Jilted

"…Honestly, I loved being a part of Silverstone High and I am grateful for what it has made me today. Like the dawn, before the brightest sunrise is the darkest—I was that dawn. A dark and shy person, too afraid to leave my parent's side and step into this big world, but, Silverstone High accepted me as who I am. This school nurtured me into the bright sunrise that I am today, and I am immensely grateful for that…"

A yawn escapes her dull peach lips which she skillfully conceals as an itch on her left cheek. She is another one of his audiences, bored out of her wits from the exaggerated fakeness spewing out of the Valedictorian.

"Bro, I just want him to stop. Like how long is this dude gonna blabber?" the boy sitting next to her asks, leaning in towards her ear and subtly pointing at the brunette orating on the podium some giraffe steps away from their seats. The blonde shrugs, another yawn escaping her lips. Her slender jean-clad legs were sprawled out in what her strict grandmother would call an 'indecent' manner.

"…And lastly, for all those who find this graduation speech boring," he gestures the yawning crowd, third row and after, "I've got some tea to spill!"

Instantly the slothful crowd of students sits up, eyes brightening for the sole purpose of having a topic to talk trash over the holidays.

"Go on Marlin!" the boy, who wanted Marlin to stop, encourages.

Marlin's face graces a malicious smile; the one that would never be followed by sunshine or rainbows; the smile of impending doom. Voldermort's smile when he kills the innocent.

That smile.

Her dull peach lips part in thought. A whirlwind of thoughts swirl in her pretty little head, dwindling her priorities.

Majority being: is he finally going to propose? How romantic!

Minority being: did he find a bloody condom in my closet…?

"So, Edith Aberdeen," Marlin points, "the little blonde in A-3…"

Predatory glances from clout-thirsty high schoolers weaken her airy defenses.

"She has been my girlfriend for the last three years," Marlin speaks and the crowd coos like the hopeless romantics they are. Edith's doey orbs lock with Marlin's grey ones, like a tornado halted because there was chocolate in its way. Undecipherable —affection…fancy…adoration, maybe?—etched upon his face.

"And today, I want to confess something about her."

Confusion. Edith chose to rest with confusion.

There it was; that smile again.

"Edith Aberdeen Chambers is the most overbearingly prudish and hostile woman I have ever met. She is callous enough to kick a cat and assertive enough to let others take the blame for it while she obnoxiously lives gaily ever after. She is crude, rude and deems the world unworthy of continuing just because she isn't in the mood. I realized that being with you is nothing more than a waste of my time, so, I'm dumping you!"

Gasps. Loud whispers. Snickers.

Edith eye rolls.

Well this could have gone much worse.

He could have wished her an early birthday and sang to her in front of the entire crowd! She visibly shudders at the mere thought of it.

"Marlin Bailey!" the principal seethes, clearly blown out of his mind by the behavior of the valedictorian. Then he transforms into a werewolf and eats up the student because he was secretly in love with Edith all along.

Or that's what half of the student body believed over the next few summers because after that afternoon, Marlin Stewart disappeared without a trace.

>----------<3

.

Edith was a pampered child.

It was fun until her family visited a fortune-telling hobo who took $50 for a meeting and blabbered something SO impactful, that cost Edith all of her social life.

She wondered if the hobo told them about her secret skeleton stash back in the local park…

Nah.

Though, turning over a new leaf is not easy if you are Edith Chambers— she packed up her bags and skipped towns for college. New chapters of life deserve to start in new places, innit?

She got into a fight with one of Marlin's admirers. Surprise, they exist?! Edith didn't do much after banging the girl's head on her locker and breaking her nose. Being ever so considerate, Edith even hugged her close and delivered her to the nurse's office in person.

Because Edith was a bloodthirsty vampire who had a food accident.

Or at least that's what the students believed when Edith roamed around with a bloody tee-shirt on all day long. In her defense, it blended well with the outfit and kept people at bay. But when she took it off for trashing it, a tag caught her eye.

Made in Huxley.

So Edith moved to Huxley.

Huxley was a beautiful place, densely populated with trees and sparsely by humans. The lush prairies and grassy hills surrounding the town's border were still pristine from mankind's selfish destructive line of vision.

Edith knew she hit a jackpot when she finds a double story house on rent for a mere $100 per month! The price was insanely affordable, considering the fact that it overlooked the town lake and the Howling Forest. The neighborhood was squeaky clean and the people were friendly as well. Not that Edith has anything to do with the latter part of that sentence.

With the start of college came expenses and expenses needed money to be paid with. The money came from part-time jobs and a part-time job knocks on Edith's door, one autumn evening, with a dazzling smile, quirky style and a relentless vigor that exhausted Edith the moment she clicked the lock open.

"Yes?" she questions with an eyebrow raise, leaning against her doorframe.

The man gave Edith one of his brightest smiles which made her insides churn with cringe.

He looks like he is somewhere in his mid-twenties with that ruffled rusty hair, bright eyes that were uniquely a pair of the lightest brown, borderline golden, Edith has ever seen. There is something eerily soothing in just staring at them, a satisfaction equating to watching a YouTube video of honey dropping in layers, one on top of the other.

His eyebrows look well made, pointed towards the ends as his center-parted curls were threatening to make a heart over his wide forehead. His long bony fingers itch his curvy chin and Edith could not help but fawn over his sleek jawline and verve boxy smile.

This man possessed an otherworldly beauty.

"Miss Chambers?" the man questions in return, scanning the pockets of his waistcoat to find something.

