Chapter Text
I hate to start this with me waking up in the morning, but to get the full background of my current situation, I need to start at the beginning.
I’m startled awake by the shrill sound of my alarm and quickly I try to silence it. I pat around my head for a second before finding my phone and turning it off. My head dropped back onto the pillow as I let out a heavy sigh. Most mornings start off the same, wake up early, get dressed, and leave before my parents awaken. I love my family, I do, but recently my mom has been bombarding me with college pamphlets. My dad has done nothing to stop it, if anything, he is encouraging it. They want to make it a point to have both their children go to college, I personally never understood why it was such a big deal. Nowadays especially, you don’t need a college diploma to get a well-paying job.
My parents both want to have a perfect family, not only for themselves but to show off to the neighborhood. They lucked out with my sister, perfect in every way possible; she has always excelled in school, made it a point to one up me. Her and I don’t get along in the slightest. She currently resides at some big fancy shmancy college abroad. It's been over two years since I've even talked to her, we have never been close.
She's exactly what my mom wanted, I on the other hand, have not lived up to her expectations. Her last final ditch effort is to send me away to college in hopes to straighten me out. Jokes on her, that isn't in my game plan.
I pull myself out of bed and quickly throw on some clothes. I like to keep my wardrobe simple: Jeans, t-shirt or tank top, and a jacket of some kind. The area that I live in stays cold most of the time but since it is nearing the end of spring, it's been warming up in the afternoon. This combination of clothes allows me to shed a layer if I get too hot and bundle up in the jacket if I’m cold.
I make sure I have my phone and make my way out of my bedroom. I close the door behind me before quietly descending the stairs. I creep across the house and I’m passing by the kitchen doorway when I hear my mom call for me.
“(Y/n), don’t think you can sneak away this time, come here.” She’s standing at the counter making a mug of coffee.
I silently curse under my breath and step inside the kitchen.
“I’m not sneaking off; I have school in an hour.” I respond in a tone laced with attitude. She of course chooses to ignore me and makes her way over to the table to sit down.
“An hour? Isn’t it a bit early to be heading off?” She questions suspiciously, an obvious attempt to stretch out the conversation.
“Mom, what is it? I really should be leaving-” She cuts me off when she suddenly pulls out an already ripped opened envelope. From where, I have no idea, but she sets it down on the table near where I was standing.
I eye it with suspicion and spot the name of the college my sister attends stamped onto the front of it.
“What is this?” I pick it up and start to pull out the papers that were inside. She doesn’t respond, just takes a big gulp of her coffee. I unfold the paper and in big lettering on the top it reads: Congratulations!!
“I just thought, with graduation coming up, and you still haven't applied to any, that I'd go ahead and do it for you! Look at the other papers! They were very impressed with your GPA and extracurricular activities that you have done over the years-”
She goes on and on, but I didn’t listen, I was mad. Shoving pamphlets at me is one thing, but going behind my back and applying for me, is going too far.
“I already told you,” I take a deep breath in to try and calm myself down, getting angry will only result in a fight, “I don’t want to go to college yet.” I lied; I don’t want to go at all.
“Yes, I know, but this is such a great opportunity!! Plus you've already been accepted!” She beams, like usual, completely ignoring how I feel about the situation. This has been an ongoing thing for most of my school career.
Before I could stop myself, the papers crumpled in my hands. She looks at me with a shocked expression, but I was out of there before she could even say anything. I slam the front door behind me and take off in a jog. I’m about halfway down the street before I realize I left my backpack, but you couldn’t pay me to go back to the house right now. I'm not sure if it will end in a screaming match that wakes up the whole block, or if it will result in me being kicked out. Definitely one of the two.
I shove my hands in my pockets and veer off the pavement into the trees. The area I lived in was nearly surrounded by trees. The whole town was built up in the middle of a national forest well before it was officially a national forest. I have spent my entire life here; I know how to get everywhere by going through the woods.
I start off in the direction of the high school. There is a dirt trail that leads right up to the football field. Thanks to this trail, my walk time is cut in half. After years of walking through, I know it this portion of the forest very well. Many of my childhood years were spent exploring this vast jungle and the twists and turns of the paths.
I was always warned not to go very far, especially in the past few years. People, teenagers mainly, have gone missing. It's not like mass amounts of people, but it's enough to raise concerns. What I've noticed though is that most of the time, people vanish after going off the trails. I have made it a point to stick to at least some sort of a path because even I’m not that stupid.
