Just read through this now. Really enjoying it... Can't wait to read more!
Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy this chapter, then.
C H A P T E R 3 . 4
Janessa Pfeiffer : Teen : Gained Hopeless Romantic
Cold. I was so cold, like it had started in my veins and was slowly turning my veins to ice, not ashes. It was nothing like how Aubrey had said it would be.
Then again, maybe I was cold because of the prison I'd been stuck in ever since I went to the stupid hospital. For some reason, Cassidy and Jerad saw me as a danger to my own health, so they locked me in the place that I never wanted to be. A place that I had tried to avoid during my entire childhood...because I hate feeling stuck.
My room. Yes, that's right. They locked me in my own room, with Steven screaming his head off every single night. I'm almost certain that I've gone crazy, only able to stare out the winter-frosted window at the snowflakes gently settling upon the garden that our family has tried so hard to not let die.
It was on the third day of my imprisonment that I saw her. My heart fluttered into my throat. I found myself pressed against the glass, smudging the precipitation into an unintelligible blob, but of course I didn't care in that moment.
Mallory was home.
Without thinking, I wrench the door open, even though it had been double-locked-- probably some sort of strength this wretched curse has given me-- and run down the stairs, my socks padding against the rug right in front of the door. Neither Cassidy nor Jerad had heard her come up the walkway, had heard her step onto the porch, but every one of my senses was fine-tuned to this moment.
I finally have a friend.
"Mallory," I whisper, enveloping her in the tightest hug I can possibly give. Which is saying a lot. She stands shocked in my embrace for a few seconds before tentatively wrapping her arms around me.
"What's wrong?" she asks me, searching my face. She always seemed to know things before even I did. Not that I remember her too well, since she went off to boarding school when I was only seven, but she used to come home every summer until she hit high school.
"Why are you home?" I ask, deflecting the question. I don't feel like telling the entire story to her right now and break the fragility of this moment. It could so easily shatter the minute that Cassidy walks out the front door and yells at me for leaving my room.
Nothing is going to happen. I'm safe. There's no sun outside.
I ignore the tiny voice in the back of my mind reminding me what Cassidy's warning was. That the curse can strike at any time, regardless of whether the sun is visible. Just like a sunburn, except it could cost you your life.
"Well, I just...I didn't like boarding school, Janessa," she says, dropping her eyes to the ground. I swallow hard. Cassidy won't like this.
"Why not?" I ask, as gently as I can, but unfortunately, gentle isn't really in my vocabulary. I tend to be very blunt.
She chews on her lip, lost in thought. Her glasses are starting to slip down her nose. "The girls there were mean, Janessa. And...the boys..."
"Yes?" I prod, curiosity overtaking the concern I'm forcing into my tone. Not that I don't care, it's just that I'm not used to showing weakness-- and concern is weakness in my book.
"They said some things to me," she finishes. "Can we go somewhere else? I don't want to deal with Mom yet."
"Yes," I say, relieved. "Let's go." I immediately turn on my heel, ready to go, but Mallory doesn't move.
"Um, do you know how to drive now?" she asks me.
"I mean, yes," I say, leaving out the part where I haven't actually passed a driving test yet, but I only ran into two trashcans and went over one curb last time I tried.
"Maybe I should drive," she suggests.
"Perhaps that would be better," I say, because I hate driving and am too stubborn to admit it.
Ten minutes later, we arrive at the Winter Festival. It's nearing closing time-- the booths are all closed, but the smells of popcorn and peppermint permeate the fairgrounds. Night is quickly falling over Sunset Valley, but I was never one to follow curfew, anyway.
"Now, tell me what's wrong," I command her, crossing my arms in front of my chest. Now that I'm outside in the biting cold, I actually feel warmer than I was in my room, where I could only pretend I was out here in the snow. Snow. I'm finally feeling snow. I refrain from trying to build a snowman right then and there. Too childish. I'm a teenager now.
"They were so mean," Mallory bursts out, tears brimming in her eyes. I always forget how purple her eyes are until she's upset. "They excluded me from everything...and I would try and sit with them, to be friends with them, and they just laughed at me. I mean, they would get up and move their trays to another table just because I was there. I did everything for them. Everything."
"Mallory, you can't let people like that push you around," I tell her, unsure of how to truly comfort her. "What did you do for them?"
