Damar Prep

Chapter one.

He's dead. My prom date is dead and it isn't my fault.

I can't do anything but stare at his lifeless body, in shock. I take a deep shaky breath in.

Suddenly my feet give out beneath me and I'm on the ground. My throat tightens as if someone has their hands around my neck, choking me. I hold my throat gasping for air but it doesn't do any good. Eventually, my body can't take anymore and the nightmare around me goes dark.

"Jessa you're very handsome date is here!" My aunt Kate calls for me from downstairs.

My stomach drops and I can't really tell if it's in a good way or a bad way. Tonight is the night every girl looks forward to since day one of freshman year. Every girl except me. The only reason I'm going is a promise I made to my aunt about being a normal girl with a normal life a few years ago, just before I started dating my boyfriend, Jake.

I take one last look in the mirror. Just like my life, everything is perfect on the outside. My dress hugs my body in all the right places and the navy blue compliments my skin and my long curly blonde hair which is pulled up in an extravagant up due, courtesy of my aunt.

My parents died in a car crash when I was three years old. They died at the scene and I walked away with nothing but a scar on my right arm. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I didn't walk away from that accident. My therapist says that is just a dark thought but I think it's the opposite. I think that living is the dark thought. I didn't tell my therapist that because she would think I'm suicidal and involve my aunt and uncle, which would be a situation I don't want to deal with. I'm not suicidal. I'm not. Just ready to find a new life and a new start.

I miss my parents--I tell myself--or maybe I just miss the idea of them.

How do you miss someone you don't remember?

"Jessa?" My aunt calls again bringing me back from the dark part of my reality.

"Coming, Aunt Kate." I say back. I smooth my dress down and walk down the stairs.

My date, Jake Thompson--the most popular guy at school, captain of the football team, and my boyfriend on two years--is standing at the bottom of the stairs in a black and white swoon-worthy tux with a tie that matches my dress. My heart skips a beat.

"Hi." He smiles. Looking at me up and down, checking me out. Back at you, handsome. I wink.

"Hi." I say shyly.

"You look beautiful." He wraps his arm around my waste.

"Thank you." I pause. "So do you, babe."

"Pictures!" Aunt Kate squeals, making us both jump.

What felt like a hundred pictures later my aunt finally releases us.

Instead of the typical limo for prom, we all pitched in and rented a party bus for the night. My best friend, Samantha, and her boyfriend, Daniel, sit next to me. There are a few other couples on the bus but they're more of Jake's friends than they are mine.

A few hours into prom and Jake has disappeared for the fifth time tonight. "Have you seen Jake?" I ask Samantha. I have to yell for her to be able to hear me over the music.

"I think I saw him go outside or something." She says casually until she sees my face. "Hey, don't worry. You guys have been dating for what? Two years? You guys are good, perfect in fact." She says reassuringly. My stomach twists into knots. Samantha doesn't know our relationship and how he is when no one is looking. My relationship with him is definitely not perfect. "Come on, get out of your head. Let's go dance." She laughs grabbing my hand and leading me to the dance floor.