Being Kept In The Dark

The blonde leaned forward closer to the mirror applying a thin layer of black eyeliner to her upper eyelids. After checking to make sure the line was flawless, she gently added charcoal eye shadow, before the thick mascara was brushed onto her eyelashes. She swept her stray bangs into their proper space, before reapplying lipstick, and smoothing out her clothes. Her hair was naturally brown, but with her monthly bleaching and streaking it was now blonde with orange bits here and there. Her brown eyes seemed unnatural with her surprisingly pale skin and dyed hair, but nonetheless beautiful.

Behind the blonde, a girl with messy hair puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. The friends had arrived only an hour ago, the older teen redoing her makeup more than eight times already. She let the air out of her mouth; it was no use to get angry. The blonde has been like this for as long as she could remember, what made today any different than the last five years?

“You look fine, Nancy!” she bellowed at the blonde, getting angry once again.

Closing her compact with a ‘click’, she turned her head to her friend.

“I’m not going for “fine”! I should look amazing, stunning, beautiful, heart stopping, or maybe even magical,” she explained throwing her arms up in frustration. “I’m never any of those things! NEVER!”

“And there we go…” Maxine muttered to Cassarah who was sitting beside her at the round table.

The two friends watched, or in Cassy’s case listened, as Nancy threw herself around the table top, sobbing insults at herself; today was one of those days. Nancy had been suffering with bipolar disorder since she was ten years old. Once or twice a week she had what her friends called a ‘Nancy day’; days were she had sudden feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt, anger, isolation, or hopelessness. Some days it was fatigue and loss of interest in their usual activities or problems concentrating. More often than not it was loneliness, self-loathing, apathy, shyness, irritability, pain, lack of motivation and on the really off days: suicidal actions. Today it looked like a mixer of hopelessness and self-loathing.

“So any plans for the weekend?” Cassy asked ignoring Nancy giving all her attention too Maxine

Maxine shrugged her shoulders. “Nope.”

“I was wondering if you’d like to come to a BBQ today at my place.” The blind girl pondered, to the messy haired girl.

Nancy shot her head up from the table. “Oh, and I’m not “special” enough to be invited to this party?!”

“Nancy…” Maxine shoot the blonde her index finger as a warning.
“Umm yeah, sure I got nothing goin’ on.”

Cassy’s smiled with the acceptance of her sudden invitation. Her parents have been listening to her ramble on and on about a “Nancy” and “Maxine” for months. Being curious about her life at school, Matthew invited her to have both the girls over for their annual get-together.

“You’re invited too, Nancy.” Cassy added, as Nancy’s tantrum cam to a close.

“Really?” Lifting her head off the table, her eyes still glittering from the recent escape of tears.

“Of course, silly!”

The blonde flow across the table grabbing her friend’s head pulling it into her large chest. “This is going to be so much fun!”

It’s been two months since Cassarah’s first day at school, two months that seemed to pass by in seconds. Maxine who Cass had meet on her first day, was just a crazy as Cassy had first thought, but it grows on you. Nancy, who had been absent from school for three weeks because of “personal” problems, clicked with the blind girl immediately. The three girls were in a group together helping each other with homework and such on the order of Ms. Manson. Mary Ann, who had only been in the school for her psych classes, was not around that often, although they did still talk when she was. Cass was happy being stuck in this classroom all day besides lunch, bathroom breaks, and her music class; there never a dull moment.

At first school was difficult, if not for Maxine and Nancy bullying, it would have been far worse than it was. Sure there was still the times when Cassy was by herself in the hallway, but she was not going to be the weakest link. They had tried to talk her out of it countless times, but they understood. Just because they were not ‘normal’ did not mean they were babies. She did not have to looked after twenty-four seven. Take five weeks ago for example: Cass was carefully making her way down the halls using the lockers as support. When she ran into something metal, as she fell it occurred to her that the sound made at the impact sounded like the hollow crash of a locker door. Panic set in rather fast as her butt hit the cool marble floor; this was not good. The many possible outcomes flashed their way through her mind. Would they yell, maybe even kick her, or if she were lucky they would just leave.

CJ Millar was a jerk, but a very handsome jerk. Or at least this is what Cassarah had heard of the young man, only rumors having no prior encounter with the boy. He got love letters and girls were always confessing their love for him, but he was a jerk. The reason girls fell all over him was most likely his dirty blonde hair; it was longer barely touching his shoulders had a few waves here and there. CJ liked to surf, so at lunch he skipped out of the boring food and went to the nearest beach. Coming back without a shirt on, his hair wet, water droplets still slowly rolling down his muscular chest and toned six-pack, his swimming trunk barley holding on to his hips…. girls had made it a ritual, everyday at exactly twelve-fifty just as the warning bell to class was about to ring, they would gather to watch CJ walk in. Sometimes if he was in a good mood, he would just walk away and other times… well it just wasn’t pretty.

“Sorry!” Cassarah managed to get a word out after a few moments of silence.

All she heard in return was a grunt and the slamming of a locker. Was she really going to get lucky?

