Unmasked (19 page)

She hoped that these words wouldn’t ignite a fire of fury in Blade. He was like a time bomb, and she just cut a wire.

But by the look of the expression on his face, she chose the wrong wire to snip.

“What?” he asked incredulously. “What kind of B.S. are you trying to pull in order to get rid of me?”

“N-n-nothing,” Noelle began. “It’s just I-I.”

Suddenly the most horrible realization struck her.

“Blade, you don’t love me, you love my mask!”

“Your what?”

She inhaled sharply, “My mask. I’ve had it on ever since I befriended Hera. You just love me because I’ve been hiding behind the face of someone else. Please, you’ll never love me for me, and we can’t be together because of that.”

He gazed at her ominously as if deciding what to do. He drew back a hand and Noelle flinched anticipating the blow.

“You don’t get to make the decisions, Saint,” he fumed while slapping her again once more, “but if you’re really eager to leave me, good riddance.”

Noelle half-hoped that he would leave the room at these words, but more painful blows came. One after another seemed to dig the dagger of despair deeper and deeper into her soul.

Suddenly, a flash back attacked her as she remembered back to her first day at camp when the camp director had offered some odd advice.

“…Noelle…watch out for sharp objects. While they seem bright and appealing to the eye, they can cut much deeper than intended.”

Now she understood, the campus director never warned her against a dagger or sword.

She had meant Blade.

He gutted her in the stomach with a sharp kick and repeated several times until Noelle was certain that she could feel one of her ribs break. Her dress began to rip under the pressure of her curling up into a fetal position as a last defense.

Finally the last blow came, certainly it was the hardest, but Noelle let out a sigh of relief as she realized the fight was done, and Blade seemed satisfied with his work.

He concluded his exit with the final words, “I’ve always known, Saint, whether you put a mask on or not, you’ve always been nothing. And you’ll never amount to anything more than that.”

And Noelle believed him.

Weeks had passed since the masquerade, and the story work had begun.

The analysts decided to restart the story completely erasing Hera from the history of the first draft. Noelle found this sadly amusing and depressing that a figure of such importance could be easily forgotten by her friends and peers. Hera’s death seemed ages ago, and everyone molded into the mindset of “moving on”.

Aleesha morphed into scene work like she had practiced for this moment all her life. Due to her  personal relationship with Blade, the story seemed second nature to her considering the boring bits of romantic dialogue that she shared with him.

While Aleesha’s dialogue increased exponentially each day, Noelle’s lines suddenly began to disappear at an alarmingly rapid rate.

It started with a fewer line here or there than the day before, but eventually the story analysts had decided that they saw her as an irrelevant role. While she still maintained her “Supporting Character” status, she was given hardly any more lines or actions than the Extras.

Of course, Noelle didn’t mind this much because she wanted to spend the least amount of time with Blade as possible. While most of her bruises that he gave her had mellowed to a sickening yellow, she knew for certain that the permanent scars would forever be implanted into her soul.

Those were the things that make up couldn’t erase.

A mask could cover them up for a while, but the wearer would be fully aware of what was underneath.

When it came time for dinner, she avoided Blade’s table like the plague. This was partially voluntary, though she had lost her invitation to sit there anyway.

Unfortunately, every friend that she met at that table deserted her because all of them sided with Blade, thoroughly convinced that Noelle had expected far too much from him in their relationship.

She cast a longing glance at her previous table before settling around a very secluded island with the population of one. She angrily slid into an empty table, eyeing the floor, avoiding everyone’s penetrating gaze from Blade’s table. She tried to ignore the sudden snickering from her previous friends hoping that they were laughing at some irrelevant joke that had nothing to do with her.

She glanced over her shoulder to find this suspicion confirmed. They never once craned their heads in the direction at which Noelle was darting them.

She was unnoticed. Unseen.

Undone.

Everything inside her felt unraveled as if she were a roll of ribbon and someone threw her contents in every which direction, never once caring of what damage it did. She felt vulnerable as if everyone viewed her under a microscope and could catch her flaws from a mile away.

School was like a war zone, and she had a permanent bull’s eye strapped to her chest. Shot down and down again, what was the difference? How much longer would she put up with the fight?

She had wanted to inspire the world.

But instead it threw her into an endless fire of sorrows and lost dreams.

“Noelle,” cried out a familiar voice.

