𝐻𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐼𝑁 𝐺𝐿𝑂𝑉𝐸 - 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘 ℎ𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟

07 ~ 𝑖 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒

carrie had gotten 30 minutes of sleep that morning. that was all her racing mind managed to grasp onto before her alarm split through the room. even then, the sleep was not restful, or deep; she was just floating along the surface of sleep's darkness, begging it to eat her up, envelope her, fill her head. but, instead, unanswered questions took its place, suffocating her and holding her back from the blissfulness sleep brought. despite not sleeping a lot lately, carrie felt utterly betrayed that half an hour was all she managed to get, especially due to who caused her restlessness.

she kicked a rock across the concrete in irritation as she was forced to stifle another yawn. in the hours of pondering, she managed to mould her confusion and upset towards patrick into something that resembled anger. she wanted to make him regret leaving her on the rooftop, make it impossible for him to ignore her and and maybe revenge wasn't such a good aim to take when dealing with the notorious psychopath, but her extreme lack of sleep also supplied her with an extreme lack of common sense.

consequently, this morning, carrie had stood in front of her bathroom mirror, angrily pasting the black makeup across her eyes, feeling as though she was two steps away from writing, "you can't ignore me bitch", in eyeliner on her forehead. instead, she settled for the dark eyes and more eye catching jewellery, unable to confidently pull her skirt any shorter or top any lower.

she was now walking toward school, pixies thrumming through her headphones, desperately trying to harness the power her badass makeup reflected and desperately trying to ignore the sense of fear that ripples through her at the thought of seeing patrick again, especially if patrick was to appear unbothered by what happened last night, or by her slight change in appearance (as patrick has never seen her in the goth makeup she only ever wore to intimidate her stuck up neighbours).

as the school began to grow closer, carrie straightened her posture and paused her walkman, pulling the headphones down to sit on her neck. she took one deep breath before letting her face drop into the most nonchalant stare she could muster, briefly hoping her makeup choice will also deflect from the painfully obvious bags under her eyes.

she pushed open the doors.

carrie entered the school with the intent of not so much as a side glance towards where patrick and his friends stood, she had intended to be completely indifferent to his existence entirely. however, it took all of two steps for her resolve to break. her head inched towards his usual position, eyes scanning the wall for his tall frame. she came up blank.

patrick was no where to be seen.

she quickly scanned the entire corridor and still, nothing.

his apes were in there normal spot, henry staring aggressively at a group of younger boys that huddled past, most of them shrinking at his gaze. she recognised a couple of them, one of them being the kids who's brother went missing last year, poor guy. despite her parents not actually going missing, she feels a strange connection to the boy because, in a way, her real parents are gone forever to her now, the people they were disappeared, just like his brother. she lets out a sigh and looks away. again, in search of patrick.

should she be worried? is this cause of what happened this morning? no, she tells herself, why would it be? why would any interaction with her actually mean that much to him? she shakes her head and makes a beeline for her locker, regretful she spent time doing her makeup for the attention of someone that hasn't even bothered to show up. regretful she did her makeup for anyone but herself.

slamming the metal door open much harder than she should have, she began to take off her headphones, already dreading her first lesson when something caught her eye.

at the bottoms of her locker there was a small folded up piece of paper.

carrie picked it up, initially thinking it was an escaped worksheet from one of her books, however, upon closer inspection, she realised it wasn't.