August 28th, 2012

It’s raining down again.

Grace Ciotta stares at her new school. It’s the first day and she already feels out of place, intimidated even. Grace looks slightly past the school to only see a giant forest behind it. She noticed the entire town is surrounded by this forest. She’s only been here for two weeks but Grace has already completed her research. Darkwood, Washington, the cursed town. It’s almost always engulfed in heavy clouds. When it’s not, it’s burdened by heavy droughts. This is how it’s always been.

The kids in this town simply walk past Grace without even noticing her. Everyone here has known each other since childhood, those who have not are just unfortunate to move to Darkwood. Grace gulps down her nervousness and takes a step forward but she’s immediately pushed a bit by a much taller and prettier than her. This girl rushes into the front doors and stops as soon as she enters. “Morning, Elizabeth,” one of her teachers greets her as he passes by. Elizabeth fakes a smile and heads to her locker.

Grace takes a deep breath and heads inside. The school seems bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. To her immediate left is the front office and her right is the front commons that lead the halls that go to class and the staircase that leads to the next floor. Grace spends a second looking at the map she was given and sees where her first class is and then her locker.

By her locker are the boys’ bathroom and a class right across. She notices the cliques around her. There are just the jocks and popular girls besides her. Grace spots the blonde girl that bumped into her talking to two of her friends as one of the jock guys approaches them.

Elizabeth doesn’t like any of the people she’s talking to anymore. She simply puts on a fake smile and carries any conversation she’s given very lightly. Class starts and she heads to class, grabbing the very back corner seat in class so she can look out the window. Elizabeth likes to look at the gloomy sky and waits for it to rain just so she can have something else to hate. She does this in her second class, then her third. During fourth, her usual seat is taken by her new friend she made over the Summer so she seats in front of him.

“Morning, Ellie,” Andrew greets her. “Throwing a fucking rager at the house tonight. Thought it would be a good way to start our last shitty year, no?”

“It’s Tuesday, Drew,” she answers in monotone.

“Hasn’t stopped us before.”

“I’m not going.”

“Oh?” Andrew laughs. Elizabeth hates this laugh. “The Queen isn’t attending? I’m offended.”

“Whatever,” she says and leaves it at that.

Elizabeth heads straight to the cafeteria and is the first one to sit at her old clique’s table. She rather prefers to sit with her new friends she made over the summer but she has appearances to keep. It’s something she knows isn’t important but is rather forced to. She stares at her ex-boyfriend as he walks in and sits at his table. Then all of her new friends come in and sit next to him. Summer was just a temporary thing, she isn’t really friends with them, Elizabeth thinks.

Grace enters the cafeteria for lunch and wonders where she could sit, but no seat is open. She notices the far end of the cafeteria has a glass door that leads to a courtyard where more people head for lunch. This is where she spends the rest of her lunch, alone without anyone to talk to just like the rest of the day.

Elizabeth’s friends show up and immediately start on the latest gossip. Today’s hot topic is how Lucas is now hooking up with that goth girl, Sara. This is shared between the five people sitting around the table, excluding Elizabeth because she isn’t talking. The topic switches over to Andrew’s party. “Where is it at?” Elizabeth’s ex-best friend, Megan, asks.

“It’s in this abandoned house Andrew found a few days ago. It’s kinda small but on the other side of town on 12th street so no cops. It’s perfect,” Carlos answers. “Sucks that Jana is gonna miss it.”

“Where is she?” one of the girls asks, “Well whatever. I just hope it's as good as the last few, those were dope.”

“Yeah, because you got total shitfaced and fucked Andrew,” Megan responds making everyone except Elizabeth laugh. “I invited this freshman to come, she’s cute.”

“Ew, a freshman?”

“Yeah, I found her at gym class. She’s new here we can totally fuck with her.”

Elizabeth stops paying attention and looks over to her ex’s table. He’s staring at her so she looks away. She hates the way he looks at her, it’s intoxicating. Still, she had a great time with him over the summer. If only things wouldn’t have gotten so chaotic. Elizabeth looks up to the ceiling and it starts spinning. The spins only accelerate and the words of her annoying friends do nothing to help.

“We can fuck with her like we did with Karen,” Megan says.

