'The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead,'
- Albert Einstein
Chapter One
'Jumping would be stupid,' Azelie thought to herself, 'Jumping would be very stupid.' She looked down at the river, imagining what it would be like to fall into the ice-cold water. Just trying to think about what it would be like to just let go of the rail and let herself fall. She followed the water with her eyes as it flowed away from her. Trees were growing on the bank of the river as it flowed through the thick forest which surrounded her town.
She had climbed over the metal rails of the bridge which wasn't too far from her house and was standing on the ledge of the other side of the rails, having tuned out the outside world, leaving Azelie with just her thoughts, something she didn't experience often.
Her tears had dried; however the marks were still visible on her cheeks. She let go of the rail with one hand, wiping away what remained before grabbing back onto the cold rail. She closed her eyes, letting the sound of the passing water below relax her, the sound taking her away from any sign of civilization. It was moments like this that Azelie lived for, moments where she could escape the feelings and thoughts that plagued her mind, her past and everything else that followed her about. In moments like this, she felt like she could be anybody and go anywhere; but just like everything else in life, it wouldn't last.
"Don't jump," a deep voice spoke, breaking slightly towards the end. The sound lifted Azelie out from her own little world, bringing her crashing back down to reality. Her golden brown eyes fluttered open once again, her head spinning around to see who had spoken. She turned to see a guy, around her age, standing about a meter or so away from her, his hands up as if he was trying to comfort her. His messy brown hair moved slightly in the wind, his green eyes wide and full of an emotion that Azelie had long forgotten. "Don't do it," the guy added, "It's not worth it! Whatever it is that's pushing you to do this, it won't last, it will get better - I promise!" he finished, his voice pleading. It was funny, she had only gone out for a morning jog, but had to ended up on the wrong side of a bridge, her hands slowly slipping off the wet rail with a guy trying to talk her down. Azelie took in his features, his green eyes, the curling soft brown hair, his height. She knew him. She had been introduced to him once or twice but they had never had a proper conversation, she could barely remember his name - Colton maybe?
She sent a smile to the guy, watching his panic grow as he took in her expression, the smile on her lips widening as the guy's worried expression increased. The emotion in his eyes sparked an interest in her; she wondered why he cared so much. Of course if you found a girl who looked like she was about to jump off a bridge, you would try to talk her down, you would be scared, confused; it's the natural human reaction. But there was something else. This guy felt something else; he was getting too emotional just watching Azelie on the other side of the rail. There was a missing piece of the puzzle, a piece that Azelie wanted to figure out.
"I'm not scared," she replied, turning back around to look down at the water, watching the leaves flowing down the river. The water flowed quicker than it looked, the fact that it was water was grey and murky told Azelie that it was deep. She knew if she let go the water would drown her, but she also knew something else, that she wasn't frighten of death, of the deep, ice cold water of the river. "Somebody will catch me!"
The guy didn't reply, he stood frozen on one spot, memories plaguing his mind as he watched Azelie hanging on to the rails. He had been driving back from a party after accidentally falling asleep, trying to sneak in past his father. He usually went the long route, avoided the bridge, but today was different. He had gone that route that he hated to cut down on time, and now he was at the very same spot as he had been many years ago, seeing the same thing. Azelie turned around once again, her brown eyes meeting the bright green ones of the guy, a smirk fully formed on her pink lips.
"See ya," she smirked, her voice light and full of humor. She had only gone out for a morning jog. She had left a note saying that she would be back in within an hour; and now she was letting go of the rails of a bridge, wondering what the cold water would feel like, wondering what it would be like to drown; to die. Her fingers unwrapped from around the red rail she had been clinging on too, her hands slipping as she let go.
Azelie let go of the rail, wondering if somebody would catch her; not really caring if nobody did.
ONE WEEK EARLIER
Azelie ran down the street on the last leg of her morning jog, pushing herself to go faster, pushing herself to get home out of the cold. Her mind tried to drag her back into the memories that played inside her head, Azelie attempting to push them all down as she tried to empty her mind. She just wanted to forget about everything, even just for a second of relief from the memories that haunted her mind was all she wished for.
Despite living in Bellingham all summer, she still wasn't used to the freezing weather of the Washington State compared to the sunny weather of Florida that she had lived in for several years. She jogged home, trying to warm up in the breeze that had picked up, not wasting any time running down the streets of the town to get to her Uncle's house.
