Scars Part 4.

 For some reason, Connie couldn’t get that horrible face out of her head. It haunted her, appearing repeatedly in dreams and throughout the day in the halls of Lincoln High. Her A in English slowly descended to a B and then a C and then even a C-. Every class was spent dreaming forbidden dreams about the soul locked behind that face, those ice blue eyes, so filled with…something. Connie couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. But whatever it was, it broke her heart every time she remembered it.

Ashamed of herself for staring, for dreaming, and for being too much of a coward to speak, Connie avoided Alice. But the more she tried to avoid her, the more the two of them met. One horrific day, Connie was so engrossed in a novel that she bumped right into Alice in the hallway. Stammering an apology, she hurried on, aware that, that lonely figure was still staring after her.

 

   Now, three months into the school year, Connie was getting desperate. Her parents had met her at the door the day before with grim faces.

 

   “What’s going on? Since when do you get a C on any test? English is your best subject!” They were angry, and rightfully so. She promised to do better, but wondered if she even could now. All Connie’s grades were slipping and she had been cut from the cheer squad. Her boyfriend broke up with her in order to date her best friend since kindergarten, and the ASB vice told her she was failing in her duties as the secretary.

 

   Connie’s world seemed to be falling apart all around her and she had no one else to blame but herself. Or did she?

 

   The whole thing seemed to have started with her first bad grade on an English test. And who was to blame for that?