Chapter 5 - Monster

Isaac didn’t see it coming.  They were having a great time (or at least he thought they were) and she suddenly got up and left without a word.

As he watched her walk away, her hands jammed into the pockets of her baggy pants, he hesitated.  He contemplated chasing after her, but thought better of it. 

Clearly she needed to be left alone right now.  He knew better than to push a woman’s buttons too far.  She was more delicate than she was probably aware of.  He needed her to trust him first before he could make any headway with her.

Watching her disappear into the school, he heaved a sigh and pulled himself up from the sunbaked earth.  The breeze tugged at him slightly, blowing in the direction of the school.  His hair fell in his eyes and he brushed it away.  The thought of a haircut flickered briefly in his mind.

That girl was a mental case.  Maybe he should just leave her alone?  It certainly seemed like that was what she wanted.

But she was so intriguing; he wanted to find out more about her.  She was such a puzzle.  He never knew what to expect from her.  Violence was a means to an end; her behavior was cold and avoidant, yet deeply reflective and even gentle at times.

Maybe the move had been hard on her?  After all, he knew very little about her to begin with, and she seemed deterred to share anything about herself to him.

There had to be something more than that bothering her though.

It seemed too simple.

He headed toward the school, lost in thought.

X

Mikayla had managed to find a quiet corridor in which to spend the last half of her lunch break in before she had to return to her afternoon classes.

She had secretly decided that she liked her art teacher.  So far though, she had liked every one of her art teachers at all the different schools she had gone to.  They were all unique and quirky somehow.  It had to come with the subject.

Ms Gardiner was a petit woman with long flowing hair the color of honey and beady little eyes behind thick spectacles.  Her behavior mirrored that of flower children from the sixties, but she was hardly old enough to have lived during that time period.  Perhaps she was the descendent of hippies, or perhaps the byproduct from looser morals of the time period?

Nevertheless, Ms Gardiner allowed her students to listen to their own music while they worked—something Mikayla took note of yesterday and brought her own mp3 player to class today.

She pulled her music player from her jacket, plugged in some Iron Wench and Metallic tunes and dove into the sketch she had been working on since yesterday.

“That’s really cool,” the kid next to her complimented.

She didn’t hear him.  Her music was blaring into her ears as she worked on the details of her drawing.

“Hey,” he prodded, gently bumping her left elbow with his right.

She jumped.  The sketchbook was quickly thrust under her desk.

Turning her head sharply, she glared at him, but his eyes were already squeezed shut as he laughed.

She lowered the volume of her music instead of taking an earbud out—to do so would indicate that she wanted to converse with him.  And she didn’t want to give him that impression.

“Shy?  Don’t be!” he remarked as he opened his dark brown eyes and looked at her warmly.

She looked away, allowing her hair to cascade around her and conceal her face.

How much had he seen of her sketch?

“You’re new, right?  My name’s Andres Mendez.  Yours is Mikayla, right?”

Ugh, not another one, she thought bitterly.  Was she a magnet for attention or something?  People were supposed to be intimidated by her and avoid her!

When she didn’t respond, he just chuckled lightly.  “Boy, you must be shy!”

“Am not!” she growled, shooting daggers at him from between the strands of her hair.

“Not the talkative type, then?”

She looked away, grumbling incoherently under her breath.

He tilted his head in puzzlement.  His dark brown hair curled in soft wisps on his head and matched the gentleness of his eyes as he smiled at her.

She shot him a quick glare.  “I prefer to work alone, in silence, undisturbed.  Got it?”

He grinned back at her and nodded his head.  “Got it.  If you need anything, just let me know.”

She grunted in reply and pulled her sketchbook back out.  A pair of eyes stared back at her from the page, a mixture of fear and surprise, as if the character she had been drawing was caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

But the nose was all wrong.  The jawline too rigid.  She could draw eyes with unmistakable depth, but the rest was always a constant struggle—perhaps because she tended to avoid looking at people.

But their eyes… She could get lost in them if she wasn’t careful.

She sighed as she flipped to a fresh page and began to quickly draw a rough sketch.  She wanted to intimidate Andres if he glanced at her sketchbook again.  The pencil flew over her page in a crazed flurry of lines.

Something grotesque and horrifying, something that would signify that I’m dark and dangerous and should be avoided, she thought to herself.

A hand formed, reaching out despite being limp and extending from a lifeless body behind with long coils of thick black hair and dark eyes that stared back—wide open.

