She ran because she had no other choice. She
feared what would happen if she dared to stop. There was no time to think.
There was barely any time for her to breathe. On her broken ankle, she ran.
With her bruised arms, she ran. With her bleeding sides, she ran because she
knew today was the day she was meant to die.
Her bare feet, covered with everything from wet dirt to
dried, dead leaves to cold ice, took her farther into the forest. She jumped
over the dark fallen log, not caring that the bottom of her pants snagged on
the tip of it. She went on, running deeper, running faster, trying not to
think. Thinking would stop her. Thinking would make her want to survive.
Thinking would cause her to fight, and today she could not fight. She heard the
screeches; she had seen their dark eyes. They were confirming what she already
knew in her heart to be true. Today was the day she was meant to die.
Snow fell gently on her like small glimpses of hope. She
loved the snow. But even today it, too, was against her. It knew. It blanketed
the ground and froze her to her core. She slowed, but she didn’t stop running.
Slowing was a mistake, though. Now she could feel the fatigue as it crept up
inside her. She could feel the pain as it came into her ankle like burning
knives slicing away at her. As the screeches rang through the forest, they too
chilled her. Whether she slowed or not, she was meant to die today.
However, she had one choice, one option. What was to be
her final ground? She had the choice of where she could die and it wasn’t going
to be here. It wasn’t going to be in the depths of the dark forest. It would
not be fatigue, or hunger, or even the evil creatures that dwelled inside that
forest. She couldn’t die here. It wasn’t good enough.
She ran, but again her pace slowed. What a fatal flaw
that was, for now she tripped over the root of a skillful hidden tree. Her body
hit the iced-over, snow-covered ground, adding even more injuries to her
collection. She touched her lip; seeing her blood on her hands shocked her,
stilling her. She was bleeding everywhere, but for some reason that blood was
what stilled her. That was her final fatal flaw because now she stopped
running. Running had calmed her and now that was gone. A dry sob broke through
her lips before the tears came. They broke so quickly they burned, blinding
her.
She could think now. She knew to what her actions would
lead. She knew she could hurt them all. But it had to be done; it was the only
thing left to do. They would hate her. They wouldn’t understand. They would
have told her there was another way, but there wasn’t. There just wasn’t. They
wished for it to be innocent, clean, easy—but it couldn’t be. She knew there
wasn’t another way. They knew there wasn’t another way. But they hoped, they
prayed, but most of all, they feared. That they too were like her, that they
too were only prolonging their agony. It wasn’t always like this. I promise you
it wasn’t always like this. There use to be laughter and harmony, absolute and
unfathomable harmony. They wanted that back. They needed that back. So she had
to die today.
She heard it. She heard his foot upon the snow. Lifting
herself from the ground with great ease, for she no longer hurt, she turned to
him, all the anger in the world directed at him. He—with handsome blue eyes and
blond hair—he was the reason she would die today.
“I am not sure if
you are the most reckless girl I have ever met or the wisest.” His soft, gentle
voice rang out—his voice never much higher than a whisper. It was a deceiving
voice. It was the voice of a friend, a brother, a father; it was a voice of
someone who cared.
“This you won’t
win. Haven’t you heard? Light always wins. You scare and you terrify, but in
the end light always wins. So you are the most reckless man I have ever met,
for trying to do the same thing so many others have tried and failed to do,”
she told him through her own tears.
He simply circled her before speaking again. “Now who
lied to you, my dear? There is no such thing as failure. I have simply
discovered ways that did not work.”
She looked forward, not speaking to the man behind her.
There was no point wasting the few precious breaths she had left. Her tears
flowed from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks like miniature waterfalls. He was
the reason she would die today.
“How tragic it is
that you will not be alive for me to impart such a lesson upon you.” That was
the last thing she heard before the darkness came. She hoped; she truly hoped
she did not die today for nothing.