Noelle slowly raised her head to spot Bri waving her over to her table. Noelle had hoped, secretly, that Bri was waving to someone who was sitting directly behind her, but the vacated space left gave no signs of walking over to Bri.

This is what has become of me,
thought Noelle sadly,
dining with the Extras.

Despite herself, she slowly arose and joined with Bri. She had figured that it was better to feel terribly alone in a crowd of people. When she slid her tray onto the table with a light
thud,
several of the Extras shuffled anxiously, avoiding eye contact with Noelle.

They began whispering amongst themselves hiding their eyes whenever they involuntarily darted in Noelle’s direction.

Noelle reddened as Bri turned to her friends and muttered something in a very harsh tone.

One of Bri’s friends flushed a very bright pink and begrudgingly muttered, “Hey, I’m Louisa.”

The girl then hid herself behind her black bangs that formed a curtain right under her eyebrows as she quickly jumped into a conversation with a guy who seemed eager not to engage in one with Noelle.

Was this what was becoming of her? That an Extra had to force her friends to mutter a greeting?

Bri adjusted herself so that she could block the other Extras from Noelle’s view, perhaps hoping that her friends would turn invisible.

“So,” Bri said nervously, “how are you, Noelle?”

“Good,” Noelle lied automatically.

Bri shot her a skeptical look as if she could see right through the lie, “Right,” she said, “well, tonight we’re having another meeting about the Author, and we were wondering if you wanted to join us.”

Noelle scanned the table and watched as an expression of uneasiness spread across every face at the table to easily illustrate that the people there hardly wanted Noelle to show her face at that meeting.

“No thanks,” said Noelle firmly.

“Sorry,” Bri bobbed apologetically, “if you have another conflict with tonight I understand, but we’d love to –”

“I’m not doing anything tonight,” Noelle snapped suddenly, ready to unleash her rage on everyone at the table. “But I don’t want to go.”

Bri’s smile wavered, “Why?”

Noelle motioned to the entire table as several guys and girls ducked as if she were about to slice their heads off clean with the swift motion. Noelle stared at them incredulously wondering if she was truly dreaming and that she would wake up from this nightmare.

“They don’t want me there.”

Bri shot several members a scolding look, which they deflected by counting the number of cracks in the cafeteria ceiling.

“Ignore them,” Bri said firmly. “They’re just being stupid.”

“No,” Noelle seethed, “you know what’s wrong with you people? There’s no point to you. I know for a fact that there are plenty of people who don’t follow the Author, who do your job better than all of you combined! You boast of helping others when none of you can stare at me squarely in the eye.”

Still avoiding eye contact, the people looked stunned as if Noelle had struck them with a rock-filled snowball across the face perfectly illuminating a frost-bitten red.

Noelle felt as if she were spitting venom by the expressions on their face, but she knew that she had certainly hit a home run with a hard truth, because it struck everyone that she wasn’t lying.

“You’re right,” Bri moaned. “Everyone here makes mistakes, and that’s no reason for us to judge you. We all have our own arenas, and we’ve all lost our own fights.”

She stared at Noelle directly making eye contact with several tears sparkling down her cheeks.

“But please don’t let our stupidity keep you away.”

“Away from what?” screeched Noelle. “If I join your little Author fan club, is my life going to perfectly fall into place? All of you apparently have your act together, and now you have no problems because the Author gives you whatever you want!”

“Far from it,” Bri spluttered, “Noelle, our lives are no more prosperous then they were before we met the Author –”

“Then why do you think that I would ever want to join the Author’s clubhouse?”

Bri faltered for a moment to blow her nose into a napkin and sponge off the tears with her hands. Noelle had felt a wave of pity for her friend, but rage easily replaced it. She was so mad at the world and ready to be done.

Bri gazed at her full on, “Because the Author sees us when we’re broken. He finds us in the ditch on the road of life when we were dead, and he brings us back to life. He turns us into something beautiful, like that glass heart.”

Noelle suddenly envisioned the gift stuffed underneath her pillowcase. She shook her head violently wondering how she could ever be repaired. Bri didn’t know what she was talking about. Bri never drank, or starved herself, or sold her life for a night with Blade.

“I’m too far from repair,” Noelle whispered fighting back tears.

“Nothing is impossible,” Bri answered breathlessly.

“This is.”

