Shattered Secrets and Asphyxiated Stars

Stars had always found a way to capture my attention.

I admired its ability to light up the sky at night and fulfill the wishes of those who were in need of hope. My affinity for stars never faltered as time elapsed, and the glow-in-the-dark stars of my former room had faded into night. I eventually had to substitute the enchanted stars that lost its magic over time with paper stars I folded whenever I was in need of according them a new secret. Each star was unique in its own way and had the unfortunate burden of silencing all of my truths.

Of course, I felt penitent for treating them terribly, but I was too selfish to allow them to live without any struggles that life always seemed to bestow upon us. I would always keep each carefully made star into a portable glass jar, which prevented any of them from escaping its prison, and watched the pile of pastel stars increase over the years.

The good thing about small glass jars was that they came in handy, when your guardians forced you to move to a new town. I kept the jar in my hands as I contemplated my chances of escaping my unfortunate situation. I truly did not want to move, but it didn’t look like I had any other options because Adrian and Elena were holding me hostage in their car.

My father and his new wife believed that moving would be a great opportunity for me to start over, make new friends, and get rid of the “defense barrier” I had built for over seventeen years. I had never created a “defense barrier” for it was just there, tagging along with me wherever I went, and it seemed as if it was going to follow me to my new “home” as well. I had never decided to form a “defense barrier” to shield myself from everyone I knew, but I guessed I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t formed a façade for myself all of these years.

I was stuck in this car for the past three and a half hours, and I had officially become restless. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I didn’t think I would survive the rest of the trip to our new house in Ithaca. The agitation was killing me slowly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I died before we even arrived there. Maybe dying before coming to Ithaca would not be such a bad idea, but that would just be selfish of me.

I was just worried that I would not be able to adjust to living in that town. I had lived in New York City all of my life, and I liked living there too. I was going to miss living in a city where everything was always near me, and I could take the subway to go to school or some other destination that I had needed to go visit. Now I was going to have to rely on the school bus to take me to Ithaca High School every day for the next year and a quarter.

I didn’t have a problem with riding the school bus to school every day, but I didn’t want to receive strange looks from the strangers on the bus. I didn’t want to have the reputation as the new girl and have my new classmates to torture me during the whole time. I hated being in the spotlight, even though having others recognize me for just a moment in a school bus wasn’t what you would call “the spotlight.” Still, I didn’t rejoice in others wasting their slightest bit of attention onto someone like me.

I looked through the glass of the car window and saw a red octagonal stop sign that read, “Don’t STOP believing,” but the car passed by it in a blur, so I must have misread it and decided to forget ever acknowledging it.

I continued to watch the background change as we drove closer to the town where I could supposedly “start over.” Had Adrian and Elena ever taken into consideration that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t want to “start over?” I was happy for my father because he had found a new job that paid well – he was an architect who designed buildings, and I could easily predict that he would soon be designing houses in Ithaca. He married my new stepmother who was delighted to move to a town and get away from the city.

According to her, she was so sick and tired of the city life that she was ecstatic to move away with a husband who loved her and a stepdaughter who was part of the package. But what was wrong with the city? I couldn’t find anything wrong with living in the city. In fact, the city was so much better than a town where it was too quiet and boring.

“Hailey, please liven up. We are moving to a new town where you can start over, and your father has a new job that can support this new family. Aren’t you happy?” Elena asked, trying to make small talk with me before she got out of the car with Adrian. Of course, she would prompt me of her advice to “start over.” I didn’t want advice because I didn’t need it. I was perfectly fine on my own and having someone tell me to “start over” wasn’t going to change who I was.

I hadn’t said a word during the whole ride and I quite frankly didn’t want to begin now, especially when we just arrived to our lovely, new house. I could tell that she was beginning to get a tad bit frustrated with me, which was a good thing because she should have been annoyed with me by now. After all, it was her idea to move to this town.

I wasn’t mad at my father for marrying my new stepmother, nor did I despise Elena, because she had treated me with kindness since the day my father had received full custody over me and accepted me for who I was. I just found it difficult to think of her as my new mother. I could see that Elena was trying to treat me as her own daughter, and she wanted me to see her as my own mother as well, but I just couldn’t think of her as one because I really didn’t need another mother in my insignificant life.

“No,” I answered to no one in particular. I was alone in the car and I refused to tear my gaze away from the window. How could I possibly be happy now when my terrifying past was dragging me only deeper into a darker depression? If I was ever exultant, which was often rare, then I must have taken too many happy pills for a day.