CHAPTER ONE
THE BEAUTY OF
ADOLESCENT MADNESS
“Good morning, Ashland! It is officially Fall—” Slamming
her hand against her alarm, Adela tried not to think about what today meant.
Oh today is going to suck, she thought as she lay in bed.
Today was a dark day and on dark days you weren’t supposed to go out.
“Adela if you don’t get your butt up, I am coming in
there,” the broken scratchy voice called from the other room. Adela tried so
hard to ignore him, burying herself deeper in to the mattress and pulling a pillow
over her head. All she wanted to do was rest on her dark day.
“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, my little
peanut.” He burst into her room, singing dreadfully.
“I’m going! I am going,” Adela yelled, jumping out of bed
as she tried to dance around the older man singing in front of her, until she
ran into the bathroom, slamming the door.
However, he continued on in his awful voice. “Happy
Birthday—”
I am in the bathroom. The water is running. You can stop
now grandpapa!” she yelled again as she leaned against the wooden bathroom
door.
She sighed when she heard his laughter fade and the
gentle slam of the door as it closed in on itself. The second to last thing she
wanted to do today was go to school. The very last thing she wanted to do was
celebrate her sixteenth birthday. But did her grandfather listen to her? No. He
was going to plan a “surprise” birthday party— which they could not
afford—because turning sixteen is important, he said.
Apparently she was in the first stage of birthdays; the
stage in which she should be excited to become older. He had told her there
were three stages of birthdays. The first, the one she was in now, was
excitement, the second was dread, and the third was pride. Pride that once
again you had cheated death for another year. Despite her grandfather’s age, he
claimed to be in transition from the second to the third. He could too, he
didn’t seem to look as old as he was, but she knew better. Stepping into the
shower, her mind continued to race on.
As you could see she wasn’t a fan of her birthday. To
speak frankly, she hated her birthday. At sixteen she was not a legal adult for
another two years and could not drink for another five. In all honesty, to
Adela, all the birthdays between twelve and seventeen were pointless. Anyone
who told kids different only said so to make sure teens didn’t shoot themselves
in the face before they turned eighteen.
Adela sighed. She didn’t mean to be so cynical; she knew
that was not the real reason she loathed her birthday. She hated it because it
was a dark day. It was the day her parents died. It was the day she became an
orphan. She could not remember it, the massive explosion that took them away.
Each time she tried to call forth that memory, all she could recall was a
bright light and sobbing around her. From what she was told, she was six at
that time, and should have been able to remember something: their voice, their
face, how their hands felt. However, she could not. It was her dark day.
She often wondered what they looked like. Each time she
questioned her grandfather about it he would tell her to look in the mirror—for
she was a perfect blend of the two. So she looked in the mirror every day. Adela
knew that she had inherited her mother’s long, wavy black hair and hazel eyes,
along with her father’s height in addition to his fair skin.
Had she known where her old house stood she would have
surely gone back there. She would have walked among the rubble trying to find
traces of anything that linked her to them. It was for this reason she knew
that her grandfather had moved them to Oregon.
Wrapping a towel around her, Adela took a deep breath
before wiping the steam off the mirror. She stared deep in to her hazel eyes
she spoke, “Happy Birthday.”
Dressed, she began searching for the bus pass but could
not find it anywhere. Ripping through her closet, dresser, and bed, she was
still unable to find the blue bus pass, which hung from a panda bus-pass chain.
“I just cleaned this room.” Adela sighed, pinching the
bridge of her nose. It had taken her forever to clean her room, putting
everything neatly in its place, and it took her only five minutes to destroy
it.
She would have given up her search for her wallet—there
wasn’t much in there, just five dollars and an old movie stub if she remembered
correctly—however, the school buses in Ashland now required every student to
have a bus pass. Grabbing her backpack, she marched out, hoping that she had
left her bus pass and her wallet in the kitchen. When she walked into the
kitchen, whatever her grandfather was cooking made her stomach grumble.