Those words start a ringing in Elizabeth's ears. She feels the cold metal inside her bag, takes her hand out, and picks up the bag instead. Her friends watch in confusion as she rushes to the restroom. Elizabeth ends up dry heaving only after wasting everything she ate minutes before.

The stall’s wall stares back as the spins slowly come to a halt. After a while, she feels normal only to be coughing into the toilet a few seconds later. But this catches the attention of one of the girls in the bathroom who has walked in. Girl opens the stall and asks, “are you okay?”

Elizabeth looks over and spots the girl’s lanyard first that carries her school ID. Her name is Grace Ciotta, she’s the girl she accidentally bumped into before school started. She’s a freshman but looks like still belongs in Middle School. Elizabeth notices Grace’s big eyes that are amplified because she wears thick oval glasses. Her medium-length blonde hair is unkempt and wears braces that do nothing but make her hideous. She’s a complete dork and Elizabeth can't help but feel sorry for her. This town will eat her alive.

Grace is pushed back when Elizabeth just scoffs at her and leaves the bathroom. She’s confused but relieved that she didn’t say anything mean to her. Grace thinks that maybe High School is the place where she can finally escape all the teasing and bullying she's been getting all her life.

Grace finishes her school day without any problems but she failed to even make a single friend. Still, it’s the first day and so Grace isn’t worried. Hell, she even got invited to a party by that really popular girl during gym class. Of course, she doesn’t tell her mother any of this, not that it would matter as her mom wouldn’t get home until after midnight. She spends the next few hours getting ready. Grace stares at herself in the mirror for a while. A new life, she thinks. She smiles.

Grace isn’t beautiful by any means. At least that’s what she thinks. She knows hardly anything about makeup and beauty, wears glasses, and has braces. She feels like a walking stereotype of a nerd. There isn’t anything interesting about her, hasn’t even gotten her period yet. Grace has always been the laughing stock of her middle school, but that was California, this is now. This is a new chance to reinvent herself, to be cool.

To have a friend.

Elizabeth stares at her ceiling while she lays in bed. Her phone has been constantly vibrating due to her fake friends trying to contact her. They’re all trying to get her to hitch a ride with them so they can improve their social standing. Elizabeth knows this which is why she agreed to go with her friend Emily. She isn’t concerned about any of that and just wants to have a good time.

A car honks outside, signaling to Elizabeth that Emily is here. The Queen of Mickle Ray High School jumps out of bed and runs downstairs to meet her friends. Inside the car are Emily, Sara, and Chris. “Where’s Cody?” Elizabeth asks after getting in the back seat next to Chris. She’s surprised her ex-boyfriend isn’t with Emily, the two are usually never seen separated. It’s part of the reason they broke up in the first place.

“He’s already there,” Emily answers while adjusting her hair using the rearview mirrors.

“Chris, got any coke? Sara?”

“Did some before coming, sorry,” Sara answers.

Chris doesn’t say anything and pulls out a small baggie containing the drug out of his big green parka. He always wears this and is never seen with anything else. He gets called homeless because of this, but it never bothers him.

“Thanks, Chris.” Elizabeth pulls a block paperweight out of her purse that she uses for occasions like this. She lines up the powder and snorts it up.

This is how it is now. This is how it is in this town.

She wasn’t always like this.

Elizabeth takes a deep breath and thinks of the first time she bought drugs. It was with Andrew who introduced her to a tall and slim black man in a suit named Acid. They were just outside the Seattle skatepark. Elizabeth extended her hand, “Hi, I’m Elizabeth.” Both Andrew and the man look at the hand. Andrew smirked, the man said, “How much.”

“Oh, u-um, a hundred?” she says nervously as she pulls out the cash.

The man slaps her hand away as Andrew rolls his eyes. “Fuck, pull that shit away.”

“Let’s walk,” Andrew tells her as the two turn around. That was her first drug deal.

Now she gets her drugs from Andrew or Chris who usually doesn’t charge her. The girl thinks about how out of control it got over the summer and how tired she is. She rests her head on the side windows and looks out into the darkness. It’s nothing but trees as they loop around the forest into the other side of the town.

Emily and Sara aren’t paying attention to Elizabeth. They’re talking about Lucas and how Sara is forced to be with him to put up her charade. Elizabeth decides to amplify her high but does a bit of the molly she has in her purse. She hasn’t ever mixed the two and wonders how great it’ll feel. Chris watches her and says nothing. The coked-up girl almost gags, she hates the taste of both of the drugs she’s doing.

