Freshman may be fresh meat...

I always need to hide. When I was little I knew I wasn't like the other kids. It wasn't until I was 9 years old that I realized I could never really be myself.

It was in the early summer of my second grade year when I stumbled upon a documentary when flipping through channels. It was about this ugly little ginger boy who murdered his next door neighbor. He committed the crime when he was 12 years old, and now he was giving a prison interview at the age of 26. The in-house psychologist had diagnosed him as a sociopath with bipolar disorder. He was talking about how that murder and diagnosis ruined his life. It stuck with me that everyone can see that, and everyone associates it with serial killers. Only 40% of the American prison population are sociopaths to some extent, but like autism (until just recently) it doesn't have a spectrum. His interview made it clear how the view point of others affects and shapes our life. So I must hide my differences to the best of my ability.

I could no longer sit alone in a corner during lunch because listening to incessant chatter irritates me while I clearly want to eat in peace and quiet.

No more saying what I truly think out loud. It wasn't clear until I saw his face that saying I want cut him open and wrap his intestines around his throat to suffocate him, that it wasn't the appropriate response to how I feel about my father.

I can't put live, wriggling insects on needles for decoration anymore either.

I now have to conform to what society and what other people's personal views think are right.

***************************

First Day of High School

I tug on my uniform, absolutely hating the way it feels. I could have suffered through it if girls didn't have to wear a skirt. Mandatory? Well maybe I should do something about this, I think evilly.

I look in passenger side mirror to check my makeup. Masqueras on, eyeliner isn't smeared, concelar is covering the bags beneath my eyes, lipstick brightening my corpse like skin, hair smoothed out of its previous bed head state. My small oval face looks more pixie like than usual, and I hate it. But I have to look put together if I don't want to be signaled out by the other girls. I don't like looking delicate.

The car pulls to a stop outside of the school. At 7am I'm too tired to feel nervous or much of anything else. I open the car door and look up. Standing in front of the door is Jasper. The one person who truly knows me and has even more to hide than I do.

Only 15 years old and Jasper already stands at 6"3". He has black hair and eyes so dark a brown they appear black. His eyes are kinda sunken in, and I've heard other girls say that they also peer into your soul. I don't see it, but it does feel like a unseen predator is peering out of a dark cave, waiting to eat me. His skull is bulky and sharp, with too thin lips that just make him seem like a lion if one had transformed into a human. He may be half Mexican, but he's a pasty Mexican. If I was a normal girl, I'd tease him about his skin resembling the white jade like appearance of a male k-popstar. But I'm not a normal girl, and he he's not a normal guy. I know he would punish me for it.

To others we appear to be best friends, but that's just an appearance. We both know what the other one is, and we keep each other close to keep a sharp eye out for the knife we know will descend into our back. It's practical, and it feels good to be able to reveal yourself to at least one person, one person who you don't have to keep up the act around.

I remember when I first met him. Duck, duck, goose had never made me feel so alert, and hunted. I could feel something comeing up behind my back that immediately made the muscles in my back tense and hackles rise. Like a Rottweiler in a junk yard who comes up behind you out of nowhere and let's out a vicious growl. He was the new kid who had transferred to our 4th grade class. And he knew I wanted to break his arm every time he brushed his hand on my head, and he liked it. The prospect of the violence to come between us excited him more than throwing a dodgeball at some whinny kids face ever could. The knowledge of knowing what I was feeling and what I was looking at, isn't all that different from gay-dar. You just know, one predator to another.

"Your late Nymphidora." Jasper says as he looks at me with cold, hostile eyes.

I'm exactly on time, but he had given me orders to be there 15-minutes earlier so we could play. I will never follow those orders. The second I give in, or concede, I will be regulated to a slave. A slave in the most literal sense possible. And Jasper only has one use for those unfortunate enough to fall into that category.

I give Jasper a cold smile, one that I can tell immediately pisses him off.

"The bell rings in 10-minutes, which means I'm early." I know full well what he meant, but taping the viper on the nose is too much of a thrill for me to resist.

Jasper moves in and shove me into an alcove next to the entrance, my back hits the wall with his hand on my throat and one knee shoved between my legs to rest against my mound. This kind of intimidation might work with other girls, but it doesn't work on me.

It both enrages and amuses him. He leans his face into mine and says, "Little Nymph, today is not a good day to test my patience."

At the end of that statement he roughly grinds his knee against my crotch. A bolt of sensation shoots through me, and it is a struggle to keep it off my face and separate from my bodies physical response. Good thing I'm wearing a pad, otherwise he'd feel the wetness.

With a calm, indifferent expression I lean in and nearly draw blood when I bite his earlobe. "I will do as I please. I'm not in the mood to play."

I roughly rub myself against his knee and brutally shove him away. Jasper is unable to stop the groan that releases from his throat, and quickly turns angry eyes towards me. Ha! I win!

I just smirk and walk away to find my locker.

Jasper closely follows behind me.