Chapter One

Once upon a time, I was told to imagine what I cannot see. I can't see the moon. I can't see the sun. I can't see him.
Let's focus on things I can see. I can see a small candle. I can see a small, bricked in window. And I can see an unfamiliar, tortured, and starved face staring hauntingly at me from a pool of blood. My pool of blood, my face.
Torture can't make me remember the feeling of sunlight shining on my shoulder like a golden cape. It can't remind me of the beauty of a full moon, lighting up a dark night. It can't make me remember the last place I saw him smile, or heard his laughter.
Soon they will realize I know nothing. That I am only an empty shell with half-fragmented dreams of sunlight and love. The only true knowledge I still contain is of torture, and of him.


Chapter One

Listening to “All I Want is You” by Tristan Prettyman, I made my way down the school hallway. Open windows and doorways allowed the soft, chilling breeze to balance out the spring heat that had just arrived overnight. All I want is my book, and a nice laid-back 3rd period English teacher. I had no worries about boys, friends to impress, images to be kept up. I was a strong independent girl, happy the way I was. But then again, he was the same way. Isn't it funny how two people can catalyze each other, changing them forever?
My mind on the goal of being invisible this year, my head was bent towards the ground as I rushed to my next class. Without notice of anyone else, a boy came barreling down the hallway towards his next class, too. Right as we both turned into the doorway, he ran into me, scattering my books and papers out of my hands and onto the hard tiled floor, which I was surprised to see my knees met as well.
“Could you please watch where you're going next time? You could have scraped my knee or ruined one of my books!” I snapped at this rude intruder. My headphones fell off of my ears, and I glared up at him through a thick curtain of raven black hair. (Not the bottled crap that dries your hair out and looks totally too blue, but the natural beautiful blue black.) And that's when I saw him for the first time. Let me tell you right now, it was definitely not love at first sight. Sure he was cute, with his light brown hair and bright, clear blue eyes. I did notice that he had an excellent body too. But his tall, athletic body was besides the point. This butt had just knocked me over. He was almost as rude as Pandora is when they play live songs. If I wasn't at the concert, I don't want to hear the crappy live background noises. Thank you, come again!
Anyways, back to the story. With a mumbled “sorry” and a graceful sweep of his hands, he collected my papers for me and placed them on top of my books. Then he just walked into his room. No helping me up from my knees. No laughter or small talk. This boy is trying just as hard as I am to be invisible. Maybe he isn't too bad after all.
As this thought skittered around my head, I quickly gathered myself and barely made it to the back corner seat of the room when the bell rang for the next hour of government-sanctioned torture to start. Before I knew it, I was booted out of my chair and away from my book by what seemed like a way to excitable teacher. She barely said “Time to partner up with someone!” before I glanced around and realized that everyone seemed to have found their best friend/soul mate in the 1.2 seconds that it took me to stand up and get my bearings again. Of course, everyone except for the ever-so-graceful and mysterious nameless guy who had pushed me down in the hallway only 2 minutes earlier.
Of course, due to the ever present rule: 'If there are two students left over, they are partners no matter whether their families are at war with each other because one family's platypus somehow devoured Mr. Mittens the brand new baby kitten,' we were paired up together. It's like the teachers expect everyone they pair up on their own to be the dynamic duo or something. The only dynamic thing about us was the awkwardness.
After 45 minutes of getting to know your new classmates for the semester that was very sentimental of kindergarten, I was finally free to go to my seat and learn how oh so very stern the teacher can be when someone gets in trouble.
The bell rang, and it was 4th period Art at last. You have to be very popular, or have connections with the councilor to get into this class apparently, so it was a wonder that this was assigned to my schedule. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm kind of a lone wolf. I found an empty table and sat down, the three empty chairs left by me to be left empty until I was out of this class. Not that I'm complaining, it's kind of awesome to have a whole art table to yourself.
After the relief of finding out that I wouldn't have to be stressed about getting paint on my new light-washed skinny jeans, I settled down for my first assignment. Draw a self portrait of yourself using whatever medium you find suitable. Moving with the crowd for a little while, I eventually located a nice set of colored pencils, a ballpoint pen, and some shading pencils. I retrieved a vintage mirror from one of the side closets, not being one of the girls who didn't need the mirror because she knows everything about her face by heart.
The lunch bell rang all too fast, and away went my half-finished project, the only splash of color was the striking green eyes begging me to stay and finish the artwork that I had started. Staying in the art room wouldn't be good though. I didn't want to be the weird art girl who had no social life outside of drawing. Sure I love drawing, but not enough to be stuck with a label for it. It's hard enough to switch schools without being asked random questions about where I'm from that people don't actually care about, it's all just small-talk anyway.