-

Grace Ciotta lies to her mom over the phone and tells her she’s going over to the house of a new friend she’s made. Having no way to get to the abandoned house, she hops on her bike and drives off.

-

Elizabeth is the first inside and greets everyone she has to. She ignores Cody. She still doesn’t want to speak to him after what happened a week before. Cody is always so intense, but collective. It makes her feel good; protected. It’s always why he scares her. Cody has always been present in her life, but only now has it been this close. She hates it but also loves it.

Elizabeth begins the night with a line of Blow again; cocaine, snow-white, yeyo, Lois Lane. At this point, she’s on top of her world. She starts drinking, talking, flirting, and talking smack to those she doesn’t like. She’s allowed to because everyone wants her to talk to them.

Chris gives her a tab of E. Andrew gives her another line of blow. Cody sees this and tries to stop her but Elizabeth blows him off. This all the while she’s drinking a glass of Fireball with no chaser.

Her vision becomes hazy, then blurry, then normal, only to spin again. She finds herself outside talking to strangers she never met yet feels familiar with. Her phone vibrates for a text from Jana Kramer. The two became really close over the summer.

The text tells Elizabeth to be safe and have fun. If only they hadn't walked in the rain the last time they saw each other. Jana wouldn’t have gotten sick and would be here, but that’s for the best now.

Elizabeth stares back at the text and it makes her smile. Someone bothers her and she brushes them off.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed.

Grace arrives and nervously enters the house after finding a place to hide her bike. The first thing she notices is the lack of furniture and then electricity. The music is playing from a huge speaker that she heard from yards away. The house is lit but LED lanterns all throughout the house. There are foldable tables everywhere and hundreds of drinks on top of them. She rushes over to one to grab her first drink, her very first alcoholic drink.

Megan walks in frustrated that Elizabeth blew her off outside and spots the small girl she invited. She walks up to her and says, “You came!”

A group consisting of Cody, Emily, Chris, Andrew, Sara, and Elizabeth find themselves together in the backyard of the house along with a few others. There’s a couch surrounding a table where all the liquor is being held and an LED lantern in the middle. Emily and Sara are talking to each other, seeing that they've been best friends since Sara’s Freshman year. Andrew interrupts them, sitting between the two on the couch. He gives them the idea to take shots, increasing the amount by each person.

Already faded, everyone agrees with laughs while Andrew goes inside to get all the shot glasses he has. Cody stares at Elizabeth, watching how she rolls her eyes towards the sky. He knows she is too far gone now and there isn't a thing he can do about it. He then looks at Emily, his childhood friend since they were born. She smiles at him but quickly looks away to rejoin her conversation with Sara. Emily feels the situation to be a bit awkward over what happened a week ago between the two.

Andrew comes back and lies out the shot glasses in the order of where everyone’s sitting. He gives Cody only one, Chris two, Emily three, Himself four, his sister Sara five, and Elizabeth six. He pours everyone the blueberry tequila cocktail and when he finishes, Cody starts the chain of drinking.

“Fuckin’ Hell mates,” He laughs with a grin on his face.

“Not very strong but delicious,” Emily comments.

Chris has been observing the whole time. It’s his favorite pastime. He glances over at Cody who’s been unusually quiet lately and catches him looking at Elizabeth. She herself just finished the final shot and starts to laugh.

“Jesus, Ellie, want to slow down?” Sara says.

Chris notices that Andrew and Sara both share the same little mole on their left Eyelids. This is the only thing they share that might make people think they’re twins. Nothing about the two would give that away.

“Shit, we didn’t record it,” Sara adds.

“We’ll do it again someday,” Emily says. “Chris, you good?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah.”

Sara feels her phone vibrate and checks it out with blur vision. A couple of texts from Lucas that she couldn’t care less. Emily looks over and reads them and tells her to cheer up. Sara fakes a smile feeling exhausted now, wanting the party to be done so she can go to bed.

Andrew gets up from his seat and extends his hand over to Emily. “Let's go somewhere private so we can have fun, yeah?”

It grabs Cody’s attention but before he can speak, Emily does his job for him, “Uh, no thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Andrew says knowing that Emily never minds what he does. He breaks into her house all the time when he’s invited over just because Emily expects him to. That’s how she’s always known him ever since he started to be friends with Cody. Andrew thinks about it as he walks back inside to talk to some girls from another school.

