Dark Red | Tara Carpenter

02

12/25/2015
7th grade

Tara was watching TV curled up in a blanket, she had started playing her favorite horror movies to distract herself from the fact that once again, no one was home.

For Christmas this year, her mother was working and had simply left her an envelope with a lot of money in it, and Sam was somewhere probably doing drugs or getting drunk at a party.

But that wasn't what worried the little brunette, at least not the most.

Despite her best efforts to concentrate on the screen, his thoughts were elsewhere entirely. She no longer even took in the character's dialogues, while the way in which she had observed Sofia and her new friends laughing in the hallways shortly before the holidays echoed in her head.

She wasn't the type of person to be insecure, but that day. She had felt her chest becoming heavy like she had never felt it, her throat tightening like she had never experienced in an asthma attack, her eyes burning even more virulently than when a zest of lemon had landed unintentionally in her sensitive pupils.

All her emotions and fears increased tenfold when it came to Sofia. She couldn't control it, and it made her lose her mind.

Tara remembered how sad the girl looked because she had ignored her for the rest of the day without explanation. And how she had preferred that she start their Christmas break without being on a good basis all because Tara couldn't allow herself to get attached to or love someone. No matter in what way.

She wanted to prove to herself that Sofia didn't matter to her. That she could no longer talk to her, and ignore her without it doing anything to her. But her heart was pinched every time she replay Sofia's disappointed expression and soft eyes on her as she told her that she couldn't see her during the vacation.

And now it had been almost five days since she had seen her. Sofia and her perfect smile, Sofia and her hair always styled in different ways, always in another beautiful way every time. Sofia and her smell of cookies because it's  the only one thing she knows how to bake without blowing up her father's oven. Sofia and her little heart-adorned notes that she slipped into Tara's bag to ask her for asking the most basic things ever. Sofia whose favorite song is Dancing Queen by Abba, that she doesn't stop humming incessantly, but Tara wouldn't want her to stop. Sofia and her perfect shirts and blazers accompanied by headbands that made you think she had come straight out of an episode of Gossip Girl.

Gossip Girl that Tara watched entirely because Sofia also liked this series, even though they knew full well that she only liked true crime documentaries. But she still watched it, for Sofia. Just like Teen Wolf and Pretty Little Liars that Tara wouldn't even think of one day giving a chance to even watch one episode.

Sofia who had cried while watching Stab during their first sleepover together (while Tara had chosen this one because it was one of the least realistic and scary that she had in her collection). Sofia who subsequently insisted on watching Teen Beach Movie otherwise she wouldn't be able to fall asleep, and who sang during all the films.

Tara suddenly paused the movie and got up to grab some gingerbread. Something that Sofia hates, since she hates everything related to cinnamon. Which didn't stop her from stealing some from his father's reserves to give some to Tara.