A U D R A

Her mother named her Jessica, which was one of the most common names in the world. In high school, she shared a name with three other people in her homeroom class. Out of the population of 27.866 people in her small city, there had been over one hundred Jessicas.

She never wanted to be 'basic'. It was like being cursed. She wanted to be great. She wanted to be known as special. She believed she was special.

So when she came to the big city, she changed her name into Audra.

And she had done everything right. Just right. Too right, even.

She worked hard to get into a size 2, even though she had been obese in the majority of her childhood. To this day, she defended her childhood photos with the ferocity of a nursing predator. She colored her hair according to the trends, and she worked so so hard to produce the best videos to gain more followers.

Her whole family never believed that she would make it.

But she proved them wrong. That she did. She got that deal with Maybelline, and many companies had endorsed her or used her face to promote their products. She had been moderately successful by her family's standard, and she had produced more money in a year than her whole family's earning in their lifetime.

But still it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for her to be pretty or slim or photogenic. It wasn't enough that she didn't follow the usual human diet or if she researched furiously about her competitors so that she could think of a way to defeat them without looking mean. It definitely wasn't enough that she managed to date one of the upcoming stars Quarterback in the city's best football team.

She still had no friends. Her childhood friends still called her 'Fatty Jess' and the only reason people from her highschool contacted her is to be introduced by edgier, sexier people from the Youtube community.

Even though she had done everything right, it still wasn't enough.

And then there was her.

April Hale never did anything right, not by Audra's standard.

April Hale graduated from an artsy fartsy university cum laude, but never used the opportunity (or her recommendation letters) to get a job in a good company. April Hale was shit at social media. April Hale didn't take care of her body well, and often she ate too much or too little. She was skinny, yes, but she was flabby, and when she ran, Audra could see every inch of April's body jiggled in places where they shouldn't.

Her boyfriend Quentin said that April was dumped by her longtime boyfriend at university, and she had never been the same. Audra had thought that it was pathetic. For a girl to be so down because of a guy. It was saddening, and it was almost maddening. Especially because Audra could see that there were a lot of guys who bid their time for April to forget about 'That Guy' and give them a chance.

And one of the guys was one of the most eligible bachelor Audra had ever seen, Alex Malifeci.

Audra hated April, although she thought the word 'despised' would be more fitting. She despised how April was ridden with a mental condition that would automatically make people symphatize with her. She despised how April could break down when she didn't get the right food and people could still like her. April wasn't that smart and she wasn't that pretty and even though she was good at editing videos, she held no candles to Audra's ability to build and own a business.

And yet people loved April like she was such a treasure.

Audra had done everything right, and April had done everything wrong.

And yet...

And yet it still wasn't enough.

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2.21: The Hardest Hits Come Not From the Fist

Sometimes my body betrayed me.

Usually, the betrayal happened whenever there was something unavoidable was happening. Me in the verge of pissing myself would mean I would forget to speak proper English and consider flailing my arm to be some sort of a decipherable language.

The betrayal also happened whenever my routine was disrupted. This would ruin my whole day and then everything would sound feel and look bitter. I didn't even know that bitter could qualify as a picture, but when I saw a GIF of a kitten playing with a hedhehog and not feeling even a single twinge of 'AWWW', then something must be wrong within my head.

Around That Guy, the betrayal happened in a secondly basis.

I was supposed to be filming Audra and Him chatting about some make-up. From the amount of eye-rolling that He did, I could tell that He was exerting a generous amount of effort of trying to look interested, but still anyone who watched five seconds of this could see that his efforts all came to a glaring fail.

I was supposed to be good at filming. I had trained my arms to carry around the heavy equipment. But today, I felt like a total n00b who deserved every 'Your Mom' curse in 100 language.

It was like I lost total control of my body. Everything that was supposed to keep my blood pumping had been annihilated, and I often found myself gasping for air and then getting wobbly in the knees.

Case in point: me tripping on a totally smooth floor.

As I was falling, I saw not one, but four people getting ready to cushion my fall.

That Guy, whom I prayed so hard to not be the one who did it, my brother, Alex, and...

Audra.

Audra caught me mid-fall, but instead of putting on a heroic face after such heroic action, she glared at me straight in the air, rendering me speechless.

"What the hell are you doing?" she breathed right into my face with so much savagery that I could taste the kale she ate for lunch.

