Part One…

Chapter I

I tug a strand of my pale blonde hair and carefully twine it around the hot curler in my hand, glancing at a previous burn mark that is just silver now against the pale skin just above my wrist. I count to ten under my breath, even though my eye remains on the second’s hand of the ten-year-old Little Mermaid clock, which I can see through the mirror, sitting on my bedside table. I reach over to pull the plug of my curler out of the socket, and then immediately press the switch on the socket to off, as usual, forgetting to do so before. I toss the curler to the side and examine myself in the mirror. I’m wearing a dark purple dress which seems to catch the light and reflect it when I move, I think about who else will notice this, and my mouth twitches. I let out a sigh, uncrossing my legs to pick myself up from the hot pink carpet that spreads across my room to go to my dressing table. Here, I pull out violet eyeliner and lean over towards the mirror and being drawing around my eye, wondering at the same time, why I am doing this so intricately. I blink and watch as the silver in the purple eyeliner shimmers.

It is exactly when I have made my finishing touches and have pulled on the silver heels I’d bought especially for this day that the doorbell rings and I know it’s for me. I hear my father stir in the next room, and, snatching up my matching purse, I bound across the landing, peeking momentarily into his room.

“I’m going out Daddy,” I call to him softly, even though I know he doesn’t hear my words, just my voice.

He turns to smile at me, my lips tremble slightly as I return the gesture. Even as I hear the second impatient ring on the door, I can’t help but fall into his arms, and hug him tight, letting him clumsily kiss my hair, even when I have spent hours doing it.

“Love you baby,” he slurs.

I look into his eyes and know he does. I kiss his forehead.

“Take care,” I tell him, even though he never does; I can see the telltale bottle lying beside his chair, just in his reach.

I do not remove it.

I walk carefully down the stairs and smooth my dress down before I place my hand on the door handle. I turn the key in the lock and pull the door open, a controlled smile playing on my features. I do not realise that I am holding my breath until I release it to talk to him.

“Daniel,” I say breathlessly.

He raises an eyebrow before leaning in to kiss me, and I feel it play the same magic upon me as it always does; my heart stops for more than a millisecond and I am transported to a place where it is only me and him. I know he doesn’t feel the same thing though, because he lets go, his face is as calm as it had been before, although his face is still incredibly close, so I can see exactly that his deep blue eyes do have tiny stars in them like a clear night sky, and that his breath smells of cigarettes and mint, and that his smile only curls up slightly so u can just about see it this close.

He straightens up, and places a hand on my cheek.

“You look gorgeous,” he murmurs.

I blush, even though I know I am meant to have something witty to say back, as if I am complimented like this all the time.

“So do you,” I answer.

Even now I am standing out on the veranda, so he cannot step inside the house. I close the door behind myself, and let him take my arm. I glance over at the car that stands outside my drive. It is a Porsche. Sleek and black; to me it seems like the car has been designed just for Daniel.

I climb into the seat beside him, and I watch as he sticks his car into gear. I notice that- as usual- he doesn’t put his seat belt on. I plug mine in, and feel him glance over at me, but he doesn’t comment. The sooner he accelerates; I feel my heart jump into my throat, and my hands clutch onto the purse in my hand. Of course I don’t show him this, instead I begin to speak to him, about how amazing he was in football, about how I’m so excited about the formal, and whether we’ll be the selected King and Queen for Homecoming. And he answers me by telling me that I’m amazing, and that he has to be the luckiest guy in the school and, yeah, he was pretty good in football, and, that he’s certain that we’ll win. He takes my hand at that and inside I wonder how drunk he will be at the end of all this. I wonder how early I will leave the dance with worry about my dad. Outside, all I do is smile.

We arrive at school just too soon; it is the moment that I have finally relaxed my grip on my purse. He holds my hand as we walk away from the car, I watch as he glances back at the car one last time, and then he looks at me. I curl my mouth upwards and he leans in to a kiss.

“Hey Paige, hey Danny!” I hear a high voice interrupt us.

