Cand(y)ice

1

''How did you get that?'', my friend Layne asked, as I proudly showed her the wound on the back of my hand. Her emerald eyes lit up with surprise, almost admiration, and that single detail, that single spark, was enough for me to feed my heart for awhile.

''My pet hamster bit me. I had to remove its teeth one by one!'', I spit out hyperboles, as the bell rang. Recess was about to end, and soon we made our way towards the school building in a trail of sunshine and night skies.

Would she, could she see through the innocent third grader that I was? And could I see through myself, see through the night I spent scratching my skin until it bled, peeling it, all for the eyes of others?

''Candice, it's time to wake up...'', a voice echoed through the void of my screaming mind: the dreams were gently singing, yet the pitch was going down, down, down...

No.

I was not going to start my story with a morning sequence, where the girl with perfect blonde curls wakes up to her radiant reflection, does her skincare, and leaves the house, a slice of bread still between her perfectly painted heart-shaped lips. I was no clean girl, my blond hair was just a part of the web of lies around me, which, only from their ardor, matched the thickness of my curls.

''I have corrected your essays, which, I have to say, show some obvious progress. Though, the results still are no far from mediocre for the majority of the class. Now, I will read you Candice's work, as she was the only one to be able to move me with her words.'', hearing the teacher call my name, I was brought back to reality. He smiled at me, his lips going up while his eyes turned into downwards moon crescents. Out of pride and politeness, I smiled back, feeling my cheeks tighten up around my bones. His mouth opened in a cough, and soon my ink ran through the whole room.

''When I saw you for the first time, something in me changed. It wasn't because of your eyes, deep as my feelings and laughing in a way similar to that of moon crescents in a starless sky. No more was it your smile, the way in which your lips went up, on their tiptoes, as my adrenaline. It wasn't even due to your way of expressing yourself, your manner of turning every sentence into poetry and every word into melody. No, what stuck to my soul, and led to endless nights wondering about your whereabouts, was the realization you would never be mine. Your eyes, so deep as the sea, will never drown my gaze so longing. Your smile, never in my direction, will forever break my heart in half in the most romantic way... And your words, so gentle, will never be meant for my ears, yet even so my heart swallows down every one of them, to calm this hunger for this sensation so familiar yet so far away... If my feelings are never to be reciprocated, and if to you I will never be more than just another voice in a cacophony, then I can forever drown in my infatuation, and that, always... Truly always... Endlessly. Our story will never be a novel, words will never write themselves, but we will become poetry... short, meaningful, and forever inked into my veins. Forever... With a different meaning each time...''

As the teacher finished, everyone clapped, and with each sound of their hands I felt mine start shaking. I had poured my soul into this essay, my words fueled by imagination and my hand fueled by inspiration. Their eyes, all on me, were enough to make my mind break into songs and my heart break down, down, down... down into my bladder. Maybe that was the reason why I wanted to escape to the bathroom, and try to stop my heart from being attacked.

''Very good work, Candice. As always.'', Mr. Delettre let out, and I nodded, looking down. He would never know.

He would never know the starless skies I referred to were those of summer 1984. He would never know that the reason my 'love' could never truly be mine was that the only bed he could lay in was his tomb. And, even less would he ever know that that man I obsessed over, and still am infatuated with, was a serial killer.

I did not want to name him. Him who stalked night and those in it. A man who legally killed 14, and injured many more, physically and emotionally, in his summertime madness. A man who drew pentagrams in his crime scenes, who believed that he would never be caught for Satan would always side with the evil. A man who had given up on love, and happiness, a long, long time ago. Longer than his hair, during his endless trial in the years following his capture...

Mr. Delettre's lips kept moving, as I started biting mine until I felt the sides of my mouth itch. I had developed pretty bad facial eczema from scratching my skin for as long as I could remember, and though it had been with me for awhile I could never forget the way it pulled the attention away from the brown of my eyes, in a trail of bumpy red roads.

I did not know why I was attracted to acts of such violence. And I did not know why my fingers were moving by themselves, peeling the skin off of my thumb. All I knew, was that this mere train of thoughts had taken me away from the teacher's voice, into a whole new void. A void where I could be recognized, not as an emotional know it all with hair of sand and eyes of water, but as more than a beach.

"What's so funny, Candice?", I felt someone poke me, as I chuckled silently at my failed metaphor. I had finally gotten back into the mood for class, but as always Elan had to interfere with my mind.

"The fact I'm still talking to you after you completely ruined my notebook.", I answered, glaring at his hand, which kept drawing onto my notes, leaving them full of scribbles that even a mess like me considered messy. The only thing added to the word was a "y", for "why". Why did I have to be his desk mate, the second year in a row? Why couldn't it be a serial killer... with the deathly gaze and deathly eyes... No... I had to focus.

"Seriously?", I sighed as he proceeded to erase some of the words I had just written. From the way some turned to look at me, my voice had been louder than I would have wanted it to be. I looked down, feeling my cheeks heat up, not from eczema this time. Thankfully I was a good student, for if I was not the teacher would have already sent me out to the principal's. I had been there a few times, though all have been because of the school's ridiculous dress code.

"You spelled the word wrong.", Elan whispered, putting my eraser back into my pencil case. Who was he to judge me, he had never beaten me at spelling, in fact, nobody had... I felt my cheeks flash from pink to red, as I tried to sigh in the most menacing way possible. Oh, if only next year... this annoying mess of a desk mate could be replaced by a mysterious serial killer à la Night Stalker...

As I realized he was drawing with non-erasable ink, I rolled my eyes. Stars. The asshole was drawing stars. What did that have to do with our assignment. Grabbing my pen, I sighed, turning his childish attempt at art into a trail of black pentagrams.

"So blondie is a satanist.", he chuckled, as I ripped off another patch of skin from my finger. This pain, though sudden, was comforting, the only thing calming me down. I had always thought anger issues and self harm were related, for the latter was just the same as punishing a misbehaving child. The only difference, was that the child was, in fact, myself. I sighed again, feeling my breathing ease up.