Frozen

Chapter 7: Crave

[Jessica]

(A week earlier)

I feel the blonde tendrils being wrenched torturously one by one out of my scalp. If she pulls that hard she'll see my ugly shit-brown roots.

"Ugh, Rach, if you pull any harder I'll end up looking like Aaron after your last treatment on him," Rachel rolls her blue eyes,

"Aaron is not bald it's called a buzz cut. And besides, even before he chopped off all his hair it was too short to braid."

"Oh, this is braiding? I thought you were just driving a car over my hair." with my nasty remark we both laugh hysterically. I would never really mean that about Rahe. Well, actually I guess I would. You can't climb to the top without stepping on a few people, and with Rachel's alpha spot I would knock her down if I had the chance.

The bell suddenly rings and Rachel gets up to waltz out of study hall, cruelly abandonning my work-in-progress hair. As I stand up in my bright daisy-yellow and royal-purple uniform I reach to the back of my aching head and feel a perfectly finished, intricate braid. Of course, Rachel could never leave anything incomplete, let alone imperfect. Only the weak have flaws, mistakes are unacceptable if you want to stay on top, like coach always says. Of course, she's usually talking about staying on top of the pyramid, not the social ladder. Same result, anyway, you fall, you get hurt.

And then you never get a chance to be on the top ever again.

"Come on, Jessica, don't wanna be late for cheer, I'm on top today," she snaps her gum, and with my fresh blonde braid swinging, I twirl in my fringed purple skirt and run to catch up with Rachel and the other girls, shoving a weird, nagging feeling that materialized in me to the back of my mind.

..............................

Lounging around in the locker room waiting for Brooke and Ella to change into their uniforms, I take the time to examine myself in the full-length mirror that coats an alcove by the showers that no one ever uses, taking my time to run a finger over the permanent marker heart that we'd grafittied on the sickly grey wall back in middle school. Though the marker is not even smudged, I think of all the hands that've touched this and the notion makes me want to recoil and trace it over again at the same time. Since then the hearts of all the people that have traced this one have been broken, crushed, backstabbed, bonded, and some kicked out of our little group altogether. I realize just then that I don't even know who drew it.

My memories are interrupted rudely when Rachel glides up while I am fondling the heart with glassy eyes. I am jerked back into reality and the reflection of Rachel and I in our cheerleading uniforms slams into my face. Like some kind of computer I instantly compare Rachel's and my features and figure. Her wavy blonde hair that's pulled back into a preppy ponytail makes my bleached, flat blonde one look fake and dull in comparison. My lightly freckled and usually caramel eyes look suddenly like a full on connect-the-dots face and the caramel color looks like two globs of distusting, oozing brown mud next to Rachel's pristine blue. Hers are open, deep ocean and I am a clouded swamp. I think of the new girl Sloan, who is trying out for cheer even though we are almost done with the season, which has had Rachel boiling like a tea kettle and just as searing hot when you try to touch her. Sloan is icy blue, like a frozen lake dusted with snow. And I am mud.

Suddenly I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and when I try to flatten them they prick sharply into my skin. It is just then that I realize I am alone, that Rachel has wandered off again and I feel through my thin socks the white tile floor of the locker room, suddenly cold all around, trying to flatten the goosebumps that have risen from the grave down my arms. I never get goosebumps. I glance at myself in the mirror but don't see my face, only the pale, haunting face that has appeared suddenly over my shoulder in the glassy surface. I scream.

..............................

"Oh my god. Sloan you scared me to friggin death. I was literally just dead." she slides up next to me, cocking her head so a waterfall of cascading pale blonde hair flips in my face and slowly settles. I look at her and she doesn't respond.

"Uhm, Sloan. Practice is in, like, two seconds. You better get your uniform on." I roll my eyes and start to turn away when I feel a cold hand on my shoulder and jump, starting the train of goosebumps all over again.

"Last time I checked, it was not Halloween. So stop trying to friggin scare me out of my skin!" I snap and try to pull away but she doesn't let go. Finally I spin back around to face the mirror. That's when I realize that Sloan is gone.

But I still feel the icy hand on my shoulder, suddenly I collapse and force my hands as hard as I can on both sides of my head, from the center of my forehead a searlingly cold pain exploded into my mind as sharp words rang out, piercing just as hard.

"Hello Jessica." Sloan. It's Sloan's voice. I try to scream but my throat is numb and I feel like I have no energy to open my mouth, as dead as a corpse.

"Look in the mirror." The command echoes through my head. What is going on. My heartbeat pounds in my chest, the only other sound, the opposite of the voice in my head, Sloan's voice in my head. I want to scream and fight and cry but all I can do is slowly turn my head to face the mirror. My heartbeat stops then stutters for a moment. All I see is an endless mound of grotesque flesh lumped on the floor, from it protruding tiny pieces of fingernails and two globs of mud for eyes, just above the inflated lips that are rash-red. Slowly I see in focus and realize that it's me. It's me and it was always me. This is what I always looked like. No no no no no. All I wanted to be is beautiful and this is what I've been the whole time, tricking myself that that is beautiful. That warped embodiment of hideous.

"Noo." the sound escaped from my throat in a moan and freezing tears sting my eyes like I'm crying icicles.

"Now will you accept my offer?" the voice like nails on a chalkboard scrapes through my head, echoing though I pray that it won't. What offer?

"An offer to be beautiful." Somehow I nod my head, knowing the rolls of pink flesh nod with me, "Beautiful forever. Perfect." I want to cry out yes, yes. As she says this I realize that it is all I want, it is all I ever wanted. A craving starts in my chest and spreads throughout my being, I need it. The craving hurts and my throat burns, my chest burns with ice. I start to double over and the icy feeling consumes me though the horrible need doesn't go away, the world starts to spin and dark spots cloud my 20/20 vision. It is then that I realize that the need was not beauty. The need was for air. Just then I also realize that the warmth in my chest that had been the only thing fighting the voice was gone, empty, echoing with the brittle cold that now filled me. My heartbeat had stopped. Panic has just begun to erupt in my head in the empty space that the voice left and the world goes dark. Hopefully forever.