Emelie

         She wondered how they had found her. She didn’t recall leaving an address when that piece of paper had been sent around the classroom for students to fill in their places of contact. In fact, she was quite sure she hadn’t been in class on that day.

         “Probably by the bleachers, stoned out of my mind,” she muttered, tossing the cream-colored invitation to the large bed. Sitting upon it was a large traveling bag already stuffed with expensive clothes and jewelry for her big debut. She picked up the red couture gown, specially delivered by Giorgio himself and giggled, unable to stop the tiny sound of delight from passing ruby-colored lips.

         Who would have thought that she’d be in this position today? Certified Goth freak and Miss. Anti-Social of the Class of ’96, was now the most sought after model in the world? Impossible!

         She tossed the dress into the bag and sashayed towards her walk-in-closet. At the very end, in a dark corner of the large room, was a special section for ‘Things of The Past’. She rarely looked at those things that would bring her pain, but for this occasion, it would be fun to reminisce and remember those who had made her life a living hell. On tiptoes, fingers searched the top shelf and finally fell upon the hard bound book. Pulling it off from its position, she blew off the layer of dust and stared at the red cover with its gold lettering.

         Monticello High School 1996

         Her hands trembled and she clutched the book to her chest, trying to steady her rapid beating heart as the memories came flooding back. She sank to the floor and opened the first page…and then skimmed through it quickly, ignoring all the club pictures (of which she wasn’t a part of), the Homecoming King and Queen, the cheerleaders, the sports teams, the honor students, ‘those likely to be most awesome when they grew up’, the teachers (many of whom she had troubled during her stay there) and finally came to a stop at the class portraits.

         There she was. On page 231. At the very bottom of the page, as if forgotten by the photographer and put as an afterthought. She stared at the sullen image of the girl before her. Trembling fingers caressed the too narrow face, the sunken eyes filled with haunting memories of a stepfather too quick with his hands and a friend to the bottle. Her hair was limp and stringy. She didn’t think she had washed it that morning. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile. What was there to smile about anyway? She had hated taking pictures and only did it because they had threatened not to let her graduate. The thought of spending another year in that hell hole was too much for her to bear.

         “Emily Montgomery,” she whispered, reading out the name beneath the picture. “Whatever happened to you, young lady?”

         She was now simply known as Emelie – a name her benefactor had given her five years ago. It was a fairy-tale story, almost too good to be true actually.

         “I guess I ought to thank you for it,” she said, smiling ruefully as she looked at the picture of the blond two rows above hers. Those piercing green eyes seemed to mock her through the pages and she shivered, closing the book to shut out the images of the big fight they had had that night.

         He wanted to party. She was tired and wanted to go home. He had a new stash of coke they could take. She was tired and wanted to go home! He called her names that made her blush. Adamant, she hurled insults back at him. She wanted to go home, damn it! One resounding blow to her jaw, being pushed and kicked to the curb and almost having a car run over her, had been the last straw.

         As she limped to an unloving home, crying silently, the thought of suicide had come flooding back again. She had spent four years in a school where pretty girls ruled the day and everything was handed to them on a silver platter. She would never be able to tell anyone that in the solace of her room, she would pretend she was a Queen. Staring into the cracked mirror, she imagined herself on the runways of New York and Milan, knowing that deep down, she was better than all those phony boys and girls in Monticello.

         “And that’s what you have,” Marie Pierre had told her over a cup of coffee in the bustling streets of Paris. “That inner beauty…I want it to shine, my Emelie.”

         Good ol’ Marie. The only woman who had dared to look at the bleeding girl in the corner of Westbrook, to see what lay beneath. Emelie wiped the tears she wasn’t aware she was shedding and took a deep breath.

         “Miz Emelie?” came the voice of Antonio, her personal assistant. “The cab is ready. Do you want me to take your bags downstairs?”

         “Yes, please. Thanks.”

         She rose to her feet, a tall slender figure clad in black, and her signature raven locks cascaded like a waterfall to the small of her back. She sat before her dresser and began to brush her hair slowly, humming beneath her breath as she stared at her reflection. She wondered what the other students would look like after ten years. She had no doubt some of them would have children –

         (fat and ugly, I hope)

         - or would be working for some corporate big shot company by now.

         However, none of them mattered to her. She would go to the reunion and reveal her true identity, and take sadistic pleasure in seeing their looks of shock and disbelief ripple across the room. But most importantly, she would search for Weazer, the boy she once loved, and thank him in her own special way.

         It was a reunion ten years in the making.