“You look nice,” her grandfather told her as she rushed
out in to the kitchen to search for the bus pass.
“Grandpapa you’re blind,” she replied, looking inside the
fruit platter.
Despite the fact that she was dressed incredibly plain,
something she cared less about seeing as how they were poor. She wasn’t joking,
Grandpapa Keane was blind, and to the best of Adela’s knowledge, he had always
been so. Luckily, he had impeccable hearing, which made his job as a musical
instrument repairer quite easy, but not many people went to the local blind man
to repair their guitar.
He chuckled under his breath.
“Yes, but I believe you look nice,” he told her in his
dry, low voice.
Grandpapa Keane was a somewhat tall man, with silver gray
hair that stopped at a little past his shoulders and a large wrinkle creased
his forehead. But what made him truly memorable was his dry, scratchy voice. It
sounded like he had a smoke stuck in his lungs, which he most likely did with
the amount of cigarettes he went through. Grandpapa Keane always made sure to
smoke outside whenever he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
“Thank you. Have you seen my bus pass?” She smiled,
leaning into the counter beside him.
“Adela that’s cruel. You know I am blind.” He pulled his
pale lips in to a thin line before he was unable to control his laughter.
“Ha-ha very funny. But if I cannot find my pass or
wallet, I won’t be able to get to school on time. As much I would love that, I
would miss my own surprise party.” Her dark long hair swaying as she moved
toward the living room to continue her search.
He tried to deny it.
“There is no party,” he claimed.
“Ok grandpapa.” She knew better than to believe him by
now. There was a party, there was always a party. The guest list was short; not
many people could fit in their run down home at the edge of town.
“It’s in the car.” He laughed at her as he ate a strip of
bacon.
“We don’t have
a—Grandpapa you didn’t!” she complained. He just ignored her, dragging himself
out of the kitchen and through the front door.
There, sitting comfortably in the weed and fungus covered
driveway of their home, was a very old black and blue Honda Civic. The colors
suited it well; it looked as though it had taken many beatings in its day. The
paint was chipping off on its hood; the tires looked depressed and tired. She
ran her fingers over it as if to make sure it was really there. Bits of paint
came off at her touch.
Adela smiled as she stared at the car before her. “It’s
beautiful…” she told.
They could not afford this; she wasn’t sure how he had
managed to even get her anything but a bicycle. That was why it was beautiful.
“I had the boy make sure it was safe.” The boy he spoke
of was Adela’s best friend, Hector Pelleas, the smartest teen in all of
Ashland, if not all of Oregon. You would not think of him to be the car fixing
type, but he just knew things.
“Stop overthinking it and go to where ever it is you go
during the day,” he said, throwing her the keys before walking inside.
She did not move, just stood there, shocked. She pulled
on the door a few times; it seemed the rust on its outer edges had cemented it
closed. When she took a seat the engine roared to life with great force before
coughing like it realized it was not the grand car it once was in its prime.
The whole car itself shook slightly as if it were a tractor-trailer.
“Hello?” she answered her old cell phone with the half
broken flip screen.
“Glove compartment. Now go or I will be forced to drive
you myself,” Her grandfather said before hanging up.
Opening the compartment it revealed not only her bus
pass, next to her wallet, but it also let out a foul odor. One of which Adela
did not even want to know the sources of. She pulled out her license with a
frown. It was hopefully the last time that thing ever saw the light of day.
With all the technology in the world you would think they
would be able to make the pictures flattering, she thought.
Shaking her head at the run down house in front of her,
Adela backed out of the driveway. It may have been the first day of fall but it
did not seem that way. She had only made it a few blocks from her home when the
skies opened; a full on downpour ensuing as a result. But that was Oregon.
One-minute perfectly sunny day and the next you’re under a cold waterfall. This
was just one of the ways that today was going to suck. She could feel it; she
didn’t know why but she had this odd feeling, like something bad was going to
happen.