She had moved up to Bellingham at the start of the summer after her uncle, Ted, tracked her down. She had been passed from family member to family member ever since she was 12, barely staying in one place for more than six months until she was moved again. It wasn't a surprise that Ted was the only family member that wanted her; she hadn't seen him since she was young. She pushed the thoughts of her aunts down, trying to shake it all out of her head, wishing that she could somehow suffer some sort of brain injury to help her forget about it all.
She ran up the driveway to the house and opened the front door. She slammed the door shut as she stepped into the house, the heat inside of the house warming her up instantly. She turned and began to walk up the stairs, trying to figure out how much time she had until she started school. She jumped into a cold shower, quickly shampooing and conditioning her hair before jumping out and wrapping a towel around her body. She walked into her room, picked up a pair of jeans and a tank top, put a thick, wooly cardigan on top and finished it off with a thin belt around her waist. Azelie dried her long hair as fast as she could, before tying it up in a messy bun.
Satisfied with how she looked, Azelie slipped on a pair of boots and ran back into the bathroom to hang up her used towels. She walked back into her room and picking up her empty school bag. She then stormed downstairs, planning in her head what she was going to have for breakfast.
The smell of pancakes and bacon wafted through the house, calling Azelie like honey to a bee. She dumped her bag at the front door as she walked into the kitchen, spotting a plate of pancakes, bacon and toast waiting for her.
"You were up early this morning," a voice spoke softly as Azelie picked up the plate of food. She span around to find her uncle sitting at the table, his plate of food half-finished with a cup of coffee held in his hand.
"Do I ever sleep in?" Azelie joked, sending a smile to her uncle, his brown hair sticking up all over the place. She set the plate on the table her uncle was sitting at, walked over to the fridge, picked up the carton of apple juice and poured the contents into a glass.
"I guess not, I'm still getting over the shock that I live with a teenager who wakes up at like 5 AM to go running! I thought you teens just slept all the time." Ted laughed as Azelie sat down at the table, sending a smile to her uncle as she dug into her breakfast, unable to resist the delicious smell of the food.
Ted was Azelie's favorite relative that she had lived with over the past few years. He was kind and seemed to understand her pain better than her aunts, whom she had been passed between over the past seven years. He was the relative that understood her the most, but when social services were faced with the choice of who Azelie should live with five years ago; her aunts who made enough money to go on four different holidays a year or an uncle who lived alone and owned an art gallery which gave him just enough money to live on, well, Azelie could see the logic. She was sent to live with her grandparents for two years before being passed around from aunt to aunt for another seven. Ted lost contact with Azelie and it was only when the rest of her remaining aunts refused to let her stay that Ted popped back into social services system, and Azelie was sent up to live in the freezing Washington State.
As much as Azelie hated the cold, Bellingham was the only place she had felt comfortable enough to call home in seven years. After being used as a human ping pong, moving from one aunt to another down in Florida, she finally felt as if she would be able to stay in one place for her last year of school.
The meowing of her cat pulled Azelie out of her day dream as she finished off her breakfast, and leaving Azelie to consider seriously if she wanted to lick the rest of the honey from her pancakes off her plate.
"That stupid cat was meowing all of last night!" Ted complained, sending daggers at Azelie's cat with his eyes. Azelie rolled her brown eyes as a slight smile appeared on her face as she looked down at her brown cat, and picked him up to stroke him.
"Galileo just misses the warm weather! He misses Miami," Azelie replied as she cooed over the cat she had owed since she was ten. She had gotten Galileo from her grandmother after her therapist suggested that getting Azelie a pet or something would be 'therapeutic' for her. Azelie had always disagreed with the therapist about Galileo being 'therapeutic' but went along with it anyway. Her grandma had branded the cat 'devil cat' after only a few weeks of owning him, with her aunts following in suit to name him slightly more colourful names. At one point, one of her aunts locked Galileo in her car's trunk and drove fifty miles to the middle of nowhere before she set the cat free into the wild while Azelie was at school. However, Galileo had tracked Azelie down and returned to her a couple of weeks after his release, begging for more food just as always.
"Do you miss Miami?" Ted questioned, mistaking what she had said, and instead thinking that she was meaning that she missed Miami, and not just the cat. Azelie turned to her uncle shaking her head, a slight smile on her face. She had always seen the similarities between her uncle and her mother; both had tanned skin and deep brown eyes which were identical to Azelie's.