I restrain from rolling my eyes at Daniel, and glance over at the girl standing opposite us. There are only a few girls that call Daniel ‘Danny’, and every single one of them is plastic. The girl I am looking at wears a short, blood red dress, that can stand out to impress in any crowd, and her face is plastered with more makeup than I’ve used in the past six months. Her blonde hair has been neatly straightened to an unmatched perfection. Her smile is wide, and her eyes sparkling, but I know what is beneath all façade. I step away from Daniel, at the sound of her voice, and take my hand away from his.

He whispers into my ear, and although I do not hear what he says, I feel his dark hair tickle against my neck and hear the sound of his voice, which sends shivers down my spine.

I watch as he turns away, towards the group of guys that make up our high school’s varsity jocks. I watch as his demeanour seems to change- to turn almost macho, and then turn away to face the posse of beautiful girls, that almost seem scary, they are that intimidating, even at this distance, like Goddesses spreading their control over a world made of this school’s student body.

It almost comes as a shock to me, as I reply ‘Hey Monica’ that I am just like them.

We are all meant to be ‘tight-knit’, but none of use catches the other in a tight embrace and says that she misses the other, but we just slip into a flawless, yet robotic routine and walk over to the guys. Slipping masks over each of our faces.

I am standing beside Monica and I can feel the silky skin on her arm. I hear her laugh, but instead find myself thinking of a scared, shaking Monica, lying on the floor of her basement, a needle on the floor just beside her dead boyfriend’s body. I can remember the way her hair was not a shining curtain, but limp, and bedraggled. How she clung on to me like an animal, and accidentally called me ‘Mommy’. I think, and know that even though she is the shining star of the evening, that she is thought of as the biggest bitch on earth, Monica has every emotion that a human being can have. I know this because ever since I helped her that day, she hasn’t spread a single word of slander against me, and that when she said thank you, it had been the first time she had said it, and that it had been sincere.

I find myself falling back into Daniels arms; I feel them snake around my waist and onto my stomach. I try not to flinch or hold my breath in when he does that. Instead I close my eyes and feel his words sigh over my skin, like poetry.

“I love you,” I whisper.

I say it so easily, because it is one of the things- despite everything- which I believe in with conviction.

“I love you more,” he replies.

I feel tears pricking my eyes, because I can suddenly remember the first time I told him. He’d told me to shut up, and had kissed me before I could have reacted. I’d pretended it hadn’t ever happened.

Of course I don’t cry, I forget about it in the next instance, because he somehow takes me away, and I don’t mean physically, but mentally, and I feel my senses numbing to everything but him, until we are the only ones. Again. I feel like I can say anything because nobody else is there, but I don’t know what to say when I open my mouth, instead I settle for his name. He kisses me.

“Don’t talk,” he whispers; commanding me.

I don’t, and in the far recesses of my mind, I suddenly feel the intruding gaze as someone rips a hole into the wall that blankets our world. I look over Daniel’s shoulder and feel a stab of pain at a pair of deep green eyes that stare into mine like an accusation. Eyes that are as green as the envy the girl they belong to feels. I take in her entire face, even though I don’t have to, because I see it every day at lunch and when we hang out, where I sit next to Daniel- the place she thinks she rightfully owns. Her face is elfin and fine-boned, and every feature etched onto it is designed in a way that can purposely seduce every living man that has the misfortune to cross her. It is no wonder that she hates me; even I sometimes wonder. Why did Daniel dump her over me? I don’t know why, but I am so glad, even though I had been scared back then. Scared of rumours that would flood after me, scared that Daniel would realise his mistake somehow, but somehow it didn’t work out like that.

Daniel seems to read my mind without looking at me.

“It’s Jessica isn’t it?”

I stop and look at him, and then I nod. I know what love feels like now; to be understood so easily by this one person, and it is then that I look away from Jessica’s gaze and stop feeling sympathy and guilt. I have done nothing wrong.

“Forget that bitch, you’ve done nothing wrong,” he mutters against my neck, as if it is that easy.

It startles me, as though he has extracted the words straight from my mind, which he probably has, and I find myself relaxing against him, and letting a smile creep its way onto my face. I realise, when he says it- it is that easy.

