Double Negative

Lucky Star

She was beautiful. 

He was popular, for reasons unbeknownst to her.

She was considered the ultimate challenge to players.

He was fuckboy, according to her.

She was, albeit not on purpose, a heartbreaker.

He accepted the challenge.

☆

She sat there, quietly drawing. Her beautiful face stoic, yet gorgeously illuminated by the midday sun shining through the clouded sky.

Friendless, the girls envied her, saying that she thought she was too good for them, but in truth, she was too shy to say even one sentence to anyone, let alone her teachers.

Even with glasses, boys thought she was perfect, if only they knew the scars on her wrist and her hot tears in the dead of night.

Although she was terrified of talking to people, she always insulted them in her head, in an attempt to ease the loneliness.

One day, during testing, she brought colorful skinny strips of paper.  Each said words yet everyone was too far away to read them.

She started folding.

Each made a little star, no more than an inch in diameter.

He immediately recognized them, they were called lucky stars.  He was smarter than they gave him credit for yet refused to show it, due to his classmates' lack of friendliness towards child prodigies such as the silent beauty at the back of the room.

The girl, Bookworm, as they called her, was this boy's new target. The boy was the school's most accomplished 'lady killer.'

It wasn't hard to make her blush, but to talk was a different story.

You see, she wasn't only shy, but selective mute as well.

Bitch #1, as Bookworm referred to her, came squandering up to said girl, forcing the sideways motion of her nonexistent 'hips' in an attempt to look sexy to anyone who sneaks a glance.

"Hey, slut, yeah I'm talking to you bitch," Bookworm flinched and looked up in fear, "What you think you're too good to talk to me? Huh bitch?"

"The world you be better off if you killed yourself."

The bell rang, Bookworm rushed out of the room small, silent tears slowly slipping down her face, accidentally leaving two lucky stars in her rush to get out.

The boy picked up one and unfolded it out of curiosity of what it said, 'to them, one day I'm prude and the next, I'm a slut.'

The next day, Bookworm came back, but her once long curly hair was cut to her jawline, over a foot of soft strands were cut off.
Faintly around her neck, he could make out rope burns, how did that happen?

The girls came up to her again, squawking insults. But today, they slapped her after she didn't answer.

She went home and hung herself, all she left was a two inch lucky star and a post-it note saying to read the star.

At her funeral, the star was unfolded and read, 'They told me to kill myself, so I did. You're welcome." That reminded the boy of the other paper star he had kept in his pocket from months earlier.

Later when he got home, he unfolded it and read it. He never, no one ever, knew the extent of what she felt, how badly she wanted to be happy.

☆

'I used to think that if I made enough lucky stars, it would make me lucky enough for the bullying to stop and for me to be happy'