Bright Nightclub- Chapter 2

Bright Nightclub
…Chapter 2


I walked home with Seraphim that day, and she was starting to get on my last nerves. She was telling me all about some boy she had met, who already asked her out! If I were her, I would have realised that this boy was a complete perve. Then finally, the discussion turned onto me and my day.
Seraphim was waiting for me to comment, so I faked a smile, “Good. Do you notice anything different about me?” she studied me for a moment, before slumping her shoulders, “No. I don’t.”
I grimaced, “My eyes. My hair.” I prompted.
“Oh!” She said, “Your hair! It’s darker, and your eyes… awesome!” She seemed genuinely pleased for me, but I had a sneaking suspicion.
When we got home I went up to my room, pretending I already had homework.
Instead I flipped through the family album I had in my room. Pictures with me inside it. I studied the child in the covers and my heart wrenched. The child had a small birthmark on her cheek. Not obvious unless you were me. I looked in a hand mirror and shook my head, no birthmark.
I check through the book, and right up until the accident, I had the birthmark, but now it had mysteriously disappeared. That was when I decided to do some real sleuthing.
It all happened at dinner. We were sitting around the table, eating pasta. Seraphim was eating quickly, wanting to go back to her phone and text, my mother was watching me play with my food, and my father was eating loudly.
My mother leant across the table and gripped my hand tightly, “Not hungry?” she asked, her watchful gaze on me.
I looked over at her, “Why is it, in all the family pictures, I have a birthmark on my cheek, but now I don’t?”
My entire family froze, including Seraphim, who had a forkful of pasta half raised to her mouth.
My mother’s jaw had seemed to come unhinged, dropping widely.
I raised my eyebrows waiting.
“Well,” my dad said, I turned to him eagerly; hoping for some answers, “Let’s get the mousse out, okay? It’s chocolate.”
I looked to my mum, and she nodded, completely ignoring me. I stood up quickly and walked out of the dining room. I heard my mother distinctly call my name, and the clatter of a plate dropped, but I didn’t turn until I was well out of the house.
I had never been outside of my home before without someone being with me. It was so dark, and quite cold. I had to wonder if my old life liked coming outside and looking at the stars. They were glittering and shining down at me, so I didn’t realise someone had come up behind me.
Hunter tapped me lightly on the shoulder, making me shriek. He jumped back, suddenly as startled as I was.
“Oh,” I said, after my heart stopped pumping loudly, “hi.”
Hunter smirked at me, “Give you a fright did I? I’m sorry. Why so jumpy?” he didn’t look apologetic.
I looked him over, “It’s pretty late, and where are you going at this time of night?” He was wearing a pale grey T-Shirt and a leather jacket. He was wearing black jeans too, but not the skinny leg ones that make men look stupid.
He tilted his head to the side, “secret,” he said to me.
I shrugged, “Well then I’m jumpy because it’s a secret too,” I wouldn’t let Hunter get information out of me, when he won’t reveal anything.
“Okay,” We lapsed into awkward silence, “Want to walk?”
I nodded at him, and we walked side-by-side until we reached the park. We sat down near the children’s slide and Hunter turned to me.
“Tell me about your car crash.” He was so blunt.
I looked at my feet, “I don’t know anything about it. I lost my memory after the crash. Supposedly my father was driving, and someone ran into the middle of the road, and my father hit the brakes. We skidded, and we must have hit a tree or something, because the car was a jumbled mess. When I got home, my parents kept pushing me to get my memories back, and so I just started faking everything.” I shuddered.
“You cold?” He asked.
I shrugged lightly, and he took off his jacket and gave it to me. “Nice tattoo,” I said, gazing at a snake imbedded into his left wrist.
He tilted the corner of one mouth up, and then returned to his sombre state, “Sorry to bring up hard stuff with you.”
I grinned, “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a real way with words?”
Hunter laughed, “Has anybody gone to the trouble to tell you that you’re too trusting with strangers?”
I looked over at him, “Touché. You know, I can talk to you about my accident and tell the truth, whereas with my family I have to lie. I feel safer with strangers I suppose.”
Hunter grimaced, “You shouldn’t. And, this cuts our time short. Someone’s looking for you.” He pointed out a small shape coming closer, “Your sister,” he whispered in my ear.
I looked at him, “I don’t want to go home. Not yet, anyway.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Then follow me.”