"Only the heat, I don't understand how you can stand the cold!" Ted laughed at her reply, as he began to shake his head slightly. He took a sip from his mug and returned to his newspaper, smiling at Azelie as he read it. He was happy that he had somebody that reminded him of his sister with him and wished that they had allowed Alzelie to live with him when he had first asked.
"Did you sleep okay again last night?" Ted trailed off, instantly regretting bringing up the subject of Azelie sleeping, referring to the fact that she struggled with night terrors every so often. If one of her aunts had brought up Azelie's issue of night terrors, Azelie would have thrown a fork at their head before fainting in disbelief that they cared enough to ask. Usually Azelie's night terrors were left with the therapist to deal with and the subject was a regularly ignored issue in any of her aunt's households; however, when the terrors returned in the summer holidays, Ted had helped her out, not only taking her to the best therapist in the area, but working the issue out with her, trying to figure out what he could do to help her, instead of simply ignoring her and plugging in a pair of ear phones as he went to sleep. Images from her nightmares popped up in her head. A truck crashing into a car; her aunt's terrified face as she discovered her husband dead; the looks her aunts gave her at her grandmother funeral. She pushed them all down, not wanting to remember any of the worst nightmares.
"It's fine, no bad dreams lately" She replied with a fake smile spread across her lips, relief filling Ted that she wasn't uncomfortable talking about the subject. Ted had been freaking out the week before Azelie arrived, trying to figure out teenage girls as much as possible. He had built up a short list of awkward subjects to avoid when talking to her (period right at the top), to make sure that she would be as happy as possible and wouldn't feel uncomfortable talking to her uncle. He smiled in reply; glad that she was okay again, knowing in the back of his mind that it could flare up at any moment.
Azelie's gaze flickered to the clock on the wall hanging above the cooker and realized that she had to leave now if she wanted to be on time for school.
"Oh shit," she muttered, her uncle raising an eyebrow at her choice of language, "I'm going to be late if I don't leave," Azelie stood up, letting her cat go and picked up her glass and plate and marching over to the sink.
"Do you want me to drive you?" Ted offered, setting his newspaper down to get ready to drive Azelie to school.
"While still dressed in your pajamas?" She questioned, a smile playing on her lips. Ted looked down, suddenly realizing that he hadn't changed. He opened his mouth to speak, but Azelie talked over him instead, "It's alright, I'm just gonna walk. Thanks for the offer anyway,"
"Okay, have a great first day! Don't scare everyone else too much," he laughed in reply, and turned back to his newspaper. Azelie laughed and said goodbye as she picked up her bag and opened the front door, a slight wind sending a shiver down her spine. She dug her phone and earphones out of her bag and walked for about twenty minutes listening to her music.
Her new school was different to her old one back in Miami, in fact it was very different to all her other schools. Her other schools had been shiny, modern glass buildings while her new school looked more like a prison. It was large, square and concrete. It looked exactly like the place where dreams went to die, an image that Azelie smiled at. She packed her phone and earphones away, making sure her phone was on silence as she entered the school, the musty smell of dust filling Azelie as she walked through the double doors, an array of students looking at her as if she was an alien as she walked by.
That's exactly what Azelie felt like, an alien; an outsider. Everyone knew each other from birth onwards in Bellingham, nobody new really moved to the town. This meant that Azelie was going to have a harder time just staying in the back ground of things like she usually did. Invisible was what Azelie liked to be, but in small towns like Bellingham, invisible was near impossible.
Azelie walked up to the front office of the school, waiting in the queue of people so she could see the receptionist. The queue very quickly disappeared, and not before long, Azelie was at the front. She barely had opened her mouth when the receptionist had spoken for her.
"Azelie Ryans, I'm guessing?" the receptionist asked with a smile.
"Is it that obvious that I'm new?" Azelie questioned.
"A little, I just didn't recognize your face," the receptionist smiled. She looked around her early thirties, long black hair tied up in a ponytail and a pair of glasses covering her emerald green eyes. "Come on, I'll show you to the head teacher, Mr. Harrison's office," she added. Azelie quickly thanked the woman as she followed her down the busy hall.
"Just wait here sweetie, he will be out in a second," the receptionist told Azelie as she turned around to go back to the office. Azelie sat down on a chair outside the head teacher's office, watching the crowds pass. Nobody really noticed Azelie sitting outside the office, something that had her sighing in relief that she might actually get to spend her senior year being invisible. However, almost as quick as she had thought it, the illusion of staying invisible was shattered.
