🗸 the quintessences of cherry & cigarette

|| prelude ||

"Oh my god! Listen to this!" Loralie Rosinger announces, shouting for everyone to hear. "I love Sonia Novak so much, she's a total goddess. But, she doesn't know I exist."

The crowd lapses into shrieking laughter - like witches cackling over their sacrificial altar. From her place in the very back of the throng, Cerise Miller watches on with growing panic as the bullying of the unfortunate boy continues. Sonia - tall, graceful, devastatingly beautiful Sonia Novak steps towards Loralie and snatches the diary from her. "Stop it!"

"Aw, why?" Loralie snickers. "Honey, he thinks you're a goddess. Give him a chance."

"You freak!" Sonia screams at the boy - one Toby Evans. Savagely, she tears his diary apart - just like his heart must be tearing in his chest. "If you fucking write about me in your stupid diary one more time, I'll have my boyfriend beat your creepy face up!" With that, she stomps off, walking all over the pages of Toby's heart.

"D'aww sugarcube..." Loralie coos at Toby, crossing her arms and cocking her hip to the side as she eyes him with false sympathy. "She's a bit catty today, eh? But don't lose hope just yet, Romeo. I'm sure someday she'll finally agree to being your Juliet."

"Yeah, sure." Tristan Blake scoffs, wrapping an arm around Loralie's curvy waist. "Maybe when all the men in the world are dead."

Everyone laughs again, and all poor Toby can do is stand to the side with his head bowed in embarrassment. Meanwhile, Cerise has seen enough to know that she may very well be the next target for those bullies. Quietly, she steals away, keeping her head low and her shoulders hunched as she hugs the edges of the hallway to hurry out to the school grounds. Once outside, she breaks into a full sprint towards the line of hickories that border the football field.

In the temporary safety of the trees, Cerise looks down at her arms - amongst the notes and textbooks is her newest journal, the one she bought a week ago with her first pay as the salesgirl at the local mart. This journal is special to her; it marks an achievement in her life - she cannot imagine it being torn up and trodden all over by Loralie and her despicable group of friends. More importantly, she cannot have them read her entries...

"Cerise Miller, is that you?"

Jerking at the sound of her name, Cerise lifts her head to see three boys coming her way. Steven Root, James Smith, and Roger Joseph are not boys that respect girls in the least - they're the ones that make girls want to hurry homewards if it's too late at night, they're the ones that get girls drunk at parties and clubs, and then carry them off somewhere else for fun.

Palms clammy, knees trembling, Cerise feels fear blowing its chilly breath down her spine. She has to do it; there's no other choice left. Stepping back deeper into the treeline, she opens her journal and begins tearing the first entries out, dropping the other contents of her arms in the process - they hold little concern at the moment. Crushing the pages into a ball, she desperately looks around and is rewarded with the sight of a hollow in one of the hickories nearby. Without a second thought, Cerise stuffs the papers into the hole, quickly stepping away from the tree just as the boys cross into the forest. They advance on her with stances like predators, smiles like psychopaths, and eyes glinting like the edges of sharp, serrated knives.

"Hey, Cerise," says one of them, Steven. He takes a step closer to her. "Watcha doing out here all alone?"

Cerise has no answer for him, only fear. Fast as lightning, another of them, Roger has her pinned against a tree. He's so close, too close - she can smell his rancid exhalation, with the pungently sweet underlay of his bubblegum. "She's not really alone, though," he says, his words washing over her in a wave of terror, "now that we're here..."