Bri sighed, “Noelle you may have given up on the Author, but he’s never giving up on you.”

“It’s not him I’m giving up on,” for she had done this a very long time ago.

This time she was giving up on herself.

“Good bye,” Noelle muttered before collecting her tray and dumping it in the trash can.

“See you later,” Bri called back cheerfully.

Noelle glanced at her sadly, knowing that Bri knew nothing about the farewell she had just given.

Noelle decided that Bri wouldn’t see her after that, in fact, no one would.

“Mark the date on the calendar,” she whispered to herself. “Noelle, this is the day that you’re going to die.”

She checked the calendar until she had the day memorized. She chanted it to herself over and over again knowing that she had to remember it.

Because no one else would.

No one else cared.

#

Noelle shuffled through the kitchen drawers when the cafeteria cooks had shuffled out because their shift was over. Long over, in fact, Noelle had once again managed to creep past the hallway patrol into the kitchen.

This time, not for the shears, but something far more deadly.

She stared at the array of sharp knives cringing at the thought of the pain they would inflict. Of course, she wouldn’t find a gun in the kitchen, but she didn’t imagine that a knife would do a very clean job.

She heard a sharp gasp of breath, and she whirled around to face Mallei with a knife in her hand dripping with blood. Noelle tried not to gag as the bloody gashes on Mallei’s forearm seemed to scream out in anguish.

“I didn’t think – are you in here to…?” Mallei motioned to the knives and then to Noelle’s wrists.

Noelle shook her head forcing the revolted feeling out of her stomach.

“Just trying to – I mean I…” How could she possible explain that she wanted to kill herself?

“I do this to take away the pain,” Mallei continued in a hysterically peaceful tone. “That’s why I always wear bandages wrapped around my arms. Of course, it only stops the pain temporarily…” She held out the knife as an act of what she would conceive of “kindness”.

Noelle shook her head softly, “I just want the pain to permanently go away.”

She always tried to fill the empty gap inside her chest with drinking, and love, and beauty, maybe this would finally fix her problem. Maybe she wouldn’t long for any happiness anymore.

Mallei nodded somewhat understandingly, “Considered suicide a few times; I hear our training coach stores a few real guns in his office for hunting season and “emergencies”. Wait here, and I’ll grab it for you.”

Mallei evaded the kitchen while Noelle paced back and forth.

Did it really all come down to this? Was this really it, her last few moments?

“Never thought you’d really do it, Saint,” called a voice from nearby the door.

Noelle whipped around and found Blade entering the room staring her square on.

“Y-you,” Noelle stuttered, “w-what are you doing here?”

“Can’t blame you though,” an icily familiar voice called from behind him.

“
Hera
?” Noelle gasped. “But it can’t be you. You’re dead.”

Hera’s gracefully beautiful feet stepped out from behind Blade as she whirled around.

“Do I look dead to you?”

The room felt bitterly cold.

“It can’t be you,” Noelle said firmly. “This has to be a trick or something, you can’t really be there.”

Hera shrugged, “Whether I’m here or not doesn’t matter, what really matters is why you’re here.”

Noelle felt suddenly dizzy as Hera began to pace around her as if a beast encircling her.

“You thought beauty would satisfy the hunger inside, but it never did,” Hera crooned.

“Power,” called a voice from behind Blade as Principal Angela Diluz, began encircling Noelle like a shark as well, “was the test that you failed time and time again. You even sheared off half of Hera’s head in order to obtain it.”

Noelle gazed at Hera in horror, but Hera simply stood stone faced as if she could not hear what the Principal had said.

“You lied to me,” Noelle screamed.

“Ah but,” the Principal waved a threateningly sharp talon at Noelle, “there is a difference between a whole lie and half lie. If I had given you all false information, you would have never fallen into my trap.”

Noelle stared at her in disbelief.

“I’ll never believe you again for as long as I live,” Noelle vowed.

“Funny thing,” the Principal crooned, “they always seem to say that. But you characters believe me all too easily.”

“Love,” taunted Blade’s voice suddenly as he joined in the circle of sharks. “That was by far the easiest snare to catch you in, Saint. You sold yourself for a false comfort; you gave yourself away for fake gold.”

Noelle clutched her stomach as she collapsed to the floor unable to bear all of this at once. Blade, the Principal, and Hera all returned to a single file line as Noelle caught sight of a figure in the distance.