Look at Me

Staring at a dead body was like looking at a cocoon. Hayden could see the empty shell of skin that once held life in it. But a cocoon gave birth to something beautiful and his mother’s body was the death of something ugly.
Hayden turned away from her, unable to look any more. Was this how life ended? A self destructive series of events that ended on the black and white tiles of a bathroom floor?
Swallowing the acidic bile rising in his throat, Hayden closed his eyes. As the stillness surrounded him, he desperately tried to remember what had happened after he saw his mother for the first time. Hayden tried to fill in the black spaces inside his mind, but all he remembered was the anger. It had surged up in him and burned hot and quick like a fuse. But then what?
Where was his Step-father? Hayden walked into the bedrooms and then the kitchen, but he didn’t find a single clue. Finally he walked resignedly to the living room and sat down on the worn couch. Then he reached toward the coffee table for the phone.
After punching in the numbers and hitting the call button a mechanical voice said, “Nine- One-One. What is your emergency.”
“Yes,” Hayden said his voice almost cracking with strain, “I’d like to report a murder.”

3:05

Paige stood on the street corner and waited for the bus. Terry hadn’t talked to her all day and she certainly wasn’t giving her a ride home, because Paige hadn’t explained anything. Why? Because HAYDEN was not at school! As she paced back and forth, Paige’s eyes searched for answers on the blank pavement. Then she felt a hand land softly on the small of her back and she twisted around hopefully.
“Hayden,” she gasped even as her brain registered pale hair, a thin face, and a self satisfied smile.
“Who?” Dennis Harper asked as his pale brow lifted questioningly.
After pulling quickly away, Paige asked sharply, “What do you want Dennis?”
“Well,” he said as his lips twisted into an even more sickening smile. “I thought since our date was…interrupted… the other night, we might try it again…without Terry and Kevin.”
The expression in his eyes.
The cloying warmth of his breath in her face.
It was all telling her one thing. He wanted her. He wanted to use her and enjoy ever second of watching her submit to his charm.
Well FUCK him…
Fuck all the fake people.
Fuck lies and illusions.
Fuck pretending.
“Dennis,” she said slowly, “don’t ever speak to me again.”
His mouth half opened and he started to say, What, but Paige was already walking away.
She didn’t know exactly where she was going. Not home…
Not anywhere at all. She was just going.