Daniel doesn’t like dancing with me, even though I’ve seen him do it other times and he’s good. Instead, he likes to hold me and hear my breath against his and my chest rising and falling against him, and our lips connecting in a moment of passion. And to hear my voice right beside him, and the shivers that run down my spine at his every touch.

I know that when Daniel starts to get fidgety, that he wants to pull me outside and away from the rest of the world. Sometimes that’s how he treats it. Like there are us being me and him, and them being everyone else. He says he will wait for the announcement of Homecoming King and Queen, but then he grabs my wrist and mutters “Fuck it”. I just follow him out of the door.

He is wearing a black tuxedo that makes him look every bit as handsome as he is, and warmer than me, because as soon as I step outside, I freeze because it is so cold that my breath comes out like wisps of cloud in front of me. Daniel looks back at me.

“You don’t want to go back there do you?” he asks, his head cocked one side.

“No, b-” I forget what I am going to say next because he holds me close to him and I feel lost again.

I never want to be found again.

“It’s cold,” I suddenly shiver.

He takes his jacket off without a word and drapes it over my shoulders. I smile at him faintly. We touch our foreheads together, and I wrap my arms around him, feeling the heat of his body against mine. I am looking straight into his eyes, the eyes of the first boy that has managed to make me melt inside whenever I look at him.

He angles my face and his own to kiss me. I suddenly hear feet against gravel, which stop right next to me and Daniel. I can hear the angry sigh that escapes his lips as he lets go of me. I turn to face the intruder and feel my heart unintentionally freeze.

I barely hear Daniel snap “What?”, because I am suddenly captured by the eyes of the boy standing beside us. They are cerulean with a hint of emerald green. He remains unabashed, and his expression can even be called austere as he glances between Daniel and me.

“You now Monica Steadman?” his voice is a lazy drawl; he seems almost amused at Daniel’s apparent indignity.

I stop. I only know one Monica Steadman, and I don’t think she is one that would have anything to do with someone like him. I realise that Daniel hasn’t answered either, that he is probably thinking the same thing as me. I watch as the boy shrugs and turns away, lighting a cigarette, even though we are on school grounds.

I find myself taking him in properly; the earrings in his right ear, the black hair which is so dark that it could be dyed, but blatantly isn’t, the pale skin that contrasts to starkly against his eyes and hair. The tight black t-shirt and hoodie he is wearing over it that supports a million grey skulls that are in places spattered with blood red, and the jeans that are frayed from the bottom where he drags them against the floor.

“She’s wearing a red dress,” I blurt after him as he walks away, and point towards the hall.

He turns his face towards me as Daniel yanks me away, frowning. The boy’s face is serious, and half hidden in darkness.

“Thanks, babe,” he suddenly winks at me.

I blush a deep scarlet and thank God that it is so dark.

Paige, I mouth at him. He turns away.

I suddenly look at Daniel.

“You’re holding me too tight.”

“Don’t I always do that?” he murmurs, challengingly. “Didn’t you say you never wanted me to let go?”

I don’t understand why he is doing this, but I know I have to set his mood right. Even though I had been thinking about that boy, almost entranced, it wasn’t because I had suddenly fallen head over heels for him. It was because he seemed so unconcerned that he’d been speaking to Daniel Houston like that, and because he had looked entrancing, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to replace Daniel. The other thing that had been nagging me was that he looks so familiar.

I wrap my arms around Daniel.

“Let’s go,” I whisper.

At his smile, I forget about the boy entirely, and let myself be lead away.

We walk to his car, I know this even though my eyes are closed and I am just letting him take me as I rest my head on his shoulder. I feel his hand on my side, like part of a float stopping me from drowning.

“Paige,” he stops next to the passenger door.

“Hmm?” I reply, not wanting to open my eyes.

I suddenly feel something wet and warm in my ear. My eyes snap open and I let out a short scream, before I realise it was Daniel’s tongue. I push him away, when I see him laughing.

“Bastard,” I glare.

“What?” he grabs my arms, and pushes me against the car door, faking menace.

I lean my head back, pretending to faint.

