Her

Prologue

My life is perfect.

I go to the best college in the state and have the best friends who are always there for me. My boyfriend is captain of the football team and is so kind, caring and patient with me. My parents don’t fight and love their daughter so much. They’re always there for me when I need them even with their jobs. My mother built her own fashion industry from scratch and my father runs his marketing business giving me a very rich, full life. I’m the poster girl for the life everyone wants. I’m so lucky to have all of this. I’m so grateful for all of them. I’m never sad, never alone, always smiling. Incredible right?

Now look past the front cover.

What if (hypothetically of course) this wasn’t my life. What if instead, the best friends are there for the money, the boyfriend cheats with a different girl every night, the dad’s an abusive drunk and the mum’s never around to see her daughter covering her bruises for school because they’d never do anything about it anyway, not when they’re getting paid extra by the dad to keep things on the low. What if the perfect girl with the perfect life and the perfect friends was desperately hoping someone would notice the kinks in her “unbroken” armour, the marks on her “flawless” skin. The tears in the pages of her story. But no one ever goes there. Why would they? I’m perfect. No one wants to believe that something is wrong because then they have to do something, help in some way. And sometimes they do. Sometimes they pick up books for kids, they wipe down bloody noses, they do something good to make themselves feel better about the situation. They did their one good deed so it’s someone else's turn. “It’s America, we’re all independent. We don’t need anyone so they don’t need us. I’ll do my one good thing because it’ll make up for any shitty things I do later. That's how karma works right? I can steal this can of coke because I helped Katie with a math question the other day. I punched Kyle the other day but I'll make up for it by putting my hand up in class.” We don't need to help anyone because it’s not in our interests.

You want to know why life is so f****d up. There you have it.

No one has noticed me for years now, not the real me. They always saw the party girl. The popular b***h who doesn't deserve her jock boyfriend. The rich one who has everything handed to her at the snap of her fingers. It was always insults or jealousy or envy or lies or abuse. All day, every night, all the time. Until she came along. She f****d everything up. She comes into the mix and twists it out of shape before burning everything up and tossing it into the depths of a blender. All her different clothes, her no bullshit attitude and the everlasting smirk on her face. One look and people were going mad with frustration trying to find out what she knew or what she would be planning. It messed up my entire life, f****d up my relationships with everyone I knew and broke me in ways I couldn't have possibly imagined. And I loved every minute of it.