She parked in the student parking lot and watched as the
students of Ashland High ran under their jackets and books to avoid the rain
like animals clearing a watering hole. High school was a jungle and something
bad always happened in the jungle. She double-checked her zipper on her
backpack before putting it over her shoulder. As she zipped up her old tattered
jacket, she took a deep breath and prepared herself for the mad dash she was
about to take. The minute the door was open she felt the cold water soak her
jeans. Closing the door quickly, she ran as fast as she could into the brick
building.
It was only when she reach the safety of the school
building did she slow. The halls were just as crowded as always; people tended
to linger for some odd reason, forcing her to fight her way over to her locker
where she prayed it would open. It always seemed to have a mind of its own.
“Ahh!” she groaned banging her hand against the red
locker when it didn’t open, but that did nothing, as usual.
This locker always brought out the worst in her. All she
wanted was her physics book. That was it. Today, the one-day in history Mr.
Watkins was giving an open book test, and she couldn’t get hers.
“You can use mine.” Adela turned to face the owner of the
meek voice.
There, standing beside her opening his locker with great
ease, was Hector. She had known Hector for years. He lived on the other side of
Ashland, the one with the nice homes where the porches didn’t break, and you
didn’t have to share your bathroom with the friendly neighborhood daddy
long-leg. If it were not for the fact that his mother and her grandfather were
friends, then they never would have been. He was a short guy in comparison to
the other guys his age. It did not help that he lacked muscle tone either. He
was thin and wore clothes that only highlighted that fact. All of this, plus
the ridiculous ties he wore around his neck all the time, his untamed sandy
brown hair and glasses, made him the very definition of a nerd.
“Are you sure?” she asked him as he handed her the large
textbook.
“Photographic memory, remember.” He laughed at her.
“Cheater.” Adela frowned at him as they walked to class.
“Jealous,” he responded.
She frowned even more because he was right. Taking her
seat by the window, she noticed that there was no end in sight to the rain. Mr.
Watkins strode in, business-like as usual. He was one of those teachers that
didn’t have fun or a life outside of this school. Pushing his glasses farther
up his hooked nose, he held in his hands a stack of crisp white sheets of
paper.
I wonder how many trees had to die for this one test, she
thought as she flipped through the hieroglyphic covered pages.
Even with the book at her side it would not have given
her enough time to decode any of the symbols in front of her.
“If a cannonball has a mass of 150g and is shot from a
muzzled cannon toward you with a velocity of 960m/s, what is its kinetic
energy?” What did it matter if she were dead? Who in their right mind would
stand there wanting to know how much kinetic energy was behind a cannon ball?
Move. Problem solved; you’re alive and it did not matter what the kinetic
energy was.
When the bell rang she sighed in both frustration and
defeat. This was the bad feeling she had: failure. There was no way she was
passing physics this year.
“That bad?” Hector asked. She just nodded, walking into
the girl’s bathroom.
She hated to fail at anything. She hated letting people
down, she hated letting herself down. She tried her best in everything but for
some reason she did not understand physics at all. Washing her face, she hoped
the water would calm her down. As she dried her face she stared into her
reflection. There was a small crack in the glass.
All of a sudden, she no longer saw her own reflection. In
her place she saw a woman with long, snow-white hair and black eyes. There was
nothing else, just pure darkness. The paleness of her skin showed even more so
with the green dress she wore. Adela moved and the woman followed. Suddenly, a
wicked smile crossed her pale lips. Her hand reached out toward her, coming
through the mirror. Adela backed away until she was up against the red stall
doors. Pushing, she moved farther back, falling upon the bathroom seat. She
could not tear her eyes away as the hand reached forward.
It seemed like the woman’s whole body was coming through
the mirror. A deafening scream broke from her lips, as she slammed the bathroom
door closed. With all her might, Adela tried to hold the door closed. Her heart
pounded so vigorously that she could feel the ringing in her ears. Her arms
grew weak and the stall flew open. The woman was gone and in her place stood
Principal Pelleas, Hector, Wilhelmina and her followers.
