House of Cards

Prologue

My name is Zara Florez, I'm 17. I lived in a small town named Springville, California, and I already wanted to get out. I was a normal girl, or as normal as I could have been in the town that held so many secrets. Most people keep to themselves, never going to social events or going outside to talk to neighbors, it's like they were hiding something, and I think it brought most to insanity. I remember a few years back when our neighbor Mr. Brown went missing, turns out he drank his life away. When the cops found him, he had an empty bottle of whiskey in one hand a note in the other, saying, "choices, bring you closer to death." The next day no one talked about it. It's the norm in our town, deaths happened so often most just decided to not speak of it.

I went to school at Lakewood High, this high school is like most, it had the cheerleaders, the jocks, the nerds, and anyone you could think of. The only thing different is that gang members attended this school, known as the most dangerous gang in town, they have a reputation, of doing unlawful things. They're called the Ace's Jinx. One boy stands out among a group of members attending Lakewood High, his name, Alex Wilson, the son of the gang leader. He was charming but yet deceiving making almost every girl throw herself at him. Though he kept to himself most of the time and let his peers do most of the dirty work for him, that didn't stop him from having his fair share of fun. When he does go out of his way to cause disruption, it was never harmless or humorous. One time he punched a kid unconscious for telling him that his shoe was untied, that day most of the security guards quit, for they had been punched when they tried pulling Alex of the poor boy. Another time, he walked down the hallway with a match lit, and waltzed right into the principal's office. No one knows what he did, but we knew for sure from that day on he no longer got in trouble for anything. Almost everyone was afraid of Alex, except for me.

You see Alex and I have known each other since we were four. He was a good kid, he got good grades, always part of after-school clubs, and even ran for student class president once. He never wanted to be part of his father's gang, but once his mother was murdered, he took a turn for the worse. Out of nowhere, he traded me and everything he loved for the Ace's Jinx. Being my little innocent self I thought it was just a phase, turns out it wasn't. I still remember the day he said he no longer wanted to be friends. We were seven then. I was swinging on the swings in Green Grove Park, waiting to meet up with Alex to go to our favorite diner, The Golden Spoon, for some ice cream. I even remember what he was wearing, he had all black on which was odd because he would always wear colorful clothes, he looked like he just was in a fight. With his bloody nose, and a swollen right eye that was so close up you could no longer see the bright green color in his eyes, he walked straight up to me spit blood to the side almost hitting my white fluffy dress, who knows if Alex didn't miss I don't know what my mother would have done to him. He then grabbed me by my collar, and looked straight at me and said. "I don't want to be friends with a little good for nothing girl." Now looking back I don't think I flinched once. He then walked away leaving me on the ground crying my little seven-year-old heart out, my little sister who was four then and very intelligent for her age had to come to get me. That day, I sat in my room crying. I said nothing at all only letting little sobs escape my mouth, not wanting to tell my mom what happened, I locked myself in my bedroom. I could hear my mom breathing heavily on the other side of the door almost like she was crying too, but I couldn't bring myself to open the door. I think my mom knew what happened and that is why she didn't push me on letting her in. The next day I woke up on the ground next to my bed, I didn't remember much of what happened last night, I could only recall that Alex and I were no longer best friends or even just friends. Just thinking of it made me want to cry again. I remember looking out the window and only to see Alex sitting on a fold-out chair in the shade next to a kid from Ace's Jinx, smoking weed, just seeing him do bad things made want nothing to do with him. I got out a notebook from my drawer and wrote how I promised myself that I would never cry over him again. From then on I started writing in that notebook every day. Explaining how my day was, my problems, and anything that would come to mind. I think this was my way of dealing with the fact that life was no longer sunshine and rainbows.