A Touch of Heaven

Chapter 3

𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖓

"Who's ready to party!" Malia screamed while leaning out of the window of her old beat-up car, and I cringed slightly at the volume of her voice, glad that I didn't have any nearby neighbors to hear the racket.

Tasha, a girl that often hung out with us, grinned at me from the passenger's seat.

I gave her a quick smile in return, and threw my backpack into the back seat before crawling in.

Malia pulled out of my driveway, and continued on her way to the campsite through the wooded roadway.

"The boys said they're gonna meet us there," Malia said, directing her eyes towards me for a split second before flicking them back towards the road.

I nodded even though I internally groaned.

Malia and Tasha, I could stand, and maybe even consider friends. But the boys in our 'group', consisting of three childishly immature boys named Eli, Garrett, and Max, I could not stand.

The only reason that I had even acknowledged them was for Malia's sake. She had been dating Eli for a while now, and Garrett and Max were his best friends, so they simply follow along with whatever we do.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Tasha screamed, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

I gave her a huge grin, hiding my true feelings.

No, I thought, this wasn't going to be fun at all.

"Your knuckles are still healing?" Malia mused, noticing the poorly-wrapped bandages adorning my hand as she glanced towards our interlocked hands.

"Yeah," I joked, gazing at the freshly-scabbed wounds littered along my knuckles.

"Well," Tasha snorted, "That bitch definitely got what she deserved. You're totally my hero for what you did."

"Yeah," Malia agreed, "Vera was a total snob the whole school year. You sure taught her a lesson. I just wish it happened sooner than the last day of our senior year."

I laughed along with the girls while we reminisced about our time in high school, like we hadn't just graduated a week ago. I prayed that they couldn't see through my artificial laugh.

I glanced out the window, staring at the azure sky, which was now clear of the clouds that had brought the morning drizzle. The girls continued to chatter behind me, but their voices became muted babble as I spaced out.

I massaged the bandages on my hands mindlessly, remembering back to the day I injured them.

My friends may had seen my fight with Vera as a simple act of reckless teenage stupidity, and I liked to tell myself that too.

But that petty fight was so much more than that. The last day of school, the day of the fight, my pent up frustration and anger concerning my mother and her recent actions had been building up throughout the day, and Vera's snarky attitude was simply my snapping point.

The poor girl, no matter how incredibly snobby and narcissistic, didn't necessarily deserve all of the anger that I had directed at her. She was just simply a scapegoat, something that I could focus my frustrations on.

But I couldn't let my friends know the true extent of my home life, so I continued to let them believe that the cause of my physical confrontation was solely because of Vera's bitchy personality.

The sting of my bleeding knuckles and the few bruises that Vera had managed to give me may have started to fade, but my true problems were still very prominent.