FIC: Spelling Black Truths :: Chapter One :: Sad Echo
Author's note: Just found this lying in a pile of things written a bit ago. Sorry if you liked Writing Little Black Truths but I'm working a new angle with this fresher and imo better version. I don't know when you should even expect an update, though, since I haven't worked on it in a year or so and have so many other fanfics vying for my attention at the moment.
They are the cream of the crop. They have it all: cool friends, cool rides, cool clothes. They are the football jock and the cheerleader. Chad Butler and Emma Banks are, naturally, an item. They think they know everything about each other. They don't.
FOREWORD
My mother owns many masks. Vibrant masks, intricately decorated masks, animal masks, fairy-like masks… But the one that always had me mesmerised was the blank one. An empty face stared back at me, fearsome. Everyday as I let the dog out the backdoor, I gazed at it, petrified as it judged me, the beautiful white mask devoid of human expression facing the terrified young woman that I was becoming.
What if it saw the disgusting truths inside of me?
CHAPTER ONE: SAD ECHO
Maneuvering the car deftly through the school’s parking lot, Emma felt her neck prickle uncomfortably. Then again, she hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this last year at Randall High, but no one would dare to think that Emma Banks cared for much more than her appearance. Or her boy. How wrong they were.
Standing some ways away from her, Chad Butler surveyed the scene calmly, dark shades covering his eyes as he leaned against his car. Seeing Emma after three months of welcomed absence brought a bad taste to his mouth. After reacquainting himself with his genuine buddies, this was what he knew would top his list of things he would have been happy to forgo.
“Yo, Chad.” Danny nudged him to get his attention. “Sean and I, we’re hitting the old hangout this after. You down?” At Chad’s extended brooding silence, Danny followed his line of sight and whistled low. “Man, your little separation over the summer will pay off, methinks. I wish your mom would fly me off to England.”
Chad rolled his eyes. There was nothing to gloss over. His mother had flown him in and basically trapped him in an office to do data entry. Fun. “My mom will never fly you in. That’s just all kinds of wrong.”
Danny smiled mischievously. “And you need to get your ass over to Miss Hotlips 30 paces left before someone else tackles her thinking she’s free,” he taunted with another nudge.
“All right, all right.” Pushing himself off the hood of his car with a grunt, Chad slid his sunglasses into the vee of his shirt. Danny didn’t know it, but he was torturing Chad, who wanted nothing more than to just walk away without passing Go or collecting two hundred dollars. And yet a sick and twisted part of him just couldn’t help it. He reached Emma as she bent over to retrieve her schoolbag from the backseat. Naturally, she wore a short skirt. Natural male reaction equals that he peeked. Naturally. “Hey.”
He knew it was a Bad Idea to even begin with. Chad didn’t even like her; they’d broken it off easily at the end of last year. No awkward crying, no hissy fits… as if she too didn’t care about the outcome of their on-off relationship. Not that anyone else knew what had been not-said, unless she’d talked to her friends, which he doubted because they’d be bitched out by now at sight of him.
No, Emma had even seemed relieved to be rid of him. And so was he.
He had nothing in common with the girl, with the exception that they both went to the same school and belonged to the popular crowd. Yes, she was pretty, there was no denying it, but she had that little something about her that screamed “superficial!” In fact, she was everything about a girl that he couldn’t help but dislike.
Actually, Chad knew he’d smack himself in the near future, but he hung on for dear life knowing he was once again making the biggest mistake of his life: trying to get Emma back.
#
Emma turned around even before the sound of the familiar male voice reached her ears and nearly lost her carefully put-together composure.
“Hey.” So that was her intelligent retort? Hey? She stared at her toe-baring sandals, seeing her friend Nicole walk past her toward Danny and the gang from the corner of her eye.
Breathing in deeply, she gazed back up, steeling herself for… whatever he’d come here to talk about. Though she had her idea. Deal with it. Here she was powery, sexy blonde bombshell Emma Banks. Nothing got through her without her approval.
“How was your summer?” she asked coyly, taking in Chad’s moody, handsomely sculpted features and piercing grey eyes. His wifebeater stretched across broad shoulders and hard pecs; he must have worked out during the months off, though as she recalled he’d said he was just taking an office job with his mother.
Strictly as a girl, she had to admire the sight of him. As Emma Banks she wanted to just walk as far away from Chad Butler as possible. The guy was trouble. She had to remember that.
Chad shrugged cooly. “Hung out, you know.” His eyes left her and he scratched the back of his neck as though at a loss for what to say next.
Emma replied with a non-commital noise. This was getting awkward. “Listen, I need to get going.” She mentally winced. First day of school and she needed to go somewhere? What a convenient lie. As she started to walk toward the nondescript brown and grey building, Chad hailed her again.
“Emma! You down for lunch?”
Halting, Emma turned to him and was about to turn down his none-too-romantic offer when she caught his gang and Nicole looking on expectantly. Of course, the story always went like this: jock asks head cheerleader out, they live in bogus beatitude until… the last of their high school days. And, truth be told, it was fun to pretend, but only the first time. This? Was the fourth time. And the plastic fairy tale was getting harder to uphold faithfully.
So when she replied “yes” like a good little cheerleader, she damn near broke down screeching. But dating Chad Butler had become a bad habit that fit in her high school life like a glove. Some might say she was a masochist.
Emma stood still a long time, staring at Chad’s retreating back with a sinking feeling. Fear. Sadness. Deceit. In herself? Oh yes.
She left her dignity behind as she crossed Randall High’s threshold.