"Broccoli," I said as an afterthought, because at second thought it smelled more like broccoli than kale.

"Don't act cute like you know nothing!" more hissing, and right now, I smelled a bit of cheese.

I almost felt faint partly because of the distance and partly because I didn't fancy a cheese breath.

"Your salad breath is distracting me," I said, and then finally Audra let me go. There was another glare, one that shot a tremor from my back running to my spine.

"We take a short break!" a second was all Audra took to get back her previous cheeriness. She swayed into Quentin, and then jumped at him and he caught her. I could hear him praising her for saving me.

"That's some next level bitch shit she's pulling," Alex's voice was so close to my ear that I almost thought that he was within my head.

"I don't think any female dog would know how to bite and then glomp in the time span of one minute," I replied.

Alex snorted a laugh, which sounded mellifluous and elegant. I wondered how he cultivated that ever-present sophistication. Did he have an etiquette teacher, or was it the works of wonderful genetics? He could snort and then sneeze and he still looked like he could be announcing the national charter.

He inched closer to me, and I didn't budge. My personal space was exactly 5 meters, but somehow I was comfortable enough with him 5 centimeters from me if he was standing side by side. Still one meter if he was directly in front of me, though, I thought his green eyes were too profound for me to handle.

"I still can't believe that you tripped on your own foot," he said. "Even for you, it's embarrassingly clumsy."

"Well, after 22 years living with this body, I've decided that I'm not gifted with grace and/or poise," I said as I curtsied to particularly no one. "If there were ghosts in this place, they would have laughed at the way I curtsy."

"You curtsy just fine. If you were a farmer girl living in the 1600."

"Oh, Alex, I told you to not use that kind of joke with me. I don't know if you're trying to compliment or insult me."

"But isn't complinsult the best thing ever?" Alex narrowed one of his eyes as his smile lengthened to the right. "You get to decide if you're feeling flattered or offended."

I laughed, because for some reason, it felt freeing to have my own choice to respond to another person's statement. Sometimes people talk about things and then expect people to react the way they wanted to react. They gave you a compliment about a blouse you never really liked, and they get offended if you feel that the blouse wasn't good. They tried to bring you down by bringing up the weird bump on your nose, but then they get twice angrier when you think that the bump wasn't noticeable enough to warrant an insult.

But a complinsult let the reaction completely in your hands, and I chose to be flattered.

"Well, thank you, Good Sir," I imitated my best british accent as I curtsied yet again towards Alex.

Alex reached out to touch the top of my head, but then another hand slapped his.

That Guy appeared all of a sudden in between us. His face was curt and expressionless.

"There was a mosquito," He said flatly.

"The apartment's in level 24. I doubt any mosquito is able to fly this high," Alex countered.

"I definitely saw a huge-ass mosquito," He said with a tone so flat it would make the flat-earth supporters rejoice. "It was on your hand."

Alex stepped back and then folded his arms. It was his stance whenever he went into his 'Killing Mode', which means he would try to observe the enemy from a certain distance before delivering blow that would either sadden or anger the enemy.

Said enemy at this moment was That Guy.

"Well, thank you for taking care of my hand, then," Alex finally voiced out.

"You have a really girly hand," That Guy's reply came fast. "So smooth. So pale. You ever go out and see the sun?"

"Fortunately, my line of work doesn't involve dirtying or anything that will cause callouses on my hands," Alex said as he held up both of his hands, "Apparently, most businessmen share the same sentiment."

That Guy groaned. I guessed He hasn't lost His temper. "Nobody knows where you get most of your money! You could be paying people to rob a bank for all I know!"

"Still the quick-tempered guy I know, huh? Four years of a disappearing act and you're still the same."

"Oh, please, just talk straight will you?!" He clenched his fist. "Why are you here, anyway?! What's in it for you?"

"I just like being around April," Alex said easily. "She's a great friend."

He turned around to face me, and once again my whole body betrayed me. I tried my best to fight the consecutive combustion that was happening inside my stomach and my brain, but the Flesh Eating Monster was strong, and it gnawed on my insides.

I never realized how much I missed seeing His face in real life. Bella had deleted all of my photos of Him and so all I was left with was my memories. And my faulty brain never did his look any justice.

That Guy was and had always been handsome, and no matter what he did, he always managed to take my breath away. In the most painfully literal way possible.