"Hey Cole! New girl!" She heard a voice shouting over the crowds as a group passed her in the corridor. "Wow - hot new girl!" the voice corrected as a blush rose to Azelie's cheeks. Her gaze fell to the floor for a second as she got the blush under control, the redness in her cheeks disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. She looked up again and spotted a pair of green eyes looking at her, almost studying her. She looked at the guy, taking in his brown hair and his chiseled face, part of her wishing all the while that he would just move on already. He stood next to the guy who had called her 'hot', a statement that Azelie disagreed with completely. Never in her seventeen years had she been described as hot, and she rather liked it that way.
"Come on guys! Mrs. Murray will have our heads on a spike if we are late again!" a new voice said, moving the boys along. A girl with candy-floss pink hair appeared out of nowhere, as if she had hidden herself behind one of the guys. She smiled at Azelie as the trio passed her, Azelie instantly returning the smile while noticing the big contrast in colour between the girl's light pink hair, dark roots and her bright blue eyes, her eyes almost matching the colour of the sky. Azelie noted the difference between the boys who were the perfect fit for a jock and the rather colourful girl, seeing the contrast between social groups instantly. Back in Miami, a jock wouldn't be caught dead with somebody who fell under the description of 'arty' unless it was to get them to cheat their way through their art course.
"Miss Ryans'?" a voice questioned, pulling Azelie from her train of thought. She looked around to see a man standing in the doorway of the office she had been sitting outside. Azelie instantly stood up, nodding her head in answer. "I'm Mr. Harrison, it's very nice to meet you," He smiled, putting his hand out to shake Azelie's. She put out her left hand, shaking the head teacher's hand before letting her hand drop to her side. The head teacher was dressed in a black suit, with short graying brown hair; He looked around his late forties, with heavy bags around his eyes.
"Nice to meet you too," she smiled, the head teacher took a step backwards to allow Azelie into his office. She instantly stepped forward, walking into the office, the head teacher shutting the door behind her.
"Please, take a seat," the head teacher smiled, a he pointed to a chair which stood opposite his desk. She instantly walked over to the chair, dumping her bag beside it and sat down. The head teacher walked behind the desk, and sat down on the chair which stood behind the mahogany desk. "Well, Miss Ryans, I just wanted to welcome you to the Bellingham High School on behalf of all the teachers and the student body. I hope you have a good senior year, I'm sure you will," He smiled, welcoming her to the school. Azelie just smiled in reply, nodding her head. "I've arranged for a tutor to make sure you get to your classes on time," he added, just as there was a knock at the door. The head teacher instantly stood up and walked over to the wooden door, opening it as he moved to the side to let the person in. "Speak of the devil, Miss Ryans, meet Miss Collins, Miss Collins meet Miss Ryans," he said introducing them.
The girl who had entered looked Azelie up and down with her emerald green eyes, almost judging her as soon as she laid eyes on Azelie. She had long blonde hair trailing down her back, and her skin practically glowed orange from what Azelie was guessing a bad batch of fake tan.
"I'm Leigh," the girl smiled, holding her hand out to Azelie who had stood up off the chair.
"Azelie," she replied as she shook hands with the girl and dropping the girl's hand, her gaze floating back to the head teacher.
"Well, here is your timetable, if you have any problems just go to the front desk and they will sort it all out. All your locker information should be printed on your timetable so I wouldn't want to lose that if I were you," he smiled passing her a piece of paper, "Miss Collins will take you to your classes for today, and she will show you where your locker is and then tomorrow you will hopefully have a better idea of where to go," the head teacher smiled. She thanked the head teacher and grabbing her bag, letting Leigh lead her to her first class.
They walked down the corridor, Leigh asking her questions about where she had moved from and how she was finding Bellingham. When she was asked why she had moved, she simply said that her aunt had died, and Leigh dropped the subject without any questions. Azelie soon noticed that Leigh had no interest in her, she had probably signed up to lead the new girl around so she could be the one to know the most gossip about her. Leigh showed Azelie to her locker, before marching off to show her where her first class was. Leigh then hastily gave her directions for her second period class and left her to go to her own class, not bothering to even say goodbye to Azelie as she stormed down the corridor to get to her class.
Azelie turned around and knocked on the wooden door of the English class she had been due in twenty minutes ago, quickly apologizing and introducing herself to the teacher. She then walked to the back of the classroom, and sat down at one of the chairs at the end, all the while just wishing that she could just disappear.
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