Prom Queen ｡ Michael Langdon

17 - CROWNED IN BLOOD

     Fire found Carrie in her dreams that night. Orange and red flames licked at her skin as a scream all to close to a laugh escaped her mouth. The pain was searing, melting her flesh away and turning her bones to ash. Carrie had never had a dream or a nightmare so vivid before, so familiar even, like she'd see it before or had lived through it. She thought it was hellfire because it consumed everything, and surely it was the fire of the apocalypse, but it wasn't. Though, it was a fire that belonged in the past. 

     The blood on her knuckles had dried, caking against her broken skin. Her limbs were sore and stiff from sleeping on the hard flooring in the tiny closet. Only minuscule salt crystals were leftover from Carrie's tears now as the sun awoke on the city of angels. Carrie found the door unlocked, sunlight seeping in through the split in the wood. The beam of light cut across the flooring harshly and the house was quiet. Dead quiet, actually. No music, no movement and no Margaret Moore. 

     It was Friday morning and when Carrie finally conjured enough strength to push herself out of the shadowed closet she fled into her bedroom. She knew she should be getting ready for school, but she looked down at her knuckles—bloodied and bruised—and she didn't want to face the students of Westfield High, not on the eve of prom night. It wasn't like anyone would report her absence, only Ava Gold, but the dark-skinned beauty would never dob in Carrie for playing hooky. Besides, Carrie needed to prepare for prom; she didn't have a dress yet and decided, with Margaret gone from the house, it was the perfect time to sort out that problem. 

     Margaret Moore had been even more beautiful when she was a teenager living in San Fransico than she was now. She'd been slim, but not skinny, and had hair that tumbled for days down her back in a hue that shone like amber when the sun was high in the sky. Margaret had moved to Los Angeles after she turned nineteen and wished of stardom on the silver screen. When she wasn't sitting in an audition line, she was parading around Hollywood in sundresses or soaking up the sun's splendour in Santa Monica. Margaret never booked anything for her ambition dimmed the second she met Carrie's father at the glowing Pacific Wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. Their romance had been spellbinding, instant and powerful, but the bliss didn't last long. Ralph Moore had been a charismatic musician but his career never found a footing (he went on to teach music), so he often turned to alcohol and violence. The violence was the worst of it that always landed on Margaret's skin. The woman believed her first sin was having sex outside of marriage when Ralph forced himself on her drunk one night as blue neon light burned through the window of the motel they were staying in before they bought a tiny and cheap house on a one-way street after they eloped when she was twenty. And that wasn't the last time Ralph would push open Margaret's legs with rough fingers. 

     Carrie searched through the cardboard boxes filled with the old sundresses from Margaret's youth in the basement. While Margaret didn't wear them anymore, she couldn't bring herself to donate them to the church's annual clothing drive. Even though her youth had been grubby, it seemed to glimmer now that she was middle-aged and divorced trying to raise a wicked girl. 

     Carrie ripped open another box, picking out dress after dress, looking for one that would suit a prom. And she found one in the next box. Hidden at the bottom was a dress of fine, smooth silk the colour of the sweetest blush. Her hands glided over the fitted bodice, the material fluid like water between her fingers. Michael had told her that she should wear pink. Yes, like the colour of your lips, his voice echoed in her mind and her skin flushed with heat, her blood hanging low in her abdomen. It reminded her of the kiss. Her first kiss. Michael's first kiss. And the ghost of his lips brushed against hers as she gathered up the dress, feeling giddy and as light as air as she hurried back to her bedroom. 

     The pink silk dress was perfect besides the long hem, for Margaret was taller than Carrie by a few centimetres. The teenage girl grabbed her sewing kit and set to work on altering the dress for her big night. Carrie sat by her bedroom window, the dress in her lap secured with needles and a threaded needle in her right hand, pushing and tugging through the thin material gently and with some skill and patience. However, no matter how hard she tried to remain focused on the task at hand, her eyes wandered to the house across the street. She felt like one of her gothic heroines, daydreaming about the handsome, dark stranger that entered her life so suddenly and unexpectedly, all the while mending a dress for a dance. She wondered if Michael was thinking about her and the kiss and what it meant for their relationship. Carrie had no prior experience—save for her novels—with relationships, so kissing a boy was all new territory for her. Terrifying and electrifying. And surely, the flower that bloomed in her chest for Michael Langdon, was what the authors wrote about with such aching bewitchment and bleeding hearts.