She wipes her cheeks, even though no tears have fallen yet, and re-adjusts her glasses back on her nose. "They told me that if I wanted to be friends with them, I had to go through initiation."
"But what was involved in that?" I press. She shakes her head, unwilling to go on. I push down my frustration and take a few deep breaths to re-balance my emotion. "What did the boys do? Why didn't you try making friends with other groups?"
"They have influence," she says. "They basically told everyone to ignore me."
I shake my head. I can't understand why she wouldn't fight back. Why she wouldn't tell those girls to suck it up and get a life. But I'm not Mallory, and she's not me. I can't force her to do something that's already happened, or to go back to somewhere she doesn't feel accepted.
"What about you, Janessa?"she asks, breaking the silence. "Cassidy told me...about your birthday."
"Yeah," I say lightly, not wanting to turn it into a big deal, but a shudder runs down my spine as I remember how dead I looked, just laying there on the ground.
We spend a couple hours at the Festival, but eventually it becomes clear that all Mallory can think about is how Cassidy will react to the news, so we go home at around ten.
Sure enough, when we get home, Cassidy is waiting patiently for us at the door, because she's a police-woman and she's got this whole routine down.
"Where have you been?" she asks us, tapping her foot. "Janessa, why did you leave your room when Jerad and I explicitly told you to stay there until further notice?"
"Because you were holding me against my will," I shoot back. "Surely you've heard of that, being a police officer and all?" Before she can reply, I run upstairs and lock myself into the spare room. Ivan's sleeping in the corner, and my arrival does nothing to bring him out of his dreams.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I glance at the alert, expecting to see a status update from someone on SimBook, or an email from the school asking yet again why I was gone for six weeks, or a pointless game pop-up. But it's none of those.
No, it's a text from her.
The horrid cold anger spikes through me, and I curl my fingers around the hard metal of my phone. Some sort of instinct stops me from crushing it into scrap, but the words of the status update I read three days ago still echoes in my head, no matter how violently I push it to that dark corner of my head.
Robyn Sekemoto has updated her status to "In a Relationship" - with Jeremy Ansari.I realize that it's not accurate to say that she stole my boyfriend, since a) we weren't dating, and b) she had every right to ask him out, but still. I
told her, in
confidentiality, that I liked him, and what did she do with that information?
I have half a mind to call her up right now and scream at her through the phone, but I stop myself, my finger hovering over the little phone icon. I could press it, and she wouldn't hear the end of it until Cindy heard her crying in her room.
And then, without realizing it, I accidentally press that stupid icon.
"Hello?" I say, injecting as much confidence as I can into my tone. Which isn't too hard. We all know who has the upper hand here, in a battle between a vampire and a Sim.
"Janessa?"
The phone slips out of my grasp and tumbles to the ground, clattering across the wood flooring loud enough to wake Ivan up. He grunts and looks up at me with big, reproachful eyes.
"Sorry," I mouth to him, and then pick my phone up again.
"Hello, Jeremy," I say, my anger dissipating at the sound of his voice. I try to hold on to it, to remember why I was so mad, but it's like trying to hold onto smoke; it slips out of my grasp.
"I haven't talked to you in forever," he says, and I think about correcting him, but then decide against it at the last second.
And then, my voice betrays me. "Could you come over?"
"Um, right now?"
"When else, Jeremy Ansari? Hurry up. I'll be waiting for you outside. Don't come in. Cassidy's mad again."
And then I hang up, wondering how I managed to call him when I thought Robyn was the one who texted me, and also why I can't seem to let go of this boy who has caused me nothing but trouble.
A/N: I'm not going to launch into a long, pointless explanation about why I was gone (because it's all just from being busy), so please enjoy this chapter, and expect an update at
least once bi-weekly. I can hold to that! If you're confused about who all these people are, the family tree has been updated (with minor spoilers). If you don't want to go to the family tree, then here's a quick rundown of the main characters: Janessa is the third generation heiress, and her parents are Cassidy and Jerad (nee Bunch). She has three siblings (Spencer, Mallory, and Steven), but Spencer and Mallory are older, while Steven is still a kid. Cindy Sekemoto is Janessa's cousin, and her daughter is Robyn Sekemoto (so, that would be second cousin? first cousin once removed?). And Jeremy Ansari has been Janessa's good friend since they were kids. I hope that helps, and thank you so much for reading! 2000 views seems crazy to me, so even if you're a silent reader, I appreciate you reading this little story. (:
