The Lost Girls

I'm sorry." The universal empty words to give someone when you weren't quite sure what else to say.

I’ve only recently gotten past thinking I didn’t need anyone. It might be a minute yet before I accept that people might need me.

Wanting to love and be loved wasn't a weakness.

You think you're right. Elton thinks he's right. It's not the right side just because it's your side.

There was nothing worse than a boy who held the world in his hands and knew it.

I know what it's like to be sixteen because I'm always sixteen. I know what it's like to be alone because I'm always alone. And I damn well know what it looks like when someone gives up on me before I have the chance to show them what I'm really made of." I'd raised my voice to the point where a few people had stopped to stare. "It shouldn't be up to the kids to care when faced with someone who's already written them off." When he didn't say anything, I left. It wasn't my job to make him a decent teacher again. I had bigger problems to worry about, finding someone to eat being at the top of my current priorities, but a piece of me hurt for his students. They deserved better than someone who had stopped seeing their worth.

I'm not going to school." I'd rather shave my binkini line with a chainsaw.

She was one of us. A lost girl who still had time to find herself, and she deserved the chance we never got.

Books had always been my bright spot away from the dark.

Her smile was infectious. Like a light that only glowed for me.

Parker was one of us. She became one of us the moment Elton set his sights on her and mistakenly targeted her as weak. We were all hurting in different ways when Elton found us, and we wanted so badly to believe the pretty lies of a pretty boy, but that didn’t make us any less deserving of having a full life. Wanting to love and be loved wasn’t a weakness.

Welcome to Taco Bell. Order when ready." As I punched in the number of soft and hard tacos the drive-up wanted for their Grande Meal, I cursed every movie that made the life of a vampire look glamorous.

The three of us shouldn't have been friends. We shouldn't have even existed in the same time. But in these girls, I found something I hadn't had in a really long time. Something that felt a lot like family.

Banks didn't give loans to sixteen-year-old girls. Vendors didn't do business with sixteen-year-old girls. The world expected us to shoulder adult burdens but treated us like children when we needed something in return. Those were lessons we learned the hard way.

I needed to believe there was still hope for girls who didn't have any hope for themselves.

Aren't rituals for serial killers?" Rose raised an eyebrow. "Is that a serious question?" When I didn't say anything, she pointed between us. Two of the three girls he'd already killsed, on the same ground where he was grooming the fourth. He didn't even need to take a bone or a piece of jewelry to tuck away in a dark corner. He'd made us into living trophies.

Ida dragged her nails along the lockers. They'd been mud brown in my day but had since been painted red, the color dry and faded. A whole generation had come and gone since I'd last been here. The remnants of whom we'd been lingered in the old brick walls and dusty trophy cases.

My heart broke for all of us. The lost girls who could've been so much more, if only we'd been given the chance to grow.

Elton told me there hadn't been anyone else. I'd been the first. The only. According to him, we were fated. A once-in-a-lifetime match.

And through it all, I could see myself as I was now, standing on the other side of that love. I saw a girl who became a monster but still managed to find her humanity. I saw someone stronger than I’d ever given her credit for. I saw me. As I had been, as I could be, as I truly was. With that final memory, I let go of the regret I’d been carrying. And finally learned how to forgive myself.