“Ms. Arthur are you all right?” the red head she
recognized to be Principal Pelleas questioned as she reached out for her. Adela
was frozen, not just from her residual fear but also from confusion.
“No one is going to hurt you,” the principal told her
softly as if she was a child. She squatted before Adela waiting for her to take
her hand.
Adela blinked for a moment, trying to gather herself.
Nodding, she took Principal Pelleas’s hand. Rising, she gazed into the mirror,
until she couldn’t any longer. Nothing was amiss, however she knew what she
saw—or had she just imagined it. Principal Pelleas looked between the mirror
and Adela, her red hair swaying softly.
“Let’s go to my office, okay,” she told her, a hand on
Adela’s back. “The rest of you head back to class,” she ordered.
Wilhelmina and her girls just stared at Adela with smirks
on their faces, before leaving. Hector followed, but not before looking back
one last time. Adela knew without a doubt, as she stepped into the crowded
hallway, that the whole school would hear about her episode in a matter of
seconds. What was worse was that she could not stop it. The only way to kill a
rumor before it became a monster was to shoot it down early in the game.
Taking a seat in the leather chair in front of Principal
Pelleas’s desk, she tried to avoid her green eyes. Principal Ellen Pelleas, the
plate on her desk read. She was Hector’s mom, and basically her surrogate
mother. Getting in trouble with her always followed them home. She knew her
grandfather would most likely be talking to her sometime today or the next.
Adela was not really okay with him knowing of her episode.
You would think she would have her accomplishments
plastered all over the walls. Instead, she had pictures and small trophies of
students around the school. There was even a picture of her on desk of the
Grande Ronde River with a younger looking Hector; the only proof that that boy
did more than read. There were quite a few plants in the room and everything
seemed to be made of wood. It was very Zen and earthy. The antique looking
mirror on the wall threw her off.
“Adela?” Adela turned to the older woman in the large
chair in front of her.
“I am fine Principal Pelleas,” she told her. The longer
she stayed in this office the worse the rest of the day was bound to become.
“Would you like to go home? I could call your
grandfather,” Principal Pelleas asked her as she picked up the phone, preparing
to dial.
“I’m fine. Besides, it would make it harder to pull off
that surprise party I know you both are planning.” Adela couldn’t help the
small smirk that played on her lips. The look on Principal Pelleas’s face said
it all. She knew her grandfather was planning something; the car was just to throw
her off.
“Fine you may go,” Principal Pelleas said, placing the
phone back down. She and her grandfather had known each other for years. How,
Adela was not sure. He had said something about a pottery class they had taken.
“And Adela,” she called, causing Adela to stop near the
door. “Try to look somewhat surprised when you get home.”
Adela sighed before nodding and closing the door as she
walked out.
All day people stared. They whispered behind her,
teachers shot her worried glances. You would think it was the first time a high
school girl ever cried in the girl’s bathroom. She wasn’t popular by any means
so she did not understand why people even cared to begin with. People stared at
her as if she had two heads. This was not the type of attention a girl wanted
on her birthday. Sighing, she put her head on the lunchroom table.
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad?” she grunted up at
Hector.
His sandy head rose from its place within the large
textbook. He tilted his head to the side before glancing around the poster
covered, over crowded cafeteria.
He pushed his glasses back up his crooked nose while he
thought for a moment. “Eight and a half.”
“Urg, I hate high school,” Adela said, putting her head
down on the table.
“Some good has come out of it, though.” He looked back
down at her. She raised her head up, staring at him oddly.
“Mr. Watkins is reviewing his test on account of the
rumor.”
“What rumor?”
“That the physics test was so difficult it caused you to
have a panic attack in the bathroom.”
Great, she thought. That was probably one of the nicer
things being said.
