Chapter One: The party
Scarlett Smith stared at her reflection. She understood why no one ever came up to her. The bathroom light was too bright, too honest — it didn’t blur the purple shadows beneath her eyes or soften the sharp bones in her face. Her black hair clung to her neck like static.
“Scar, are you done yet?” Mercedes shouted through the door, voice full of impatient energy.
Mercedes was one of her closest friends, but they were so different from each other that Scarlett sometimes wondered if Mercedes was only her friend because she took pity on her.
“Almost!” Scarlett lied, tugging at her oversized sweatshirt. Her stomach felt hollow — the kind of emptiness that wasn’t hunger but habit.
The mirror didn’t lie: she wasn’t like any of her friends. Mercedes looked like she’d stepped off a magazine cover even when she was running late. Her twin brother, Chance, carried that effortless cool that made people laugh at everything he said. And Alex — sharp-tongued and quiet — never seemed to care what anyone thought of her.
Scarlett envied them all.
When she finally opened the door, Mercedes grinned, tugging her by the wrist. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late! Chance already smoked half his stash waiting on you.”
“Not half,” Chance mumbled from the couch, eyes red and lazy. “Like… a third,” he said, holding the rest of the blunt up in one hand and a lighter in the other. “Ready?”
Scarlett couldn’t help but smile softly. Chance was always trying to get someone — anyone — to smoke with him. Scarlett knew, though, that if her dad ever smelled it on her, he would probably lose it on her again.
Scarlett’s other friend, Alex, rolled her eyes as she plopped down on Mercedes’ bed. “You all look like a music video gone wrong,” her raspy voice said.
Scarlett smiled faintly, pretending her heart wasn’t beating so fast. Parties weren’t her thing — but saying no wasn’t either. Anything was better than staying home.
Her father would be home soon — probably drunk. Probably angry.
She grabbed her jacket and followed her friends into the night.