“Fuck him, Ems,” Sara tells her. “He’s such an asshole.” She gets out a cigarette and debates if she wants to smoke or not.

“Sara, that’s gross, don’t smoke,” Emily tells her as she feels the effects of the tequila set in. She smiles when she sees Sara throwing it away. The two have been besties for two years now, the two trust each other like sisters. “Chris, give me a line,”

Chris pulls out a bag from his green parka jacket and tosses it over to Emily. “It’s the last I have,” he says.

“Cody, want some?”

“Ems,” Cody speaks up wanting to stop her but knows he has no right to. “You know I don’t do that stuff.”

“Pussy,” Sara jokes.

Elizabeth starts to pay more attention to her friends. They’re all having a good time while she’s sitting there, suffering. It’s been an awful summer and now she has to deal with everything that comes after.

There’s something about the future that’s frightening. She watched it all come down at a brush fire earlier in June. That month was especially dry. She watched a brush burn down alongside Cody and thought there was nothing prettier. Cody told her that the smell was sweet to him. Elizabeth only found the smell to be deceitful. Eventually, the brush fire was put out hours later with a little help from the rain. The smell after, however, was something Elizabeth fell in love with.

She gets up from her seat and stumbles her way to the door to lead her inside. “Ellie, you okay?” Emily asks her but Elizabeth only hears the words drowned in bubbles.

Andrew catches her as she falls opening the door. “Yo fuckin’ watch it.”

Ellie looks around and finds herself uncomfortable with the couple of eyes staring. Cody comes from behind her and asks, “You want to go home?”

She shakes her head, “No, I’m fine. I just need to drink some water.”

She thinks about the last time she digested what she ate. It was a couple of days ago with leftovers she had made a day before. It would be a good idea to get some disgusting food in her but realizes that it’s pointless now. After a couple of glasses of water, she heads back outside and finds her friends laughing together.

Emily and Cody are sitting together now, she doesn’t like that. It only reminds her that in the end, it’ll never be enough. Nothing will ever be enough. She looks at Sara and only sees a train wreck, like herself.

At that point, Elizabeth remembers she still has her purse in her hand and the gift she got from Lyle. It’s thanks to Andrew that she got to meet him.

Chris is the only one to notice her. It reminds her that Chris is the only person sane enough and smart enough to do whatever he wants. He might be the weird kid that does every drug but underneath she knows how brilliant he is. She wonders if he can see through her facade tonight. He probably has, and it makes Elizabeth wonder even more why he hasn’t said anything.

Chris just knows not to interfere with people’s decisions.

Through small moments of lucidity, she’s able to remember bits of her blackout. She’s stopped by multiple people asking if she's doing okay. She can barely recognize them. Elizabeth takes a random pill laying on the table and another shot of the tequila. Someone else stops her again, this time it’s Megan. She’s always been Elizabeth’s shadow; always wanting to be her, always jealous. A snake in the grass. Elizabeth hates everything about her.

Megan says something and Elizabeth grabs the cold metal in her purse. Elizabeth responds with a, “no,” then notices who Megan was standing next to.

Ellie blacks out again.

-

Elizabeth finds herself alone in the woods. It’s impossible to see at night. It’s past 2 AM and she only carries her purse. Her shirt is covered with throw-up and wonders how that happened.

Yeah, that’s what I was doing, she thinks. Elizabeth barely recalls herself running away from the party after getting barfed on. Her friend, Connor tried to stop her but it was too late; everyone was already laughing and she was just trying to get away.

She hears her name being called out by her friends. They’re looking for her, but it’s too late. Disoriented, Elizabeth pulls out the only thing inside her purse now.

The cold heavy metal that haunts her.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Elizabeth hears from behind.

It’s the little freshman girl from the bathroom, Grace Ciotta. The girl who Megan was with at the party. She’s drunk and her lips have a few chunks of food on them. Elizabeth wonders if Grace will be the next victim of Megan’s bullying. After all, it was the only reason why she was invited. How unfortunate it had to be this way.

“Sorry I threw up on you. I really didn’t mean it.”

Elizabeth smiles, “don’t be,” she says before pointing the gun at herself and doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

Grace screams.