“Wow, today must be my lucky day,” she muttered to herself when she heard footsteps walking away. All of a sudden, they stopped, and panic started to kick into over drive.

She was pulled by the neck of her shirt and thrust on the locker with a bang; now the panic was accompanied by fear. CJ ripped open his locker and pushed her into the small space, slipping on the lock once she was fully inside. He did not say anything, just walked away not bothering to lock it leaving it open for someone to find. Cassy was found a few moments later by Maxine, who had gone looking for her after she had been gone for twenty minutes. She had learned to never talk to CJ Millar.

“So how are we getting to your place?” Maxine pondered turning to face her friends as they walked, snapping her fingers together to a steady melody, another tick of hers.

“Well, my Da-“

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Cassarah was cut off by Nancy’s high-pitched scream. All the students who had been released from their classes for lunch stopped to stare at the school’s “Special Ed Girls”. Not too overly concerned, Maxine stopped walking, turning around to give the student body the finger before yelling at them to move along. Cassy on the other hand was nervous, she hated when times like this arose; having no sight to see the event the teenager was left clueless until properly informed. Her pale eyes scanned around in an attempt to see what was going on.

“What? What’d I miss?”

“Shit! I totally forgot about Rossy!” Nancy cursed at herself, before racing her way through the crowd of students.

“What going on Maxine?”

Maxine stared at the small gap Nancy had made as she pushed, pulled, and screamed her way through to God knows where. It had been years since anyone had befriended the two girls. For as long as their friendship has been alive it’s always been just them. No one had ever joined their group or even snuck in to talk about their weekend. Cassarah was the first; it may have helped that she could not see the way the two looked, but they liked to believed it was just them that made her stay. Maxine was grateful to have someone that could not see her embarrassing ticks, while Nancy just liked Cassy’s calm and happy attitude. She was not going to let an invitation to a friend’s house slip through her fingers because of her stupid brother.

“Come on. We better move before she gets too far ahead,” Maxine said grabbing a very confused Cassarah by the hand, following the path Nancy made out of the students.



Rossy, more commonly known as Ross, was Nancy’s older brother. He was a nice boy, but he was stubborn. Skipping classes to read in the library or take pictures for his photography class. His brown hair was in style; medium length with a few pieces here and there flipped out and longer. It was not by choice but it was simply because all the money in his house went to his sisters. Being the middle child he was often forgotten or ignored; it did not help being the only man in the family either. His father had passed away shortly after Nancy was born, so he was supposed to be in charge; his mother had missed that e-mail. Losing the will and lacking the equipment Ross did not shave often, so he had stubble along his cheeks, neck, upper lip, and chin. His messy hair, and thick eyebrows covered his brown eyes.

He sat in the middle of the cafeteria with his friends. His Bipod playing softly into his left ear, only half listens to their conversation on the latest basketball game. Ross had no interest in sports, hated them really, they took away from the arts programs that gave him what little happiness he had. Not saying that he did not enjoy the company of his three friends, but there was only so much you could take of those guys. Just as his favorite song was getting to the chorus, his ear bud was ripped out.

“I need a favor.”

The brunette looked up to met the determined eyes of his sister. Ross stared with blank eyes, before sighing and looking away.

“What is it?”

By now his friends had stopped their babbling and were watching closely as Ross talked to Nancy. It was not often that she showed up, they had barely seen her at her house let alone at school. It was unlike her to walk over and ask for something in a somewhat nice manner; it was out of character for the girl.

“A friend invited me to her place. Now I wouldn’t be asking, but since Mom and Suzy are away… Oh, fuck it! Can I go or not?” Nancy’s cheeks flushed red as her brother’s friends snickered at her.

Ross was stunned. Had his sister, his sister who made it her life's mission to make his life a personal hell, just acknowledge that he was the boss? That he was the one to decide if she could go somewhere? Was she sick?

“Maxine?” he wondered.

“No, but she’s going too.”

“I thought Maxine was your only friend?”

That came out all wrong; Ross was not usually mean or rude to Nancy, especially when she was being nice to him. Nancy had told his family repeatedly that Maxine was her only friend, he was just stating a fact. Looking over his sister’s shoulder, he saw Maxine with a brunette that had just shown up huffing and puffing from their run through the crowed halls. Assuming that the extra girl was in fact his sister’s new friend, Ross scanned her for any possible signs of ‘bad’ behavior. Not seeing any marks of anything strange, but the fact that she was most likely blind or lacking 20/20 version from her clouded eyes. What was the harm in just this once?

“Stop being an ass, Rossy! And just say yes!” Nancy screamed finally snapping out of her ‘nice’ moment.

“Fine, I don’t see why not.” Ross answered, deciding there was no harm at all.

“Oh, come on! Please! Just this once! You alwa-” Nancy stopped, did he just say yes?

“Yeah, go have fun. I don’t care.” Ross had now turned back to his friends slipping his earphone back in. Without uttering a word, he indicated that the conversation had ended.

“Wow, that’s a first.” Maxine muttered to Nancy, who was in shock herself.