She gasped in horror at what she had created.

It was then that she realized she had drawn her mother.

X

Her head hurt as a piercing voice raged through her.

“You’re a monster!  You hear me?  A monster!” she shrieked as she pointed an accusing finger at the cringing child.

The cornered little girl wept.  Fear gripped her heart in its tight clutches.  She trembled uncontrollably as the woman kept screaming at her.

“How could you do this to me?  I gave birth to you!  I carried you for 9 months inside of me, and this—this is how you repay me?”

She didn’t understand why mommy was so angry.  She had just been flipping through a picture book she found with mommy wearing a beautiful white dress and smiling so happily next to a dark haired man.  She hadn’t even heard her mother step into the room.  She only felt the slap across her face before she fell back and scrambled into the shadows in the corner, where she tried to hide from the barrage that would follow.

“Don’t come near me!  Am I making myself clear?  I can’t stand the sight of you!”

The child nodded frightfully, covering her head defensively with her arms.

“I’ll never forgive you!”

Mikayla choked back tears as she threw the memory forcefully from her mind.  Her veins pulsated as she reached down and picked up another rock in her hand.

Fuck you mom!

Gritting her teeth, she chucked the rock as far as she could throw into the desert at the edge of town.  A couple of vultures scattered and squawked when the rock landed in their midst.

“Fuck you!  I’ll never forgive you!” she raged into the dusty land of cacti and tumbleweeds.

She had skipped the remainder of her afternoon classes immediately once she was released from art.  The moment she realized that she had drawn her dead mother, she knew she had to get out of there.  She needed to escape.

She spun around sharply and lost her balance, collapsing on the parched earth.  She dug her fingers into the ground, feeling the heat against her palms and the coolness of the earth underneath her fingertips.

Her bike stood firmly behind her just a few feet away—strong and protective.  Her jacket and gloves were sitting on the seat.  She had removed them as soon as she arrived. 

The afternoon heat was unbearable against the leather in the scorching sunlight.  It was unseasonably warm despite being the first week of October.  Temperatures should be starting to drop with the encroaching winter, but that didn’t seem to be the case these days.

Summers always sucked in Arizona.  She forced herself to endure the heat leading up to summer break and the months after.  It didn’t matter if it was ten degrees or a hundred and ten; she refused to show any skin (aside from her face).  To do so would risk her secret should others touch her exposed skin.

Usually within her first week at a new school, she was already established as a freak, a loner, and a badass.  She didn’t cause trouble—unless someone came too close to her physically.  She didn’t get involved in other people’s business, and she liked to keep it that way.

She had enough to worry about—she didn’t need the baggage and drama that came with interacting with others.

She rolled back and sat down, leaning against her arms behind her as she dug her fingernails into the cool dirt below the surface.

Even now, you still haunt me.

She closed her eyes as her face turned up to the sky.

Even now, I still cannot escape.

Her hair fluttered behind her as the wind blew gently.

She sighed into the breeze.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and pushed her long sleeves up to her elbows.  The black markings on the inside of her wrists were her reminders of those she had lost—of those she had killed.

With a simple kiss, she had killed them all.

First her father, then her mother, and then her grandmother—one-by-one they died.

She kissed them each once, and within moments, their hearts stopped beating, their lungs filled with fluid, and they breathed their last.  It was peacefully, she guessed.

It was the secret she had to keep her entire life—the curse that forced her to push others away.

She couldn’t risk getting close to anyone.  A simple slip-up, no matter how small it might seem, could result in an innocent person’s death—and she couldn’t let that happen.

She had to protect everyone from herself.

It was the only way.

She donned the black clothes, the badass attitude, and pushed everyone away as a result of who she was.

Whatever she was…

You were right about one thing mom, she thought to herself bitterly as she brushed her fingertips softly over the tender flesh of her wrist.

I am a monster.

Beneath the pink scars etched across her arms, along with the bandaged cut she had made last night, the dark veins under her skin reminded her of the curse that flowed through her body.

She exhaled loudly as she pulled the pocketknife out from a small, buttoned pocket in her baggy pants.  The blade flashed blindingly as it caught the sunlight.  She caught the reflection of her eyes before she pressed it to her skin on her arm.

“I’m sorry amá sání… mom… dad…”

It’s not my fault I was born like this…

.

Author's Note:  This is not a suicide attempt (I don't write that sh!t).  We'll find out later what she's doing and why.  Please vote and leave me a little comment! Thanks for reading!