I didn’t want to get out of the car and unpack all of my useless belongings when they clearly belonged back in New York and not Ithaca. I knew that I was acting like a spoiled brat who couldn’t even show the slightest bit of appreciation for what they had done for me, but it was difficult for me to try to act as if nothing was wrong after the recent events. They just didn’t understand what I was going through. I couldn’t transfer schools and “start over.” I didn’t even know what “start over” means. So, how was I supposed to do it then?

“Hailey, please get out of the car and help us move the rest of our belongings to the house. You can’t stay in the car forever,” Adrian prompted before continuing to help Elena unload the belongings that weren’t already inside the house.

He had a good point, but I didn’t want to admit that to him. “Fine, I will then.”

I opened the car door and slammed it shut before I looked at the house for the first time. I couldn’t really see what it looked like because it was dark outside, but I could admit that the house was nice from what I could see. It was big enough to satisfy all three of us and had a backyard where I could always read a novel under the tree.

“Hails, your room is on the second floor to the right, and you can tell that it’s yours just by looking inside the room,” Elena informs sweetly. Wow. She had gotten over her frustration over me rather quicker than I thought she would. I didn’t know if I should be suspicious of this action or just overlook it. I thought I would just keep it in mind for later because her sweet façade could always be deceiving or maybe I was just acting biased as usual. “And you should try to get some sleep after you finish unpacking. You have a big day tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Elena,” I thought. That was exactly what she should prompt me of right now. I groaned in distress. Did she have to remind me?

I involuntarily helped them take some of the luggage inside the house before I walked to the second floor with my own belongings. I entered the room on the right as Elena told me to and twisted the doorknob to open the wooden door.

Lavender walls and a light aroma of jasmine instantly greeted me. Tan wooden tiles covered the floor and a white carpet like my previous room in New York does not cover it, but I thought that I sort of liked it this way without a carpet because the wooden floor looked nice. There was a wooden desk across from my twin bed, which had matching purple and white bed sheets, blankets, and cute, puffy pillows concealing the mattress. The window faced the backyard and had thin white curtains surrounding them. I could also see a tree through the glass of one of the windows, and it would be a great escape method for sneaking out of the house, but I didn’t know how to climb down a tree without the possibility of hurting myself.

Although I hated the thought of moving to a new town, I certainly didn’t loathe my new room. I liked how everything was purple, which was my favorite color, and I was surprised that Adrian and Elena had known what my favorite color was. My new room could now be an escape for me whenever I was feeling disheartened, and the purple walls would certainly spark creativity to me whenever I needed a little bit of inspiration while I was writing.

Maybe moving here wasn’t such a bad idea, and my “new life” in Ithaca would be a little less horrible than I thought it would be. Except I couldn’t help but think that the people at Ithaca High School would probably hate me without even getting to know me at first or maybe they would pay only the slightest bit of attention on me because I was from New York City. Either way, I didn’t want the attention, nor did I care if they would hate me because frankly, I would most likely abhor them too. The feeling would just be mutual.

The only problem was, I sort of wanted to have a best friend or at least have some genuine friends for once. Sure, I had a few acquaintances at my former school, but I could tell that they never really liked me. You know how in every group, there was one person who everyone despised , but the clique allowed the person to be part of their circle, so they could humiliate or make fun of them behind their backs? Well, that person was once me.

The people in the group I was in would always try to find a way to embarrass me in front of my other peers, but I would never squirm or cry in front of everyone, even after what they had done to me, because why should I give them the satisfaction of seeing me suffer? I might as well have coped with the humiliation without reacting to it at all, so they couldn’t have seen how much it really hurt when everyone had laughed at me.

I wasn’t the most gregarious person you would ever meet for a reason: I didn’t want to get too close to people because I was scared that they would find a way to break me apart. I found it difficult to trust people for they always tried to find a way to destroy me, but they were oblivious to the fact that they couldn’t for I wasn’t as vulnerable as I appeared to be. People needed to learn to look behind the façade we had all created for ourselves.

The only problem was that I would have to become gregarious if I wanted to make friends who wouldn’t find a way to hurt me in the end. I just hoped that I wouldn’t have to suffer like the last time I tried to make friends because the things my former acquaintances had done to me had undoubtedly scarred me for life.

After I finished unpacking all of my clothes and neatly placing them in my closet, I changed into a comfortable pair of purple plaid pajama bottoms and a black tank top to wear while I was sleeping.

I could imagine only the horror I would have to face on Wednesday morning. I was just hoping that none of the teachers would make me introduce myself in front of the class. Did Elena and Adrian honestly believe that starting over would be a good thing for me? I was perfectly satisfied in New York, where no one bothered to pay any attention to me unless my former peers degraded me, but the truth was I couldn’t deny that I was unhappy while I had lived there.

I slowly drifted to an unpleasant sleep as I prepared to “start over” tomorrow morning, whatever that meant.