Chapter One

Chapter One

A Chapter by Jess: ~The Sidekick~

 

As she lay on her soft, crush velvet comforter, Sara Kinnison took in one of the sensations she loved most.  A smooth stream of blood filling an open laceration, beading at the edges, and smoothly trailing over. 

            It was around midnight she guessed, wearily looking through the open drapes into the radiant twilight.  “Beautiful,” she whispered to no one.  She had noted the tiny droplets of rain on the windowpane, glittering in the moonlight like diamonds.  No matter what anyone else said, to Sara this was a perfect moment.  Although it had just rained, there were no clouds to obscure the view of a star-filled sky, nor the gorgeous full moon.  Perfect.  How anyone saw the full moon as some sort of misfortune, she had no idea.  Sara had always seen it as a thing of beauty, especially on nights like this.

            Averting her attention to the ceiling, she focused on the single piece of “artwork” she owned.  Glinting in the soft moonlight was a broken mirror affixed to a piece of lauan that had been painted black.  Looking at her obstructed reflection, Sara’s satisfaction faded into a pang of loneliness.  She sighed and rolled out of bed.

            Sara was only 17, but she was very independent and quite well off.  She took on a part-time job at a nearby underage club, which she happened to be proud owner of, went to college on a scholarship and part-time waiver from high school, she was on her own.  How she manages to balance all of it, no one’s quite sure, but the bills get paid and Sara doesn’t cause trouble, so people don’t ask, and she doesn’t tell.  They just say “amazing way to live for a 17 year old” and leave it at that.  She’s quite the mystery, really.  A semi-popular cross between gothic and punk cliques, but is all her own class, who’s friendly and cheerful.  Most would think it an odd combination, but this is not what she’s known for:  people know her for her trustworthiness.  They know that if they tell Sara something they don’t want repeated, it never will be.  Then there’s the part where she never confides in anyone.  At least that they know of.

            She slides herself off the edge of the waterbed, and goes down the three shallow steps that lead to her raised heaven.  Making her way over to the vanity, she flicks on her black light, only to see that it’s actually 2:15 am.  “S**t!” she exclaims aloud.  Even though it’s a Saturday night, she has to be awake, bright and early, for work.  Doing what she’d set out to do, Sara sat at her vanity and started to clean her arm up.  Pausing, she examined her left forearm.  There were about twenty marks across it, the first was a scar, and the last was a bloody blur.  Some were scarred, others scabbed, and some speckled with blood.  She had a bad habit of picking at scabs.

Sara had a problem and she knew it, but to her it was under control, she was careful.  Wiping the blood off with a damp cloth, she opened an alcohol swab and cleaned her wound, then covered it with a pad, wrapped it with gauze, and secured it with medical tape.  Grabbing the cloth again she wiped her razor off.  There was no mess to be worried about anywhere.  Replacing the razor to its place she pushed away from the surface and strode to the stereo.

Music was her life.  In all reality, it had kept her alive, and still did.  Turning on the stereo and putting it to one of her favorite songs, Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson, she went back to bed.  Thinking back, music was all Sara had, at least since she was 13, when her mother died.  After that, all her father did was work, well until she was 15 and a half, then he simply left and never came back.  A few days later, his car was found down Moontownship River.  He, apparently, had a nervous breakdown, got drunk, and went for a fatal drive.  After that, Sara lived at her best friend Melanie’s house and promptly locked herself away in her music.  She stayed there until she inherited the house, her dad’s company, and everything else he had.  Shortly after leaving, Sara hit a wall, and she hit it hard.  As bright as she was, she just couldn’t get past it.

Silently slipping out of the black spider web top and black zipper Capri’s as she walked she stopped in front of her mirror.  Despite the room merely being lit with moonlight, she could see her reflection clearly.  There in front of her was a girl of 17 whom Sara knew, but was also a stranger to.  She was roughly five foot three, average body type, black hair with purple highlights, and radiant green eyes, for now at least.  Her eyes changed through a spectrum of blues, greens, and hazels, though sometimes they appeared black, she loves it.  Standing there in the reflection she can see the lip ring off to the right, nose stud in her left nostril, several earrings, black eyeliner and grayish eye shimmer, mascara, and black fingernail polish.  Sara’s eyes caught the scars across her subtle abdomen.  She subconsciously brought up a hand and traced each line:

 

LOVE IS HATE

She’d done this when she was 15; it was to stay there until she died.

It was midnight on her first night back in her old house, Sara remembered.  She had awoken from a nightmare about her father’s death.  She had dreamed this regularly, since she had started to move the house around.  She was in the backseat of her father’s silver SUV.  He had been at the local bar and was pretty blitzed.  Nevertheless, there was a fifth of Jack Daniels on the passenger seat, from which her dad was drinking.  Each time he went to take a swig she’d scream at him to stop and each time she failed.  He couldn’t hear her or feel her grasp.  Several minutes of this passed and Sara was reduced to tears.  Next was the worst part, she was huddled in the backseat and her dad was passing out behind the wheel.  They were on the old, wooden, covered bridge.  The car jerked to the left and went through the wall and was airborne.  It was then Sara woke up.

Jumping out of bed, panicked, she ran down the hall to her father’s room, begging for him to be there.  Bursting through the door, she found the room empty.  Sara was bawling when she saw herself in the mirror, enraged, she grabbed the closest thing and threw it as hard as she could.  It shattered instantly, and Sara collapsed to the floor.  She was alone and she’d lost everything.  She wanted to die.  Sara then grabbed a shard of broken mirror, carved three words in her stomach, and slit her wrists.  All went black.



© 2008 Jess: ~The Sidekick~


My Review

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Featured Review

I agree with the reviewer below: there are quite a few flips between past and present tense, which don't involve flashbacks or similar - I suggest you decide the one you want to use predominantly and then go through and edit.
I also agree that this draws the reader into the scene.
It's better than I expected it to be; the title 'teen angst' could have be mocking, so i checked it out and there was an incident of self-harm in the first passage, so I figured it wasn't...but stuck with the story and was pleasantly surprised becaue you've done a decent job here.

Thanks for posting it.

Posted 16 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.




Reviews

I agree with the reviewer below: there are quite a few flips between past and present tense, which don't involve flashbacks or similar - I suggest you decide the one you want to use predominantly and then go through and edit.
I also agree that this draws the reader into the scene.
It's better than I expected it to be; the title 'teen angst' could have be mocking, so i checked it out and there was an incident of self-harm in the first passage, so I figured it wasn't...but stuck with the story and was pleasantly surprised becaue you've done a decent job here.

Thanks for posting it.

Posted 16 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

See, I love the way you write. You have this ability to draw people into the scene and make them see it. You have some SMALL issues with tense but other then that your spelling and grammar are great. You created the perfect dramatization for teen angst.

Posted 16 Years Ago


2 of 2 people found this review constructive.


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Added on April 1, 2008


Author

Jess: ~The Sidekick~
Jess: ~The Sidekick~

Jarrettsville, MD



About
DISCLAIMER: Most of, if not all of, my writing was done between my sixth and twelfth grade years. I am no longer as depressed, nor am I suicidal at this point in time. Just to clarify before you decid.. more..

Writing