Being Shot

P h o t o #22 - Rusty Red Swings

P h o t o #22 - Rusty Red Swings

~ Kayla's POV, continuing from the last chapter~

We were moving. Not far, not far at all. Just fifteen minutes away from our regular sized house.

My parent's product hit it off in the Caribbean, they were even offered a ten year contract with the company down there. They flew back immediately to inform our family of this. They were going to make millions. We were going to move from lower-middle class up to the favorable upper class. Somehow the news didn't bring me one shred of happiness.

The bright smiles of my parents face's made me question what caused me such distress. I knew this was they're dream and they're lifetime devotion had finally paid off, so why was my smile so fake? Why did my father's tight embrace make me want to cry? Why did my mother and brother's laughs form a lump in my throat?

Dim blue orbs shattered the very fragments of my brain just at the thought of them. The way Jonas had looked at me, the way he looked himself, was something I couldn't fathom. It had only been one day. How could a short 24 hours leave a once bright, innocent looking boy haggard and messy, I would never know.

To this day I still didn't fully know.

Soon, after the move, I was able to gain some confidence through the fancy clothing and elegant parties our family was forced to attend. But the thing was, while my brother mumbled and grumbled about the outings, I seemed to get excited for each one to come.

That was only the beginning of us slowly drifting apart.

I began standing up for myself, slowly fitting the image of a now perfect little rich girl by the end of the year. And I loved it. I loved having power over the people who had made me suffer. I loved seeing the girls' faces as I told them off whenever they dared to say a word about me.

But, I soon realized that this left me completely empty inside. That the feeling I thought had finally filled me up after the years of emptiness only left me with more of an abyss in my heart.

I never used this power that I had suddenly gained on Jonas. I had never really forgotten about him, he and Cooper were still friends after all. I respected that relationship, even if my eleven year old self couldn't admit it. They made each other happy, and the more I watched Jonas day by day, month by month until the end of sixth grade, he seemed to need every little bit of it. Though, soon even they're contact began to dwindle. This was only the beginning of the welling worries inside me.

The blonde boy's appearance was the first to falter. Messy hair and dark rimmed eyes, crumpled clothes and scuffed shoes were what began to greet our class everyday. Then, his grades began to plummet; first slowly, then as if a lever was pulled one day, rapidly they fell. Along with his social status. His friends among our grade were the last to go. One by one they left his side when they realized they had nothing to gain being next to him.

I watched this unfold day after day, while seemingly I gained everything he had lost.

While he was being forced to be held back another year, I was being promoted to the school's honor role system. While his attendance to the school sports tournaments stopped, my attendance at fancy parties and auctions of beautiful items expanded in all varieties.

I knew I should have been happy about our switch of luck, with karma doing it's dirty work for me and all, but I felt everything but that sweet, relieving feeling.

The day our teacher announced the divorce of Jonas Smith's parents was the reason of his deteriorating attendance records was the day something inside of me snapped.