Malice

Prologue: Poison

"MVH is kickin' it baby! Ooo! Ah!" the cheerleaders chanted from the corner of the gym.

It was the typical night for me. Link up with my friends, smoke a blunt or two while getting dolled up and strolling into the basketball games that we knew would be packed. All eyes would be on us and we just knew that we were the shit. Considering the fact that Mount View was playing Bluefield, we were prepared to bring our A game. We'd grown up and went to school with the same people for most of our lives. The usual faces stopped tapping into our hormones a long time ago. Most of the guys were like brothers to us at this point. Of course, we weren't the only ones that thought that. When a new face came around the girls at school, it looked like feeding time at the zoo. You wouldn't believe how thirsty they would act. The only thing that set us apart from the rest of them is the fact that we played it cool. We refused to flock to every new face that wore nice clothes and looked like they had money.We simply let them flock to us.

A lot of the time, it wasn't all about they guys and attention with me. I just loved getting high and keep my mind calm in a room full of people.

My life had always been one long ass lecture that felt like it was never going to end.

Don't do drugs!

Stay in school. You need to go to college, you might like it.

You can't stay in Welch.

Don't dance with random strangers at parties.

Don't sleep with someone you barely know.

Don't date him. Don't hang out with those kids.

Blah, blah, fucking blah.

I was pretty sure that everyone in my life took pleasure in dictating every fucking move I made. It often made me feel like I was just a puppet. That wasn't the most annoying part about it though.

The blood that ran through my veins was apart of one of the largest families in Welch. That wasn't even something significant. It wasn't like any of them were rich, but people watched me like a hawk."Are you a Dawson?" they would ask. In Welch, everybody knew everybody. They knew all of my relatives right down to my great-grandfather, Garland Dawson. His name rang bells and turned heads. My every move was always reported to him and he always knew when I was lying.

My parents always made it a point to compare me to my cousins, Anton and Pash. It was bullshit because Anton was my age and everyone saw him as the good child and saw me as the bad seed. If only they knew the person he really was. He was just as bad as me. Pash's sexuality was frowned upon by many, but he still wasn't as bad as I was or even Anton for that matter.

I've never felt bad about any of the shit that people say to me or about me. I've always been pretty fucking great at deflecting things I don't want to feel. Feelings make you weak and a girl like me couldn't afford to be weak. My bold ass attitude has always protected me and kept my head above water. No one's ever been able to control me.

.

.

.

.

"There's a party in Gary tonight after the game. You in?" Ashe asked, nudging me. I didn't even realize that my high had set in and I was staring blankly at the empty floor in the middle of the gym. I never heard the buzzer go off or the roar of the crowd. I looked up at the score board and noticed that we had surprisingly won. For a second, I thought that I didn't have my head on straight, like it was floating away. Then I started to feel fuzzy and my attention span continued to fizzle out, masked by my high.