The Girl Who Feared Men (SAMPLE)

Chapter 7: Demons

Ellie

When I was little, I used to be terrified of the dark. It was every child's worst nightmare and I was not an exception. I spent a good portion of my childhood convinced that monsters hid under my bed or in my closet. That they lingered in the darkness and came out to haunt me at night. Whenever I look back on those days, I think of how naive and foolish I was. It wasn't the dark I should have been afraid of.

If demons come out at night then where are they hiding in the morning? Do they walk among us? Perhaps they lurk in our shadows, watching our every move and waiting for the sun to set to reveal themselves. It would be too easy to believe that they simply perish in the morning. That when daylight comes all our problems miraculously vanish. Yeah, it would be easy. But if there's one thing I knew, it was that even when we can't see them, our demons are always there. Following us around in light and darkness.

And if that's the case, wouldn't you want to know where your demons are hiding rather than be blinded by them in daylight?

I would.

At least then I'd be ready. Or so I thought.

"WE AREN'T READY. LIKE, AT ALL." Kiara yells at me and Julianna.

"Kiara, calm down, everything's going to be fine-" I begin.

"That's what you've been saying for the past three days Ellie. And is everything fine? No. Are we ready? No. Are the tryouts today? YES!" Kiara huffs.

Kiara continues to complain about how unprepared we are as Julianna and I exchange a look. It was seven thirty in the morning, which is way too early for either of us to carry out a conversation with her. We are standing in the empty field behind our school that we'd been using to practice our cheerleading routine and Kiara was right. We weren't ready.

We swore on our lives that we'd practice everyday before school, afterschool, and at lunch but things didn't exactly go according to plan. Thanks to Chase's detentions, our practices after school and during lunch were cut short. If that wasn't bad enough, because Kiara had a habit of sleeping in every morning, our morning practices were pretty much nonexistent. To make matters worse, we all convinced ourselves that food was more important than any school team tryout and slacked off during the only two lunch practices we had. So, in the past three days we've met up twice to practice our routine and with only five dance moves, our chances of making the cheerleading tryouts were looking pretty slim.

"Kiara...we're all tired, now's not the time to complain about how irresponsible we were," Julianna sighs.

"But babe!" Kiara whined.

Julianna gives Kiara a look that shuts her up and Kiara frowns and crosses her arms over her chest. Julianna stares at Kiara for a minute before rolling her eyes and then grabbing her face and placing a kiss right on her lips. When she pulls away Kiara has a goofy grin on her face. I can't help but smile at how adorable they are.

I'd asked Julianna to tell me how they met but she refused, claiming that it was a long story. I settled on the explanation on how they're still together even though they're polar opposites.

"Kiara's kind of like a puppy." She'd said. "You gotta feed her, take her out for walks, and she gets really excited when she meets new people but at the end of the day all she really needs is some love and then she's alright."

It didn't make sense to me at the time but now I kind of see it.

"Okay, love birds, we still have to figure out what we're doing," I say as they continue to stare at each other. "Alright! Come on! break it up!" I say, snapping my fingers in between sentences