"I hate that you look so good," I whispered, mostly in awe and a small part in wanting to let him know what I thought. "It's so hard to sneer at you because you look too good and it's a human's natural reaction to favor the good-looking ones."

That Guy smiled, and that was when my life was on the line. Because my heart just stopped.

"Are you fine, April? Do you need some water?" Alex was asking me, but then right after he closed his mouth, there was already a glass of water right in front of me.

That Guy's eyes were anywhere else but my face as he gave me the glass. "Here, drink."

I drank some water and it helped to distract my body a bit so that I wasn't totally focusing on him. "Thank you."

"What, so you think just because you gave her some water, you're some kind of a hero?" This time, it was my brother who attacked Him. "I can't believe that I'm staying within 20 meters from this guy and I still haven't landed my fist on his face!"

That Guy's brows furrowed. "Hey, you were the one who-"

"OH MY GOD CAN'T YOU ALL BE MORE PATHETIC THAN THIS?!?!"

The screech was long and ear-deafening. I solely believed that if the nation recorded that screech and played it in every war, the opposing party would surrender immediately because of how harrowing it sounded.

Audra's chest heaved up and down fast, and when she spoke, her voice was a little rattled because of her previous screech. "She's just a girl! Just another slightly weird, slightly freaky girl! You can go to any street or high school and you can find a girl like her!"

All of us gaped at Audra as she exhaled loudly.

And then the verbal jabs started again.

"She can't do anything right! Alex, you have a business and you're obviously rich! I'm sure there are many girls who will be a better girlfriend than her! Oh my God she's not even that pretty!"

And then to Quentin.

"She's your sister but can't you see how fucking weird she is?! I LIVE with her, Quentin! I know all about her quirks! They're not cute or adorable, they're just plain annoying!"

I thought that Audra was done, since she started stalking to the kitchen to drink some water. But nope. She still wasn't done. The verbal boxing was still going on.

She turned into That Guy.

"And you! You're Ryder Black! You're the hottest internet sensation since Kylie Jenner's Lip Kits! Girls all over the world fall in love with you and I bet you get panty-deliveries everyday! What the fuck are you doing with her?! Oh my God I can't see what you all see in her! What is she good at? Is she good at something aside from her recital in Star Wars quotes or watching one season of television in one sitting? Is she better than me when it comes to cooking? Can she even cook?!" Audra's face and then contorted into something that resembled Disney Villains whenever they were about to execute their master plan.

"Is she good in bed?!"

The sound of Quentin slapping Audra was painful to hear.

"We're done," my brother's voice was cold.

And when I opened my eyes and saw the floor, all I could see was the puddle of my own tears.

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Author's note

Ta- Daaa...

I think I'm late for this update for a few hours, but I got a good reason for that.

Just recently, I'm diagnosed to have Bipolar Disorder by my psychiatrist. It explained a LOT of things. If any of you remember my hiatus from 2014 to 2017, it was partly because of that. And the meds that the doctor prescribed made my head so dizzy and my hands shaky for a few days. I'm better, though, and I think I'm feeling a whole lot normal now. :)

On the other hand, you can now find me on RADISH.

I'll be updating The Quirky Tale of April Hale more quickly on Radish, and you can choose to read it, or wait for it to be available on wattpad 7-14 days later. :) If you don't want to pay, then it's okay, but if you do, I'll let you know that you've helped me A LOT. I'm writing full time now, and with the new medications (and no insurance), it's been kind of tough for me.

Find me at demonicblackcat in Radish, and the story is called 'The Quirky Tale of April Hale SEASON 2' Just type Quirky and it'll show up, though (it's the one with the LEGS COVER, not this cover). I'm updating the next chapter on Radish TOMORROW. So don't forget to subscribe on Radish so that you'll get the notif :))

See you, and hope you have a good day!

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p.s: The cover that I chose is from @riviix OMG IT'S SO CUTE ISN'T IT?!?!?! She sent me a few covers and I love them all, but this in particular stood out because of the pretty colors and the twin tail is just UUUGGHHH <3 <3 Thank you so muuucch! Is there anything that you'd want me to do? Please email me or message me :)

p.p.s: I'm still in the process of sorting out the covers that you all send me. Please wait if I haven't gotten back to you, as I've gotten sooo many. I assure you, I read every email and I'm so happy with all the effort that you've given with your covers. I've gotten so many pretty covers and it's a waste if I just choose one. :) I'll be showcasing them one by one in the subsequent chapters.