Wingless and Beautiful

Chapter Fourteen

Marmaroth – the angel who can thwart fate.

I would be joking if I said that the months of my life had been perfect. That everything was peachy, filled with smile and laughter, with an abundance of blessings and love. Sure, the nightmares didn’t come often since the day I met Hunter. But I lived each day in pain… a different kind of pain from what my mother and stepfather had left me.

Another first. My first heartbreak.

Surviving was a struggle for me. It was hell for Meredith too. She was the one who had to live with me while I tried to deal with a broken heart. And she had to be the one to take care of the bills with the small pay she received from the small-time jobs she got over the next year.

The day Hunter left, I listened to his voice message over and over. Just memorizing the sound of his voice. As I lay down in bed at nights, I imagined him lying down beside me, saying those words to me.

I wanted to be angry at him… shout at him and tell him how unfair he was. He made me fall in love with him, and then he would just leave? He didn’t even have a cellphone when I met him, so I wouldn’t know how to call him, talk to him, assure myself that he would come back to me.

But I knew, too, that because he fell in love with me, he found the courage and motivation to undergo an operation he should have taken a long time ago. Because of me, he wanted to be better, he wanted to be whole again. I just needed to trust and believe that someday, we will see each other again.

We moved to a smaller house because Meredith couldn’t afford the rent on our old house anymore. And she figured it would be safer for me because it was a bit closer to my school.

I went back to Leighton High a month after Hunter left. I tried to live among the humans again. And it hit me that for the past year, I had been living in a limbo. I got so scared of my own nightmares, I forgot that there were scarier things in real life.

The first day of school, the silence was deafening as I walked the corridor to my locker. Everybody was looking at me. They could not believe I had the guts, the courage and the face to go back to school. I could almost hear their thoughts. And they weren’t all pretty.

At first, I didn’t mind that they stayed away from me. Sure, they could look past my scars. I kept them well-hidden under my mass of brown hair. But I could not hide the fact that more than a year ago, my name was all over the papers with the headline, “Mother Kills Insane Stepfather for Torturing Teenage Daughter and then Commits Suicide.”

I stepped right out of a horror novel. And these beautiful, spoiled, rich kids could not believe the fact that I share the same campus with them. I was a stain in the spotless reputation of the school known for educating the town’s golden boys and girls.

During the first days, they were civil, polite even. But one week after, their thoughts were getting louder. Like they really wanted me to hear them.

Scarface.

Scary witch.

Hideous.

Monster.

She shouldn’t have been allowed to go back to this school.

There were some who didn’t think bad about me at all. Instead, they felt pity. And I wasn’t sure I wanted their thoughts either. I would never want to be treated with pity or be given special treatment just because of what happened to me. I just want to be normal… invisible even.

“Don’t mind them,” a voice said beside me as I was taking my things out from my locker one day.

I looked to my right and found a girl with dark blond hair and beautiful blue eyes stare back at me. I thought she was joking, pretending to be nice to get to my good side and then prepping me for a nasty prank later. But as I stare back at her, her smile seemed genuine and her eyes looked warm.

“I’m Denise Wesley,” she said, extending her hand to mine.

I haven’t seen her before. She must be new this year. I reluctantly shook her hand.

“Allison Harley,” I said in a quiet voice.

“I know. You’re all these people talk about,” she said, smiling at me apologetically.

“Well, whatever you heard about me, they’re probably true. And if in doubt, you can always Google me. I’m sure I’m on the news archive,” I said dryly.

She stared back at me for a moment and then she laughed. “I have Chemistry next. What’s your next class?”

I stared back at her trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Sure, there must be something. Because why else would she talk nicely to me? Like she genuinely wanted to be my friend.

“You’re… not on the school paper, are you?” I asked.

She gave me a confused look. “I couldn’t write to save my life, but why do you ask?”

I shoved a book back inside my locker and took out my Chemistry book. “I can’t think of a reason why you would want to talk to the school freak.”

“You’re the school freak?” she asked me with a wide-eyed expression. “I thought it was Queen Bee over there,” she said, pointing at Chelsea Braxton, the school’s most outgoing, most all-over-the-place girl.

“She is the absolute opposite of me. She thinks everybody likes her,” I said.

Denise grinned. “Exactly. She thinks that.” She shook her head. “I hate her. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

“Really?”

