Page 10 of Our Secrets and Scars

But here, people don’t.

Even my roommate, Isla, who I’ve spent quite a lot of time with since she’s taken me under her wing as her new best friend, hasn’t noticed them. Or, if she has, she’s yet to mention it.

I guess it’s because my college experience up until now has been so different from what I went through in high school after the incident that I’m having a hard time believing that it’s real. Not one person has carved the words “Kinsley Garcia is an ugly whore” into the fresh paint job on my car or posted a fake advertisement online for “sex services by a scarred slut.”

But then, I guess I’m not Kinsley anymore.

I’m Violet.

I was always going to leave Kinsley behind in Idaho, but I killed her the day I realized Fletcher no longer wanted anything to do with me. That day, I lost the only person who has ever seen me for me, despite never actually having seen me at all. So, Kinsley died, and Violet was born.

And for the most part, things are better now because of it. Because if I apply enough makeup and dress the right way, I can almost forget that Kinsley ever existed at all. I can pretend that my past isn’t mine. That my face isn’t burned. That I don’t flinch at the sound of high-pitched noises or fall dizzy at the smell of smoke.

Now, as I shove through the doors to the lecture hall, I can pretend that Violet is who I’ve always been and that the girl who got burned and lost her sister in the fire is just somebody I used to know. It doesn’t stop the immediate instinct to hide my face when a few dozen eyes swing to look at me though, but I manage to swallow the feeling down and find a seat in the front without cowering too obviously.

Meticulously, I place my lilac-papered notebook and pink glitter gel pen down at a perfect right angle before writing my name and the date in the corner of a fresh page in cursive.

“Wow, your handwriting is almost as pretty as you.”

I jump at the sound of the gruff voice, whipping my head around to find a guy with blond spikey hair lounging in the seat beside me with his arms stretched out across the backs of the chairs behind him. He’s taking up so much of my space that if his finger twitched, I’d feel the brush of it on the back of my neck.

I sit forward, narrowing my eyes at him in both discomfort and suspicion.

“Owen,” he says, holding his hand out for me to shake.

I don’t take it.

“Violet.”

“Beautiful name.” He smolders, either oblivious to my obvious disinterest or undeterred by it. “After the color?”

“The flower, actually.”

My mother chose it. Not that she has any idea that I’m no longer going by Kinsley, but because it’s my middle name. Both Bex and I had our middle names inspired by flowers, but I probably got the better of the two. Bexley Dahlia, that was my sister’s name.

The banging of the door opening and closing sounds the entry of the professor, and I breathe a sigh of relief that the class is close to starting and that Owen, whoever the hell he is, might leave me alone.

I tilt my body away from him, hoping that he takes the hint, and copy down the title of the lecture that the professor is scribbling across a blackboard.

Introduction to Law and Public Policy.

I may have only been here for two weeks, but I’ve already declared my major. I’ve known what I’m going to study since before I even applied. In fact, I’ve had my entire future planned out for a long time.

Four years at college studying political science followed by a further three years at law school.

“You wanna be a lawyer?” Owen whispers, distracting me from what the professor is saying, his hot breath tickling my neck and making me feel dirty.

I nod curtly, not wanting to be rude but conscious not to encourage him either.

“What kind?”

The exasperated sigh that leaves me is audible, but he ignores it and looks at me pointedly until I answer. “Immigration.”

The goal is to advocate for families like my own and guide people from anywhere and everywhere through the incredibly difficult immigration process.

“Huh.” He chuckles, his mouth too close to my ear. “Didn’t even know that was a thing.”

This time, I don’t even try to humor him with niceties. The professor is talking too fast, and I’m so far behind on my note taking that my handwriting, which is usually beautifully curled and neat, is now a scribbled mess. It makes me itch to look at it. And now I’ll have to spend hours tonight rewriting them until they’re perfect.

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