Hollow Hatred

           I'm Ariana Lynn, and this is my story.

           I currently live in the town of Sallisaw, Oklahoma. It's small homey town where news travels faster than e-mail. Rumors are news, people are friendly, and the neighborhoods are modest. Everyone lives happily at Sallisaw. Everyone including me.

           I'm seventeen years old, ready for college, not ready for life past that. I know I want to study marine biology, and that's as far into the future as I've gotten. My love of underwater creatures as pushed my life to the edge, whether it's saving a pack of new-born sea turtles to giving volunteering to feed to penguins at the zoo. If you don't believe me just ask my pet turtle Swims. I rescued him when I was eleven, and he's been my companion ever since.

           I'd like to think I have a normal life, but I don't. I live with my roommate Seth, an ignorant twenty year old dumbass. It could be worse, I told myself, he could be a lazy ass.

           My day starts with coffee and ends with homework. My afternoons are occupied with Seths dramatic complaining about me being fat. I'm not fat! I'm 5'4 with hundred and twenty-six pounds to carry. If anything I'm petite.

           "Ari!" Seth yelled from the living room.

           "Yeah?"

            "Come here!"

           I glared at the floor. But I don't want to.

           Seth thinks he pays most of the bills, which he doesn't, and it makes him think that he's in control of the whole house. That was at the top of my bullcrap-o-meter, but it was either go to Seth or listen to him complain about my manners for the next two months. I choose the first.

           I got up, straighten my tank-top, and jogged to the living room. I didn't have enough money to decorate, and Seth doesn't have the eye for decoration so the living room was left with bare walls, bare shelves, and barely enough furniture for three people. Seth bought a cheap couch because he's a cheap man. All my money goes into clothes and pet food.

          "What's up?" I said.

           He turned around to face me. He had a small box in his hands. Seth was still in his pajama pants at two o'clock in the afternoon. He was shirtless, as always, and he was examining the box like it was foreign.

           "This came for you."

           He handed me the box and left the living room.

           "Wait!" I called after him. "Why didn't I hear the doorbell?"

           There was a pause. "I answered the door before he rang the doorbell." Before I could ask anymore questions, I heard the door to Seths room squeak shut. He really needs to get that door fixed.

           I thought about what he said and shrugged. When I order clothes and I see the delivery man, I run out before he can get out of his truck. No big deal. I looked at the package. It was small and weightless. There wasn't a return label or adress so the person must've dropped it off without putting it through the mail.

            I walked into the kitchen, got a knife, and cut the tape off. I put the knife away and ripped the top of the box open. I reached in and pulled out a small blue velvet box. For some unknown reason, my heart rate sped up. The first thought that popped into my head was "is someone proposing to me?" No, that's stupid! This is probably for Seth. He must've got it mixed up.