Denise shrugged. “She’s not pretty. She’s all makeup, fancy clothes and expensive bags. She can’t even tell preposition apart from proposition. Yet she acts like she’s so smart. And those Jimmy Choo pumps she’s wearing?” she asked and smirked. “Knock-offs. And yet she acts like she’s all-authentic.”

I stared at her blankly, not really sure why she was saying these to me.

“Her best friend? Candy Wilson? Pretty girl, huh. But that head of hers? Empty. Chelsea keeps her because she feels beautiful when Candy is around. Like… birds of the same feather flocking together. Yeah, right!”

“Why… why are you telling me this?” I asked.

Denise smiled. “To tell you that something is always wrong with somebody everywhere. Sometimes, people put you down to distract others from noticing their own imperfections. I went to grade school with them. Chelsea thinks that Candy lives beyond her means… and tries hard to be like her. And she called Candy’s brother a retard. I wonder how they’re still friends.”

I closed my locker and turned to her. She was right. I should actually pity people who had tiny brains and shallow minds instead of feeling belittled by them. “Let’s go to Chemistry,” I said, smiling at Denise.

From that day on, Denise and I became good friends. So far, one year had passed and she hasn’t done anything bad to me. Denise was genuine in wanting to be my friend.

I wrote to my diary every day. When I sat on my bedside to write, I would imagine Hunter sitting there beside me, listening to my thoughts, hearing me say the words I could not tell anybody else. I would close my eyes and remember his face… the way he would hold me in his arms and kiss me. Tears would roll down my cheeks because for a while, it was as if I could really feel his warmth enveloping me. I could feel all the love he had in his heart going out to me.

I thought about Hunter almost every waking hour. Each night before I went to sleep, I would say a prayer for him. I wish he was alright. That whatever operation he went through made him better… or at least did not make his condition worse.

I wish I had means to contact him. I wish I knew his number or his email address. But that was purely classified information at CRC and since Meredith had to take more than one job, she had been too busy to volunteer at CRC. She couldn’t access inside information that would give me news about Hunter.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months… and months turned into a year and a half… still no Hunter.

I Googled his name every day, hoping to God, I wouldn’t encounter some bad news about him. When I didn’t, I would say a little prayer of thanks. And I always prayed that he was safe, well and healthy.

“I always meant to ask you about your necklace,” Denise asked me one time. “Boyfriend?”

“Sort of,” I replied, because, in truth, Hunter and I never really said we were in an exclusive relationship with each other.

“What happened?”

“He… wasn’t well. He went away to have some… treatment,” I replied, the sadness in my voice could not be disguised.

Denise smiled at me ruefully. “Is he coming back?”

I sighed. “I pray every day that he will.”

“And until you know for sure, you are not going to date anybody?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have any intention of doing that. I still loved Hunter. And I still hoped every day that he would come back… even if he still couldn’t see. I didn’t care if he was blind. He was perfect to me. And he was the only one who saw me… made me feel worthy… even with my flaws, my past, and my scars.

“You’re pretty, you know,” Denise said.

I actually laughed at her statement. “And you’re crazy, you know.”

Denise shook her head. She reached out for my hair and fixed it on the side where my scar was, hiding them behind my locks. “I won’t be able to tell you have a scar if you fix your hair this way.”

“And what do you want me to do after?” I asked, raising a brow. “Cheat my way into getting a date?” I shook my head. “These scars are part of me. Sooner or later, a guy who would be interested enough to ask me out would see them and get turned off.”

“Come on, they aren’t bad. And you could get away with a great personality,” she said, trying to inflict a little positivity into me.

“I’m sure that’s what guys see the first time they look at you,” I said sarcastically. “Leave it be, Denise. I’m not interested in dating anybody. I… sort of promised somebody I would wait for him.”

“And if he doesn’t come back?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to think about that possibility. “I can’t bear the thought that something bad happened to him.”

“Okay. What if he got better… but decided to move on with his life without you?”

It was the first time I thought about that. It never really crossed my mind before. What if… what if Hunter got his sight back… and he went back to his old life? What if he chose to leave the past and the memories of his blindness behind? Could I really blame him if he decided not to come for me?

I shook the thought out of my mind. Hunter was not that shallow. And he made me a promise. I believed him. I believed he truly loved me. I believed he would come back to me.

Meredith was going out of town a lot, working for a big events company. If her company had a project in another state or town, she was required to go and stay there for a couple of days. I didn’t mind being left alone in the house. I was eighteen now. Plus, the last thing I wanted was to prevent her from going after her own dreams because she had to take care of me.