me a whore again.

However, I had not done a good job at not bringing attention to it, and also I knew he would snitch on me. I turned around and walked into class, as I took a seat Gabe walked in and I could see a red mark on his face. The teacher approached him immediately and asked what had happened. In that moment I knew I had some unfortunate consequences coming my way if Gabe told her the truth.

* * *

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