I hate her.
I hate her beauty.
I hate the power she holds over people.
I hate that she made me need her.
Less than two months ago she traipsed into my beginners psych class and set her plan in motion. I didn't know it back then-no one could have known-but she would have me eating out of the palm of her hands by the end of the week. She would toss her inky black curls and laugh at everything I said, drawing me into her web.
At first I wondered why she picked me of all people. 263 seniors to choose from and she picked me. I was so happy I never stopped to think about how odd it was that I went from being a social pariah to eating lunch with football players in a week's time. I never acknowledged the way she clung possessively to my arm or how diligently she drilled the social do's and don't's of high school into me everyday after school. I was just so happy to have a friend. To have friends. For once in my life I was the one everyone wanted at their party. The high of being wanted blinded me from the facts.
They only wanted me around because I brought her with me,
I could only sit at their table if she would be there to grace everyone with her exotic presence.
They were addicted to her and so was I. She was irresistible. She was inhumanly beautiful. Whatever this girl was, it had to be powerful. Being near her made you feel like anything was possible and with the transformation she gave me, I was starting to believe it. Anything was possible if she wanted it. If she wanted red to be blue and blue to be purple, it was done. If she wanted past to mean present and present to mean future, dictionaries would be rewritten.
The worst part was that nobody ever questioned it. We just let her take over our lives and consume all of our thoughts from the moment she stepped her long legs through the door. Thoughts of her perfectly porcelain skin distracted us from wondering where she came from or why she lived alone. Thick, red lips asked us so many questions, but never answered our own. She easily avoided discussing anything personal about herself, like who her parents were or what her last school was like. Nobody cared, though. She could have murdered her last class with rusted machete and they would still be falling all over themselves to be near her. She was easily the most exciting thing to happen to our school in years. Boys would fantasize about her well after graduation and girls would strive to be like her. For the rest of their lives, men and women would be unsatisfied after witnessing what a true beauty looked like. No matter how hard they tried to forget, she would burn in the back of their minds forever. Always reminding them of the kind of person they wanted be.
But they don't know her like I do.
They weren't used like I was.
She dug her glossy black nails into my world and refused to let go until I was indebted to her. She showed me what life could be like. Life outside of video games and the library. She showed me how to really live. She made sure my phone was always ringing and my lunch table was always full. Everyday I got a little bit closer to the life I'd fantasized about. A life with friends, parties, football games, and eventually a girlfriend. I didn't think it to be possible but after a month and a half of perfecting my life, she decided she wanted more. She didn't want to remain friends, she wanted the world to know that she was mine and I was hers.
Then everything changed.
She started asking for favors. Little things at first, like asking me to cancel plans with my new friends to be with her. Of course I complied. Refusing anything she wanted just wasn't an option. The only reason I had any plans to cancel was because she made it happen. So if she wanted to have me to herself for an evening or two, I wasn't going to object.
Then she started asking for bigger things-stranger things. She demanded that I introduce her to my new friends. One by one I would introduce her to one of the new friends I'd made since she came, then she would take them out. She came to my house early in the morning, raving on about some new coffee place she'd discovered out of town. She insisted that I bring one of my friends along for the ride. She just knew that they would love this place.
She drove for hours. She drove until the homely country houses around us were miles away and all we could see were trees. My friends never suspected a thing. And neither did I the first time. She was all smiles right up until the end like we really were going to a coffee shop. Like she didn't drive 20 miles deep into the forest with a polished knife gleaming beneath a flannel blanket in the backseat. Like she didn't plan to kill off my classmates one by one.
The scary part is that I didn't even care.
I just let her take my new friends away from me. I was already used to being alone anyway. And if she was kind enough, she might find me new ones. She could do no wrong. Anything she did had to have some sort of meaning behind it. Some kind of complex social strategy I was too awkward to understand. There was just something in her tone when she asked me to do these things. An age old voice shadowed her own, assuring me that it would all work out in the end.
After seven trips people were starting to get suspicious. To tell you the truth, I was getting a little suspicious as well. What were her motives? So far, nothing was changing. We didn't climb the social ladder anymore after each killing. We stayed comfortably at the top where she had a perfect view for picking her victims. These murders were pointless.
By the eight trip, my rose colored glasses were finally starting to crack. Underneath all of her beauty was a monster. This angel who filled my life with such joy was just plucking up my classmates one by one and killing them like it was some sort of game. I was afraid to mention it-afraid to ruin the perfection she had bestowed upon my life-but I had to. I had to put an end to this heartless manslaughter.
So the day of the ninth trip I told her no.
"What did you just say?" Alice stood on my front porch with her arms crossed. God, was she beautiful. Even more so than when we first met. Her skin practically glowed with power and her stormy gray eyes flashed an acidic green color. Before I had time to register what was going on, she was back to normal. Back to the same old Alice I'd gotten to know for the past two months. Back to being my girlfriend. No. I squared my scrawny shoulders and tried to forget that she was my girlfriend. She was a murderer.
"We can't keep luring people into your trap. It's wrong."
"Have you forgotten what I did for you?"
I would never forget. I was so thankful for the way she changed my life, I could cry every time I thought about it. Thanks to this gorgeous girl standing in front of me, I would never have trouble making friends again. I knew what to say and how to say it and it was all because of her.
"Of course I haven't forgotten," I whispered. I took one of her slender, pale hands in my own. "That's why I want to get you some help. If we just go to a doctor or something, I'm sure we can find out why you do these things."
That was my first mistake.
Her eyes flahsed green for a moment and her skin once again adopted that powerful glow. As soon as I saw her stormy gray eyes well up and her bottom lip start to quiver, I knew I wouldn't be able to say no. I would do whatever she asked at the drop of a hat.
Alice leaned in for a hug and I hugged her back, never wanting to let go. I inhaled the smell of wildflowers wafting from her skin and when she pressed her lips to mine I kissed back. She had me again and she knew it.
My second mistake was getting into her car.
And that's where we are right now. Just the two of us in the middle of the forest.
Driving.
