Sweet Revenge

Chapter 1

I didn't kill her on purpose. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Poppy was one of my good friends, one of my first ever good friends actually. For once, I had met someone I could even call a friend, someone I could rely on, who I was able to trust even with my major trust issues. Now I lost that and it's all my fault. I yearn for it again but I have to realize it's my fault that it's gone in the first place. I could never and will never forgive myself.

    "Ivy! Come down for homeschool!" My mom hollered at me from down the stairs.

"Ugh," I groaned aloud, digging my head deeper into my pillow. Homeschool was miserable in every way possible. I wished I could be a normal 17-year-old and go to a regular high school, not that I was ever normal or ever will be. If I prolonged not going down even more though it was just going to be worse, so I pushed myself up and out of bed.

"Coming!" I shouted back at her. As I trudged down the last few steps of the stairs I was greeted by my mom's gleaming smile. The look of it just made me want to crawl into a hole and die even more. I looked past her at the living room floor where a huge gameboard was set up.

"What's all this?" I questioned, disinterested, nodding towards where the board and some pieces lay. Though I asked, I knew exactly what all this was doing here. My mom was trying to 'make learning fun,' her new philosophy to get me interested in homeschooling. For the record, it's not working.

"Well, I was planning on playing an American history trivia game after our lesson today," She said, energetically. "I created it last night!" I know my mother so well. I rolled my eyes, thinking how much my life sucked.

"Come on, give it a chance, It'll be fun!" She exclaimed, pulling me towards the gameboard. 'Fun.' Yeah right.

During the entirety of every lesson I barely concentrated on what she was explaining. It's not like any of this will ever be important to me in the future. Instead, my brain inevitably shifts to thinking about the date October fifth, 2021, almost two years ago. My mom notices me losing focus and admonishes me for my behavior. I don't care. The only thing on my mind is this night, the night my life changed forever.

"Ivy, focus," My mom scolded again, snapping her fingers in front of my face. This is the third time she'd had to remind me of this in one lesson. I positioned my gaze towards the huge whiteboard on the wall, where my mom was scribbling down algebra problems. I kept staring intently, though I was only pretending to listen. I caught on to snippets of her sentences, the rest went in one ear and right out the other.

"Ivy! Listen to me!" Mom hollered, completely impatient at this point. My mother is a compassionate, patient person, although when you get her irate, it's bad. Trust me when I say you don't want to see my mom lose her temper.

   "Oh, let me guess. You're thinking about her again." She says it in a hushed tone as if Poppy was standing right there, eavesdropping. She's clearly not.

"Don't say 'her' like that," I groan.

"Like what?"

"Like it's illegal to say her name or something. You can say it, I'm over it," I say, avoiding eye contact with her.

"I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't-" she pauses, taking a long breath in, "I'm not so sure that you're over it yet. I mean you think about Poppy so much you barely have a life outside of her," Now she's really irritated me.

"What do you mean, of course I have a life outside of her!" I howl.

"Ivy-"

"No, I'm done," I cross my arms and stomp up the stairs to my room. I hear her calling out for me to come back downstairs, that she didn't mean what she said. She's out of her mind if she expects me to come back down there.

That night, while I was attempting to sleep, the horrific nightmares I'd been having returned. The last time they had come to torment me was practically a month ago. But now, as vivid as ever, I see her, Poppy, her natural buttercream blonde hair gleaming under a streetlight. Her standing inches away keeping guard. The gun slipping out of my hand at rapid speed. Me lunging foward, towards her. I ruined everything for both her and me. She had so much to live for, so many immense plans for the future. Plans that I spoiled. Things that she's never going to be able to do. Dreams that she'll never achieve. All because of me.

I was a grenade in her life.

hii guys! i hope you enjoyed this first chapter of my first book! i'm going to try and update as consistently as possible! pls vote and comment what you think! bye! 🩷💜

- mari <3