Be careful what you ask for.
When digging deep, you may uncover bodies.
Maisie's life has been falling apart since her older sister went missing years ago without a trace. With a dead father and a mentally unstable mother, the teenage girl ha...
TW: mentions of grooming and sexual abuse drug and alcohol use depictions of car accident
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FOUR YEARS AGO SIXTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE DISAPPEARANCE / LAST WEEK OF SUMMER BEFORE HER JUNIOR YEAR
-ISLA-
CONFUSION, HYPERTHERMIA, HALLUCINATIONS, not the best combination of symptoms to have after downing two tablets of Molly.
Not while you stood in the middle of an interstate, rain gluing your hair to your cheeks, soaking your mini dress wet, infiltrating your leather boots. And definitely not while you stared at a car turned over just a few feet away, your brain not knowing if it was even real—the red vehicle that a second before, you had forced out of the road and now was bent in half.
But let's rewind a bit, shall we?
The last thing I fully remembered was his face. The blonde five o'clock shadow, buzz cut on his head. His laughter hadn't changed at all. And I could smell his cologne even from the other side of the bar.
His arm was wrapped around a young girl. I bet my liver she was with a fake ID just like me. He had an eye for underage pussy, after all.
That was the moment I took the second Molly—which, in retrospect, had been pretty dumb. And I was not dumb. I was reckless and self-destructive and wild and fun and cool. Maybe a whore too.
But, in my defense, this was all his damn fault. His five o'clock, his buzz cut, his disgusting cologne. His bitter mouth and his callused fingers. And me—the once dumb me who had never told him, my coach, no. Because good girls don't say no. Good girls are respectful and they don't make a scene. Good girls are sweet and tidy and innocent. Good girls are pure even when a thirty-year-old shoves his hand down their panties.
I can give you an extra hour in the court, but then you have to be a good girl and give me something back, Isa.
During my freshman year, while I spent months begging my parents to let me quit tennis, I also joined the art department in my school. I made out with this cute senior in the darkroom every Thursday. And after that, the department would have a meeting, usually to discuss the ongoing projects for the spring exposition. That year it had been about pop culture tropes. And I fucking resented it, the perfect girl next door trope with her big smile and wavy skirt and boys staring at her through the window. Fucking creep.
My project had consisted of photographs portraying the ugly side of them—kind of good girl gone bad. And for the first time in so long, I was in control. When I was behind the camera, I was the one looking—not being looked at. I could capture fleeting moments and make them last forever. I could shift the angles and create an entirely new picture. I could show whatever I wanted to show.
