Black Lion - A Short Story

Black Lion (5)

Chapter Five

The next few weeks passed too quickly, summer faded into the school year and before I knew it, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of my new school. Sure it was nothing new, but being the new kid wasn’t exactly what I consider fun. At least I had Colleen. I let her walk to school upon her insistence, I guess it was a tradition or something. Or maybe it was her mom… I don’t know. Colleen ran over to my car.

“Come on Aria! I’ll show you around,” She said into my open window. I closed it, got out and locked the doors to follow her. Everyone stared at us, probably because there were no other kids like us around. There were whores, jocks, nerds, but no scene kids that I could see.

“I feel so out of place here,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry, there are a few of other people like us if we can befriend them,” Colleen said. We wandered through the kids to the office. The secretary looked at me with great disdain as she handed me the paper. It was probably the nose ring. She didn’t recognize Colleen. That was funny. Her eyes almost popped out of her head.

“What have you done to yourself?” She asked. We laughed and walked out.

“I really shouldn’t be so mean,” Colleen thought out loud.

“No, people are cruel, the only way to win is to be colder than they are,” I said and strutted down the hall in search of my locker.

“Isn’t that the truth, everyone teased me before,” She said.

“Just come up with some good comebacks.” Finally, I reached my locker, dumped my crap in and set up my multiple mirrors. I looked at myself and had to admit I did good this morning. I was in a black cami, with a black slouchy one shoulder shirt on, some skin tight jeans washed dark and black leather boots with heels and chains. My purple locks were curled around me and my make up was smokey as always. Colleen looked really awesome too. She had a bright red v-neck on with black skinny jeans and red pumps to match. It also went with her hair. Together, we looked pretty awesome.

“I am so proud!” I said as I looked Colleen over. She did a spin.

“It’s all thanks to you,” She said. I laughed and shut the lock on my door. I looked at my schedual and leaned against my locker. Colleen looked over to read it.

“It looks like you have English, History with me, lunch also with me, Gym and Computer programming,”  She explained. I nodded.

“Perfect… I hate gym,” I complained. Colleen laughed. Finally the bell rang and Colleen showed me my classroom. It was disgustingly yellow. I took the seat in the very back corner, farthest away from the teacher. A few more kids started filtering in and I vaguely saw some guy walk up and tap his foot at me. I had to rake all of my obscenely long hair out of my face until I could see him. Oh my goodness, it was the guy from the tattoo place.

“You’re in my seat,” He pointed out. I just shrugged, not really up for words. He sighed and sat beside me.

“I see your nose is healing well,” He said.

“You recognize me?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah, I have to say, I’m glad to see the blonde gone, there are too many in this town.”

“I know, it’s why I dyed it purple,” I said. He laughed.

“It looks good,” He complimented.

“Thank you,” I replied with a smile.

“While I was talking to you in the club I thought it was black,” He admitted shyly.

“At least it’s not blonde,” I said confidently.

“Of course, I’m Ronnie,” He finally said shook my hand.

“Aria.” Then the teacher walked in. Ugh. She started rambling about something. Ronnie looked like he was going to die of boredom. A piece of paper hit my desk with a small thud. I looked at Ronnie, who had a childish smile on his face.

‘So, what’s your story?’ It read. I smiled and wrote back.

‘Foster brat, I’m always moving.’ I saw Ronnie’s eyebrows go up.

‘I wouldn’t take you for one.’ He wrote back.

‘They never do.’ He laughed at that one.

‘Why did you get moved so much?’ How do I answer that one? I can’t tell him I killed innocent people…

‘It’s complicated…’ I wrote. We went back and forth, he was trying to convince me to tell him. It shocked me when I got it back about twenty minutes later with a message that said;

‘I killed a man.’ In his writing. My eyes opened wide.

“Yeah I know,” He whispered looking down. I quickly scribbled down on the paper.

‘So did I.’ And I threw it back. He almost fell out of his chair in shock.

‘Is that why you kept getting moved?’

‘Yeah…’ I threw it back. To my delight, the teacher told us to socialize with each other. Ronnie instantly turned to me.

“Who was the first?” He asked intently.

“My mom,” I replied hesitantly. I wasn’t expecting to tell him any of this, at least not today.

“That’s brutal.”

“So was she,” He laughed at my remark. “Who was yours?” I asked quietly.

“Football captain a few years back,” he said. We chatted after that about where we came from, where we’ve been. The last was where I lived now. Just before the bell rang I told him about the cemetery.

“You really shouldn’t go in there at night, there are things more dangerous than you,” He joked and left as the bell rang.