As I walk, my eye catches something. There are a few trails that lead out from this main one. Most of the people who use this path use it mainly to get to the high school. This in turn leads most of the entrances to these paths to become overgrown from no use. From what I can see, the greenery has been clearly cut away from this entrance. It has been sliced cleanly, big enough for someone to fit through.
I stop in front of it and look on ahead. This one didn't have a very distinguished dirt path like the main one so I couldn’t see if it led to anything. I take a mental note to explore it on my way home later and continue to trudge my way towards the school.
Nothing else happened on my way there, literally. The only thing I could hear was the trees being rustled by the wind and my boots scuffing across the dirt. No birds, no squirrels, nothing. This struck me as odd, we were technically still in spring, which means all the birds should be out singing already.
As I near the end of the trail, I can hear the chatter of fellow students. I finally dip out of the tree line, and I can see most of the early risers populating the field and the stands. A couple of people look at me, but most don’t pay me any mind as I pass.
Instead of droning on about how my classes went, I’ll skip to the end of 6th period. Being at the at the end of my senior year, I leave early. The way I set up my schedule, it allows me to have two free periods at the end of the day three days a week. I was gathering up my papers that I accumulated during the day. Since I forgot my backpack, I had to ask people if I could borrow a pencil or a scrap piece of notebook paper.
The classroom clears out, including the teacher, and I am about to leave but someone steps in front of me.
“Where are you going, freak?” An uptight and annoyingly Caucasian voice sounded, I feel an instant migraine coming on. I let out an irritated sigh.
“Leave me alone.” I mutter out and push past her.
If I’m being honest, I don’t even remember this chicks name. Was it Caitlyn? Kathrine? I don’t know. I couldn’t care enough to figure it out. She’s an incredibly average blonde-haired blue-eyed pick me girl. Has been since I met her in elementary school. Most people tend to leave me alone. I don’t exactly scream reject; I just like to keep to myself. It has worked out well for me so far, no one really messes with me. Well, except for this girl here who has been insistently pestering me from day one.
She scoffed at me and took a big step backwards then blocked my way once again.
“A little birdy told me you’ve been around town with my boyfriend.” She hissed with all the venom she could produce. I stare blankly at her. She knows who she's talking to right?
“Sounds to me like someone lied,” Genius, “I’d confront your boy toy about who else with (h/c) he’s been out with because I don’t go “around town”.” I did air quotations with my hands; I could barely stop myself from rolling my eyes.
I again push past her; she snatches a hold of my left forearm. I grit my teeth, my patience being tested, “Let go of me before you get decked in the face.” I seethe. If today was the day I can finally warrant knocking this chick on her ass, then I am ready for it.
“No!” She exclaims and her grip tightens, “I wasn’t lied to, I know you’ve been sleeping with him! Just admit it-” I didn’t give her a chance to finish before my right fist swings and connects to her nose. I can admit, I probably didn’t need to hit her that hard, but years of hate towards this girl has pestered me, and after the morning I had, I was not about to sit here and take this from her.
She lets go and both of her hands fly up to her nose that was now gushing blood. Her eyes brim with tears. I can't help myself, my face breaks into a triumphant smile and I spin on my heels towards the door. I can hear her start to cry.
“You’re going to regret that!!” She yells at me; I slam the door in response. I hear a faint “Watch your back!!” If I'm being honest, her pathetic attempts at threats made me happy, but at the same time made me even more irritated.
“Whatever!” I yell back through the door. There were still quite a few students and faculty in the hallway, most all of them going silent and turning to look at me. The hallway was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
I rolled my eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time today and bit out a “Mind your business.” then proceeded to nope the hell out of there. No one made a move to stop me.
I realize as I push the doors open that she is 100% going to go to the principal about this. I let out a quiet string of curses. After what happened with mom this morning, she isn’t going to happy when she gets a call about my suspension. How do I know it’ll be a suspension? Because they have a “No Bullying” policy as well as a “No Tolerance” policy for fighting. I’ve seen a kid get suspended for a week for accidentally smacking someone in the face. Accidently. Both students told the teachers it was an accident, none of it was on purpose, but they didn't listen and stuck to their policies.
There is no doubt in my mind that she’s going to flip the blame over to me. This kind of stuff used to happen all the time in middle school. She'd push me, I'd trip her. She'd insult me, I'd yell back louder. I never instigated these interactions, it's always her trying to pick a fight. Throughout elementary school we both would be punished equally, but as we went to middle school, she learned how to direct the blame to me. Not one teacher listened to me. After we started high school, I stopped retaliating.
Up until today, at least.