The Fall

Prologue

The thing you need to understand about Ryder Mitchell is that he never really thought of himself as human, more like a strange collage of female fantasies that we, as mere girls, were just helpless to resist. He wore leather jackets with baggy jeans, and I always suspected that his intensive hairspray use was singlehandedly responsible for the hole in the ozone layer. God, I don't think I'll ever forget how he smelled: a putrid mix of Newport Menthol cigarettes, cheap boxed wine, and cologne that he stole from his father.

I should have known from the moment we met; he was a senior, I was a freshman, making his pursuit of me a red flag in and of itself. I don't want to say I was innocent back then, but I was naïve- I thought I could change him, clear the smoke from his lungs and replace his heart with something pure and romantic. I hate myself for it, because even he himself told me that was impossible:

"Honey, I'm never going to change unless you cut your bullshit first. You're the problem here, whether you like it or not."

That was the thing with him- he was was obsessed with games, deals, and promises. Ryder lived his life like the love interest in a romance novel, always striking up deals with girls like me. He would stop smoking, if you stopped hanging out with your guy friends. He would give you your cell phone back, if you let him sleep with you. He would be try to be better, but you had to be perfect first.

I remember when we met like it was yesterday. We were waiting for the afternoon bus, the early September heat stifling and claustrophobic. I was on the outskirts of the building, against the wall, with my earbuds in when he came up to me, ripping out my left headphone and demanding my attention.

"Vargas," he said, his pitchy, low voice sending ice through my veins. "Kacey Vargas, age fourteen, and my soon to be new girlfriend. Am I right, sweetheart?"

"Who...who are you?"

I remember trying to turn, left, right, anywhere to get away from him. He had a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and a leather jacket entirely too warm for early September- he was heat, fire, a flame crawling towards you just a little bit faster than you were able to run. Ryder placed his hands on the wall, leering over me and casting a shadow over my body. I'm not particularly diminutive, keep in mind; he had maybe four inches, fifteen or twenty pounds on me. But in that second, I felt imprisoned by the fire.

Here's a moment I cling to whenever I feel ashamed, or guilty about how innocently stupid I was- because the next thing I did was get away. I ducked under his right arm, the sun hitting me again as I revealed myself and emerged from his grasp.

This is the story of us- the naive freshman and the charming senior, the girl in the skinny jeans and the boy in the leather jacket, the prey and the predator.

Maybe you think there's nothing to learn from me- you're smarter than that, I know. You would have left the minute he started, wouldn't you? But if someone buys you chocolate, shows up at your front door in tears over his actions, offers you cigarettes on the school rooftop at midnight? I think you'd stay, too.

I'm writing this for reasons I can't really define; I'm graduating college in three months, after all. Robotics engineering, at Virginia Tech. (That's right, I even got out of West Virginia). Everything is ahead of me now, and if you're reading this and you have a story like mine, I want you to know that it's possible to get out while you still can. I'm mostly happy now, I honestly am. But sometimes I still wonder about what I could have done, or what I can do to prevent people like Ryder from having other victims. So here I am. This is my story, as best as I remember it, in chronological order. I'm going to try to reproduce conversations exactly how I remember them, but I make no guarantees. Here goes nothing.

-- Kacey, hopefully.