She just bit into her apple, trying to ignore everything
around her. She just had to make it one more day. It was Thursday, someone was
bound to do something stupid over the weekend and by Monday no one would care
about her anymore.
“Hey, loser!” someone called. It made her mad that
Hector’s head lifted back up as if his name had been called. She knew who it
was, which was why she wasn’t going to turn around.
“I was talking to you,” the voice said. Sighing, Adela
turned around and came face to face with Wilhelmina White.
She was that girl in high school. You know the one who
seemed to be just too pretty be real; the one who would wear something
ridiculous and the next day every single person had it on. Her flawless
chocolate skin, brown eyes, and gorgeous soft dark hair made her the queen of
Ashland. She had even done some modeling. People like her were the reason girls
like Adela hated school.
“What do you want?” Adela snapped, rising up to be on
equal footing with her.
“Cool down tiger. I just wanted to say thank you.” She
smiled raising her hands up in defense, the girl behind her smiling, too.
Adela didn’t trust any of them, Wilhelmina did not say
thank you, and she didn’t even believe she had heard the words before.
“I’m serious. If you weren’t such a freak I would be
making up Mr. Watkins test right now.” She and her hyenas laughed before walking
off to hunt for their next victim.
“I hate her,” she told Hector but he wasn’t paying
attention. Instead, he just packed up his stuff, before walking away.
She stared at him oddly as he retreated. She would have
stayed where she was sitting had it not been for the laughter she heard.
Whether it was for her or not, she wasn’t staying. Walking over to her locker
she found Hector standing there beside it, staring into his as if he was
searching for something.
“What’s up with you?” she asked him, her arms folding
across her chest as she leaned against her locker. She wasn’t even going to try
to open that thing again. It was a bad omen.
He said nothing to her before sighing. Reaching into his
locker he pulled out a small white box with a perfect blue bow on it.
“I, uh, wanted to give it to you before but you were
freaking out about the test. Then the whole thing in the bathroom happened, and
I knew you would hate your surprise party. So I figured this would be the
safest time,” he rambled before handing it to her.
She just stared at it as if it was a foreign life form.
She wasn’t sure what to say or do. She just wanted this day to end, no more
gifts, no more surprises. He silently waited for her to unwrap it. Adela stared
between him and the box. Figuring it would be better not to hurt his feelings,
she pulled on the loose string. She did not know why it took her so long to
open it, but when she did, she could not help the audible gasp that came from
her lips. It was a simple heart within a small cage, but it was beautiful. She
lifted it out from its place within the box, staring at it.
“I really had no clue what I was doing and my mom kind of
helped me, I mean she knew what you would like and all,” he rambled again.
She didn’t know what taking the necklace would mean. Then
again she didn’t know what not taking his necklace would mean either. She cared
about Hector but not the way he wanted her to.
“It’s just a necklace, Adela. It won’t kill you,” he
muttered awkwardly.
“Thank you, Hector,” she told him, surprising him with a
hug before backing up and placing the necklace around her neck.
He
had just brightened her day without even realizing it. It was like the necklace
had brought her good luck. No one or thing bothered her after that. The rest of
the day was pretty relaxed. She walked into her other classes, laughed, and
smiled with her classmates. She even made Mr. Rheam, her calculus teacher
laugh, and that man never laughed.
As she left school she felt confident; that was something
new, but she didn’t fight it. The sun was out and life was good for the rest of
the day. To top it off, she planned on eating cereal with chocolate for dinner
as she watched television on her bed. Life was looking good.
“Surprise!” She stared at her living room full of people
she did not know when she opened the door to her house. In her own glee, she
had forgotten about the party like an idiot.
At least I really did looked surprised, she thought as
she walked in, preparing her face for the long night of smiles ahead. She would
have a good time, she would smile, and she would laugh because she loved her
grandfather enough. She would pretend that life was everything that it needed
to be.