“Oh my God, I think I’m going to die,” I breathe faintly. “So-”

I am cut off abruptly as I suddenly feel him leaning over, holding my face now and kissing me. I reach one of my hands out and twine his hair around my fingers. I keep my eyes open, because then I can see his face up close, and he suddenly opens his own, and looks at me through them; unblinkingly. I turn away, my breath uneven and see the worst person that I can see at a moment like this. Jessica. I straighten up, and realise I’m the only one who seems to notice these things, because Daniel has his lips buried into the hair in front of my neck. She looks at me, a smirk curling her thin lips upward into a leer that would have looked ugly on anyone else, but her. I turn away from her because I see Monica and… the guy with cerulean blue eyes.

“Daniel,”” I nudge him lightly, and straighten up.

He follows my gaze to look in the direction that I am looking in. I can feel his hands absently rubbing my arms. I watch his face, which remains impassive.

Monica is running, and I watch as she reaches her car, which is red and as beautiful as her when it comes to cars. The boy holds her arm, and I watch as she shouts something at him and tries to pull away. They’re arguing now, but Monica is also crying. I find myself taking a step towards them, but someone holds me back.

“We have to-” I start.

“If she wants to have a breakdown, she can have it on her own,” he tells me.

I feel angry at him, and open my mouth. He just looks at me mildly.

“Fine,” he shrugs. “If you want to go and help her, then-”

“No,” I mumble, and I climb into the car, slamming the door.

Daniel climbs into the car and sits next to me, but he doesn’t start the engine. I am looking out of the window, because I feel angry at him. I feel his hand on my shoulder, but shrug him away.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I can’t believe you don’t care!” I accuse.

I turn around to look at him, surprisingly, he doesn’t look as furious as I thought he would be. Instead he leans forward, and holds me, and for a second I let him, even though I know what he is doing.

“Why are you being so overemotional, Paige?” he whispers against me before I try to pull away.

I freeze, and bury my face into him, a voice in my head telling me that I am weak. I know I am! I want to scream, but I can’t be how everyone wants me to be, I can’t be who I want if I want to please the rest of the people. Part of me thinks that I really want to just please Daniel.

I suddenly pull away.

“Can I just go home?”

He doesn’t respond, and I know I have disappointed him. I can feel his temper as he pulls the car into gear. I forget to pull my belt on, and instead, face my back to him, but even when I look in the window I can see his reflection. So instead I close my eyes.

Daniel doesn’t talk to me the entire journey; instead he puts a CD on, playing it as loud as he can. I sit up straight, annoyed at his immature reaction. I reach over and eject the CD.

“What the fuck?” he frowns at me, but looks away as though he doesn’t want to talk to me.

I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him defiantly.

“I’ll tell you why,” my voice is suddenly soft. “We can go to your house instead. Or anywhere else…”

I trail off, because it feels like he isn’t listening, but I see him making a turn that leads away from my house. I lean back. I don’t know whether I can tell him or not. Maybe I can make an excuse up. I suddenly find myself hoping for a phone call from dad, or anything that would take me away from this situation, but of course nothing does, and we are parked in front of his house before I even realise that we were close to it. I don’t get out when he does, because I’m scared to. Then I see him opening the door when he comprehends I won’t come out on my own. He practically lifts me out, and I mumble that I want to go home, but he doesn’t hear me. I feel something wet on my cheeks, and when I taste it as it travels into my mouth, it is tears. He has both his arms around me, and I am soon crying into him.

“Paige,” he coaxes.

He is rubbing my back, which is cold; I don’t really realise he hasn’t even taken me inside. I take a step away, wiping my eyes and feeling pathetic. I know what he will say, because I have run through my prediction so many times. I take a deep breath as though the oxygen will help me to say what I have meant to say for a month, or has it been more?

“Paige?” he rubs my arms, presses his lips onto my forehead.

“I’m…” I stop, because I don’t know how to say it.

“What? Come on Paige, you should know it’s easy to tell me anything.”

Part of me has a comeback for this, but I don’t say it of course, instead I look at my painted nails. I fix my dress. I take a few more deep breaths. Then I take hold of one of his hands; the one on which he wears the ring I gave him. Then, I place it on my stomach and force myself to say the next few words as if -because- they have the weight worth my whole life.

“I’m pregnant,” I look him in the eye. “But not… not with you.”