Hunter led the way to a small nightclub that wasn’t far from my house. He walked past the guard, who nodded to him, then at me, before resuming his place in front of the door.
The sound was amazing. They were playing loud techno music, and the coloured lights were spinning wildly, lighting up random people’s excited, sweaty faces, and then shrouding them in darkness.
“Wow,” I said, suddenly at a loss for words.
Hunter looked at me, “Isn’t it great? The perfect place to get lost in the music,” He grabbed my hand, and then led me onto the dance floor.
I laughed and leant in close, because the music was too loud to be heard over, “To tell you the truth, I can’t really dance!”
“It’s easy!” He answered, chuckling at me, “Just move like an idiot, which for you won’t be hard, and you will fit in immediately.”
“Hey!” I socked him in the arm, “Not cool!”
Hunter laughed and grabbed my hand, and we danced for two whole hours, taking breaks where we were served ice cold drinks that tasted familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on the name of it.
We left the night club, when the moon was at its highest, meaning it was midnight, and because of the heat from the nightclub, I was able to give Hunter back his coat.
“Maybe dancing isn’t so hard?” He asked me.
“Maybe it isn’t,” I conceded, skipping ahead happily.
I didn’t see Hunter rolling his eyes in disdain at my excitement.
We neared my house, and I noticed only one light on in the window. I gulped, knowing they were probably waiting up for me, and I had been out partying.
Hunter squinted up at my house, “Well,” he said, “I suppose I’ll be leaving you here then.”
I nodded, “Have a nice night, Hunter.”
He winked, “Will do.”
I shook my head, and sniggered quietly. I opened the front door and three people jumped on me.
“Where have you been?”
“Why did you run off?”
“Do you know how long we’ve been waiting up?”
“I was this close to filling a missing person’s case!”
I turned to my parents and sister and said bluntly, “I’m a big girl now, so I was at a party with a friend. It was my own decision, the first one I’ve made in a long time.”
I walked up the staircase and into my room. It was dark except for one small glow sticker on an old diary I found the other day. That day I couldn’t be bothered reading it, but now I was too hyper and energetic to sleep.
I opened to a random page and started reading;
Dear Diary,
Today was a great day. Yvonne and I went down to the beach in our new bathers we got on our shopping spree.
We met up with Lennie and his new crew, and we exchanged words. He keeps his distance from us now. That’s what he gets for being a little sneak and spreading rumours about his own friends. It hasn’t made him any happier, everyone could tell he liked Yvonne and was only doing it for attent-
I stopped short, bored of a teenagers life. I flipped about twenty pages to a more recent writing.
Dear Diary,
I don’t know what happened. It was me and Yvonne, best of friends, then this strange guy comes and takes her from me. It’s so unfair, I don’t see her anymore. And the weird guy always looks at me. I want to hurt him!
I was stunned. Everything in this diary seemed so happy and optimistic and now it dropped suddenly. I had to wonder who this new guy is.
I kept reading and found out Yvonne moved schools because she the boy broke up, and that the creepy guy had basically turned into her, my, stalker. He followed her around, and everywhere she turned, she saw his eyes. I was worried for myself, in case this freak makes another showing.
I took up and pen, and turned to a fresh page;
Dear Diary, I wrote, sniggering to myself, today was the best day of my life. Well, that I can remember. I made my first friend. I met Hunter in my class, and then later on in the day we bumped into each other and went to a night club. The music was so loud! Hunter taught me how to dance, sneakily calling me an idiot in the process. He’s a funny kid, but a little bad ass for me. He has a tattoo! It looks like a snake wrapped around his wrist! He’s really good looking, too. I feel like a smudge of boring standing next to him.
I paused, wondering what else to write. My head started pounding with the beginning of a headache so I put my diary down and went into the bathroom. What awaited me was absolutely horrifying.
My face! I ran to the mirror and looked at my make-up! My eyeliner was smeared all over my face, and my lips were cracked and bleeding. Let’s not even go into what was happening with my pores!
I scrubbed at my face with a face washer and took a nice hot bath. I looked at a huge scar on my leg that went from my thigh all the way to my foot!
It was paler compared to the rest of my natural skin, and slightly raised. I could see the way the piece of car was travelling to create the scar. It seemed to stretch tightly when I moved my leg, making it hard to move my leg. Funny, I didn’t notice that while I was dancing.
When I got out of the bath, I was relaxed and sleepy, so I slipped into my bed and had sweet dreams, filled with laughter and glowing lights.