Read Consume (The Devoured Series) for Free Online

devastated, but trying to be brave.
     
    And holy heart failure, Batman! She was wearing pink.
     
    Her shirt was a pink tank with a yellow one layered underneath. Her long black hair pulled over her shoulder so you could see its length and impressiveness. I remembered her…I never talked to her before, but I remembered this girl.
     
    I looked back up at Ariel. "I'm sorry that I wasn't your friend before."
     
    She shrugged. "It's cool."
     
    "What do you need from me?"
     
    "I want to…be me again." She looked up at the ceiling, like it was hard to talk about. "Like I said, I only went all anti-social and rebel to piss off my parents. They wanted me to work extra hard at being perfect since I was sick. Don't get me wrong," she shook her head, "they're great. But they thought if they just bought me wigs, dressed me in extra expensive clothes, made me feel so super normal," her voice all high and pitchy when she said it, "that I'd forget I had cancer or something. I wanted to brood a little. I wanted to be pissed off a little and I don't think it was asking too much. So I rebelled. What I want is to…wear pink again." Her eyes looked glossy when she said it.
     
    And I understood. Pink didn't mean pink. Pink meant everything that she felt was taken from her when she got cancer. I nodded and grabbed her hand as I made a beeline for my closet. I opened it and dragged her inside.
     
    "Are we going full on or easing into it?"
     
    "Easing," she said as she looked around.
     
    "I'm thinking…these," I said and pulled a pair of black ballet flats from the rack. "No socks or stockings, Ariel. None."
     
    "Ok," she said and gulped.
     
    "And this," I told her as I grabbed a little silver heart necklace from my jewelry box. "And this!" I said excitedly as I reached for a black scarf that had little bits of color to match our uniforms.
     
    "Ok," she repeated.
     
    "Ok," I agreed. "Now my turn."
     
    "What?"
     
    "I want to be more edgy. I've always been this and I want to be something different."
     
    She smiled in tolerance. "You don't have to do this to make me feel better. I made my own decisions. People always stare at me, now they can stare for another reason." She poked at the scarf. "Me in a freaking scarf."
     
    "No, I want to, really. My parents were kind of like yours, I guess. Always wanting me to be perfect, like that solved all high school problems."
     
    "Oh," she blanched, "Clara, I'm so sorry! Here I've been going on about my parents and yours…at least I still have mine. I'm sorry."
     
    "No, it's ok. I need to talk about them. I miss them. Gah, I miss them so much, but they weren't perfect. It makes it easier for me every single time I say their names."
     
    "This'll be a good start," she told me, gripping the items I gave her. "Thank you."
     
    "Not a problem."
     
    We finished getting ready in comfortable, contemplative silence. We both did our makeup in the bathroom at the same time and she didn't put on a smidge of eyeliner, or the nose ring. I on the other hand, put on a bit too much for my usual self, and no lip-gloss or lipstick. We painted each other's fingernails, mine black of course, and hers a pale pink. I was such a poser, but I hoped she understood what I was offering her. As lame as it was, I was hoping that by my causing attention to myself, she wouldn't get so many stares and could make up her mind about what she really wanted to represent.
     
    I slid on her boots. Ah, they weighed a ton each. My socks were up to my calves! She giggled as she slid on the flats I'd given her. She twirled and joked about feeling ten pounds lighter.
     
    "Ha. Try twenty," I groaned as we lugged down the hall.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Five
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    She laughed differently now, as if some weight was no longer bearing down on her. I smiled at her. Goth was just dandy, but she needed to be who she was and stop hiding to distract others from what was going on. I wondered if anyone at