In the beginning, I thought my life would be like any other normal teenager's. High school, then college. Parties on the weekends. The friends I grew up with all around me. And finally finding that special someone I could settle down with one day. Who knew I was destined for a complete nightmare instead? That my perfect world would come crashing down around me? That I would go from a girl who had goals, friends, and a future, to having absolutely nothing... in a foreign place?
"Serena, breakfast is ready!" My mother yelled up from the bottom of the stairs.
"Be there in a moment, Mom," I answered back.
I looked at myself in my mirror as I finished adjusting my clothes for the day. My hair was up in a ponytail, pulled tight. No makeup — my family always said I was a natural beauty, and I believed them; my skin was absolutely flawless, and I never thought I needed any. Behind me, my bedroom had gone from pristine condition to a theme park for demolition derby within a few minutes, clothes thrown everywhere in my hunt for the perfect first-day outfit. Seeing the destruction, I told myself: this year, I will become the best-dressed girl in school.
You see, all my life I've been picked on and bullied in school for the type of clothes I wear. People did not like my style. It was unwelcome by many. I am the type of person who dresses in a way that shows my personality, the type of person I am as a whole. I always thought that if I dressed in jeans with rips in them or paint splattered all over them, beanies, a checkered button-up shirt tied around my waist, black punk rock tees, or emo-style pants with the chains hanging on them, people would see my fun-loving side. I was absolutely wrong. All it ever got me was laughed at in the hallways and talked about behind my back.
That was the entire reason I dressed that way, though. I never wanted people to mistake me for a preppy, stuck-up, snot-nosed bitch type person. Better they laughed at my chains than thought I was one of them.
But that was the old town. The old school. The old Serena.
Since my family moved to a new town and I'm in a new school, I'm gonna make this the best year ever. So instead of dressing like I usually do, I went with solid white sneakers and a knee-length pink strappy dress. The pink felt strange on me, like I was wearing somebody else's life, but that was the point. New town. New school. New me.
Downstairs, I could smell breakfast cooking — eggs, and something sweet my mom only makes when she wants a morning to feel special. She was trying, in her own way, to give me a good first day. I grabbed my bag, took one last look at the girl in the pink dress in the mirror, and told her she could do this.
That was when I saw it, through my window.
A raven. Sitting on the fence outside, black as a hole in the morning, completely still. Ravens are big up close — bigger than you think — and this one was looking in. Not at the house. At my window. At me. The second our eyes met, a cold feeling went down my back, and I actually laughed at myself. A bird. I was letting a bird spook me on my first day.
I turned away. I got my bag. I went down to breakfast like a normal girl in a normal house.
I did not know it yet, but nothing about my life was ever going to be normal again.