An amused smile graced Edith's lips upon glancing at his ornate dressing style; a bright orange dress shirt with an intricately patterned red and brown waistcoat that was peeping out of his brown and orange tailcoat. Edith bit the insides of her cheeks to stop throwing herself in a fit of laughter over his purple bell-bottomed pants.

If his beauty was not, then his dressing sense was sure quite otherworldly.

"Edith Chambers?" the question resounded again.

"Yes, that's me," she replies, pressing her lips in a thin line and nodding. The azure sky beyond her doors was a stark contrast to the Halloween color palette standing on her doorstep.

"Ah!" the man gasps, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket. He gives her a toothy grin, again, while unfolding the paper and smoothening it out on the crème walls of Edith's rented house.

"Here it is! The flyer! I thought I lost it! The queen of the moons, only if I had lost it, my Nettie would have had my head detached!" he laughs out loud, heartily, leaving Edith nodding in awkwardness.

She recognized the pamphlet at once.

She designed that crumpled piece of paper when the last of her brain cells were at war.

Mabel, her classmate, proposed this idea to her on one sad afternoon when she was eating a sandwich while pretending that it was a pizza (it was working until she was disturbed) and contemplating the decisions of coming so far away from home.

The blonde's eyes had brightened to such an extent that Mabel would have never believed the excuse of a pamphlet that Edith created three days after.

PART-TIME JOB WANTED!

I CAN DO ANYTHING AS LONG AS YOU PAY.

SATISFACTION RECEIVED IS IN PROPORTION TO THE DOLLARS PAID.

UTILITY IS IMMEASURABLE AND DEPENDS ON ONE'S PERSPECTIVE. IF YOU THINK I'M USELESS, THEN HA-HA, BECAUSE TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!

EDITH ABERDEEN CHAMBERS, BELL STREET, HOUSE NO. 66.

PS: I AM NOT GIVING MY CONTACT INFORMATION BECAUSE THE LAST THING I NEED IS A STALKER OR THIRSTY PEOPLE CALLING ME AT 2 A.M.

To which Mabel had very intensely replied: "If you cared about having a stalker then you wouldn't be giving away your resident address so blatantly! And which insane, out-of-this-world person will give you a job after reading this…" she shook the paper in front of Edith's nonchalant face, to induce guilt, but failed, "…monstrosity?!"

Edith had rolled her eyes and replied, "You are not helping Mabel. I bet anyone having quarter more brain cells and a better sense of humor than you will surely hire me."

Edith had snatched the piece of paper from Mabel, crumpled it and threw it away. Though Mabel fetched it out of the dustbin and pinned it up on the community wall, in the town center, declaring "It's a bet."

It seems like Edith just won.

"Ah! See your paper is so crumpled, I bet a lot of people hire you, I mean who wouldn't. Your proposal is so in-the-face and funny! I like the way you chose your words, it seems quite cerebral. The key to ensnare a person's heart is a good set of words. My wife is surely lured by your intellect…"

Edith stares at him with dead eyes and slightly upturned lips, 'Was this man pretending to be a nitwit or was it just his personality?' she wonders.

"The bold but basic font and center alignment reflect your honesty and straightforwardness…"

'This man is a man who would apologize to plants before eating them. Yes.'

"…Ah, your postscript just tickles my insides and—"

"Excuse me, mister, but you never stated the purpose of your visit," Edith cuts into his seemingly endless rant.

He stops, still in a trance, lips parted in an 'o' shape. The hand which held Edith's pamphlet slides down and he clears his throat. "Ahem, where are my manners? I'm Toril Maely, your neighbor," he extends his hand for a handshake.

Abrupt recognition flashes in Edith's brown eyes. "Oh! So you are the one who sings Christmas carols at midnight?" she questions, eyes wide.

Toril nods happily, "That would be my family, yes!"

"Just one question, why?" Edith all but whines on her doorstep. Toril ruffles his already ruffled red hair and shrugs.

"Why not?" he countered.

In that moment, Edith wanted blood on her hands. A good smash of his head on the white walls and his family's midnight shenanigans would all be good and gone.

Instead, Edith scoffs, "Well because people who have actual lives and have survived another grueling day are trying to get a night's rest and sleep rather than—"

There was a hand in front of her face, the same beautiful hand. His index finger and thumb connect at their tips and he drags a line in front of Edith's lips, the universal symbol of conveying shut-the-hell-up or zip-it. "You talk too much, Miss. Chambers."

Edith's eyes widen at the extent of hypocrisy the man before her could muster. "I—me—" she began but was cut off rather ruthlessly.

"Let's not beat around the bush, Miss. Chambers, I'm here to offer you a job," Toril interrupts with a pleasant smile.

Even though all of Edith's body wants nothing more than to repel this man, her future bills did not allow her to do so. "Yes, of course, Mister Maely, do continue!" she all but chirps. If she was an anime character saying this line, there would be rainbows behind her head and sunshine above it.

"My Nettie and I will be going out for our anniversary dinner and we need a baby sitter for our daughter Pristine. She's an absolute angel; you will have no problems dealing with her. We are willing to pay $50 for two hours, do you agree?" Toril asked, eyes focusing on Edith's ceiling as he was quite possibly calculating the amount. After being satisfied, he nodded to himself.

"Yeah sure, why not. When do I start?" her reply was instantaneous and Toril was amused to see the glint of excitement in her grey eyes.

"Right now, dear," Toril stated, snapping an excited finger in front of her, "Pack up and follow me!"

Little did Edith knew, she was walking right into the trap of her life…