Diary of a Rockstar

Chapter 1

Chapter 1; Assuming the Book is Already His::

A quiet torrent of in tune words escaped from the lips of a short, chunky blond as she sang with a song that was blasting from her iPod.

"Just hear me out," she sang quietly, "If it's not perfect, I'll perfect it 'til my heart explodes."  She winced.  A flash of silver shone through the room as she dragged the sharpened metal of a black and yellow box-cutter down the squishy flesh on the back her left hand.  She watched a thick, crimson liquid bead at the top of the new wound, then break free from the gash and start a short journey down her wrist before it was stopped by a paper white tissue.  She lay the garment beside her leg and picked up the weapon again, humming the tune to "Get Stoned" by Hinder in her chest.  She let the blade run across the same slice she'd just given herself, making it slightly deeper and more painful.  She pinched her lips closed, her eyes tightening at the corners.  It hurt, she couldn't lie about that.  But it still hurt less than the pain inside of her hollow chest.  She wiped the blood away again, and then stared at the gash.  She felt a little better.  She dowsed a white wash-cloth she could later bleach in peroxide and held it over her cut, looking pensively around the room.  Once she was sure her hand was clean enough, she stood from the bed and crossed the room to a set of double-drawers built into the wall of her bedroom.  She yanked one of the drawers open and dumped the materials onto the dark wood on the bottom of it.  She then slammed the drawer closed, essentially hiding the tools of her demise, the proof of her secrets, away from the world.  No one ever looked in that drawer anyway.

She stalked off toward the bathroom, closing the door with a snap, to shower before work.  Once there, her evenings were spent greeting customers with mock happiness, sending their items over a beeper, taking their money, and getting paid.  And then she would go home, sleep, and wake up and do it all again the next day.  Except perhaps the vicious cutting.  That could wait until the first wound healed.  People already looked oddly enough at her depressed self without paying attention to her scars, inside and out.  She didn't need to be asked. And just to hide it more, she always cut parts of her body that could only be reached by her right hand.  That way, if her mother, who already knew she was left-handed, asked her, it was easy to cover it all up.  They were all so oblivious and she hated it.

~*~

She bent to retrieve a refill stack of white plastic, Wal*Mart bags from underneath a blue counter when a voice caught her attention behind her at the much bigger return desk.

"Jade, you have a visitor."  She sighed out heavily and threw the bags onto their holder.

"Okay."  She coughed and stepped away from her computer, flipping off her light for a moment to indicate she was closing.  She stepped toward the front of the Courtesy Desk, seeing a tall, bulky, overweight, vibrant red-head man, smirking at her.  A smile spread across her face as she assessed him.  His pierced lip didn't hide the grin that broke over his own face as he wrapped his tattooed arms around her.

"Hey, sis," he said into her ponytail.  Jade wrapped her arms around her twenty-two-year-old brother's broad form, burying her face into his shoulder.  They broke apart and looked at each other. 

"I haven't seen you forever!" she cried, genuinely happy to see a face she knew and loved.

"Since before the concert."  He grinned and she smiled.  A brunette woman behind the counter with a palm-pilot and a clipboard eyed the two for a moment and then took a deep breath.

"Jade, lunch."  Jade looked at her.

"Thanks."  She smirked at the woman and towed her big brother by the hand toward her computer so she could grab what little she brought with her to work.  She bounced on her heel, walking toward the back of the store to clock out.