Annabelle Dent, 15, spent years hiding from her parents. Hiding from everybody, really. They all called her a "witch", "crazy", anything to make her feel different. She self-harms to numb her pain. Her only friend is moving away, and as for mom and...
Like any normal day, I'm freezing when I wake up. The bed creaks as I check the time on my phone. 3:12am. I grunt and roll over, making the bed squeak more. I should sleep until eight but I can never fall asleep once I've woken up. So, I drag myself to the side of the small bed and plant my feet on the mildewed wooden floor. I shiver hard, shit, it's cold. I wrap my blanket around myself and go to the bathroom. I look at myself, half of the mirror is shattered and reflects one of my eyes in insect vision. The other half shows a girl. her hair is short and black. Her eyes are huge, light brown, with a pointed nose with thin lips and an overbite. She doesn't smile at herself, because it doesn't look good on her face. Freckles and birth marks cover her nose and cheeks and pretty much everything like a disease. I swear that a new one comes on over night every time I go to sleep. I look lower at the girl. Her elbows are wider than her arms, she doesn't eat much. She's pale and her collarbones are sharp enough to slice a cake, but not in a cute way. She's "too thin", she needs to eat, but she doesn't cry anymore and the hunger pains have gone away, so why bother? She moves to look at the girl's arms. They're ravaged, but she never wears short sleeves anyways. One of her wounds weeps and begs to be closed.
"Annabelle!"
I jerk, hitting my head on the mirror, I was looking so close and I didn't realize. I rub my head and try to think of who would be here to call my name so early in the morning. Mom, for sure. "Yeah!" I yell back.
"I'm going for a trip, I'll be back in a few days. I love you, but please stop moving so much, you'll wake up Jake!" My mom hollers before slamming the door closed. The "but" in her request cancels out the "I love you". I remember Jake downstairs in his cage. He's our dog, a raggedy one, but still my best friend. I wonder if he thinks the same of me.
I return to my room and dig through my drawers for a pair of worn and torn leggings, a plain white tee, and my trusty Jamestown High School hoodie from before we moved the diggings or this old place. I change and ignore the leak in the roof on the way down the stairs.
"Hey, Jakers-boy" I let him out of his cage and hug him close to me. He lets me, as always, he's a very calm pup, only one, but huge in comparison to me. "I'm gonna make some coffee, bud, I'll be back." As I walk into the kitchen, he goes into my dad's "mancave" of sorts. The kitchen smells like fresh mold, I pull on my hood and pull the drawstrings to protect myself from the smell as I mix yesterday's coffee with milk and sugar and heat it up in the microwave. I lean against the counter and look at my new home. It needs plenty of work but I actually like it here. I don't have to share a room with my mom anymore, and I have a bathroom of my own. I almost smile.
Jake barks at me to answer the door before anybody even gets there. I grab my coffee and make it to the door before anyone knocks.
Leaning against the door is my best and only friend, Miles. He's smiling like a mad man. He slips past me to sit on the couch in the living room, there he turns on the news.
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"Well, hello to you, too," I half smile at him. He grins back and pats the couch next to him. I sit warily, he's acting so strange.
"Now, you're gonna have to stay seated for this, okay? This is big news," He informs me. I nod, urging him to keep talking.
"Just don't freak out, you're probably gonna be upset-"
"Spit it out, Miles-"
"-I'm moving back home to California!"
My heart drops. Wait, huh? No. No, no, no. That can't be right, he's joking, right? He wouldn't leave me. Not here, alone, by myself. He's stabbed a knife into my gut. A soft sob escapes my lips.
Miles looks at me "Annabelle?" He puts his hand on my shoulder, I flinch away. "Annabelle, I'm sorry, please don't cry."
Cry? I don't cry. I wipe the tears from my face.
"BREAKING NEWS"
I jump at the noise. We both look at the TV.
"A family in Jamestown was murdered this morning with only one survivor, a 16 year old boy, who is now giving details of the killer. More about that at 7:00"
A sketch pops up of a teenage boy, about my age with black hair. It's black and white but I can tell that he's pale. His eyes are wide like mine. His jawline as sharp as my collarbones. But what really gets me is his giant smile. It's artificial, scars stretch from the corners of his mouth. Sympathy wells where the knife was.
"Dude, you're looking at him like he's a puppy, are you okay?" Miles snaps me out of my daze. I shake my head.
"You should go, I have chores to do," I get up, walking to the stairs, and I look back. He's frowning, but he smiles halfheartedly when he sees me looking.
"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow," He opens the door. "Love you, Annabelle."
I clean up around the house and lay in bed for the rest of the day, thinking about that boy on TV. I know he had some sort of name. Oh, yeah. "Jeff the Killer".
