Stalker Girl: The Pretender

Flyleaf- Cassie Obsession is an illness. At least, that's what we're told. We're medicated to stop loving things with our entire existence. We're told that letting our love consume our minds and soul is not a good thing. But then again, there are plenty of things that aren't good for us. Like too much chocolate or being on our phones for long stretches of time. I remember my first obsession. Her name was Jennifer Dovonan. I was eight years old. She was the prettiest and nicest girl I had ever seen and that remains true to this day. At seventeen, Jenny looked like Malibu Barbie. Her long sandy blonde hair was always styled with pretty butterfly clips and glitter. Her perfectly manicured hands always matched her purse and her purse always had to match her shoes. Like all the girls of her generation, Jenny wanted to be famous and she could have been. Except Jenny had a thing about older men and when I met her, Jenny had a thing for my father. William Hale Jr. With that said, Jenny's excuse to be around him was me. She'd dress me up like a princess. She'd do my hair like hers. My dad would give her his black card and we'd shop endlessly. We'd play for hours and hours and I fell in love with the idea of her being my mother. Obsessed with the love she gave me because no one else did. Not my father who was f*****g seventeen-year-old Jenny or my mother who I used to think was my aunt. She'd make me call her that until I forgot that she was my mother. So, yeah. Jenny was all I could think of. I'd wait for her by the door every day after school with all of my school assignments, activities for us to do when my homework was done, and snacks. Because surely, she was tired from high school and needed all the snacks. And every day she would walk through the double doors of Hale Manor with a huge smile on her luscious glossy lips. She'd get down on one knee, open her arms for me and when I ran to her, she'd scoop me up and swing me around in her arms. There was no better feeling than being in her arms. The softness of her glittery spray-tanned skin. The smell of her fruity fragrance. The sound of her hopeful giggles and my god, the way she said my name. Like I meant everything to her. And then she was gone. The night before she "disappeared", Jenny tucked me into bed and read me a bedtime story. The way had every day since she became my babysitter. As she moved around my room, cleaning up the toys and making sure my things were prepared for me in the morning when I got up for school, my dad walked in and whispered something in her ear to which she responded the way she usually did when my dad said something to her. With excitement and a welcoming smile. The two of them walked out of my room together and as I drifted off to sleep, I heard my mom yelling. Then my father and as darkness consumed me, Jenny cried. I couldn't move. I could just listen as I fell asleep. There was a two-week search for her led by my parents and the best detectives money could buy. But I knew what happened to her. Like all the other things I loved most, my mother took Jenny away. For two whole years, I locked that anger inside of me. The rage that I couldn't let go of. I chased away every babysitter, every nanny, every private tutor, and anyone who attempted to usurp my Jenny. For two years, it was all I could think about. All I felt was the emptiness of her departure. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. Jenny. It was all I had left. It was like a part of my soul had drifted off with her and nothing I did mattered anymore. No matter how much anyone tried to comfort me, I couldn't let it go. And then I heard her. My mother. She was shouting at my dad about some mistress and it slipped right out of her disgusting mouth. "I'll kill her. I'll kill her the way I did that little slut-Jenny," she screamed at the top of her lungs, and then much to my pleasure, my father raised his hand and slapped that b***h across the face so hard he knocked her out. I stood there as my father looked down at my mother with true hatred in his eyes. I searched around my room and I found a letter opener on my writing desk that used to belong to Jenny. It was a tiny jaded dagger she stole from my dad's study. I gripped it in my hand and stepped up to my father's side and slipped the dagger in his hand. He looked down at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "Do it for Jenny, Daddy," I took his hand giving it a squeeze. He crouched down in front of me and held the dagger up. "You do it for Jenny," he smiled at me in a way he never had before. As I took the dagger back, my mother groaned. She looked up at the two of us and laughed. "What?" she scoffed. "What are you going to do? Kill me?" "Yes, Mommy," I whispered. "Because you took Jenny away," My mother opened her mouth to speak. Maybe she opened her mouth to deny it or defend herself. Maybe she wanted to apologize or maybe just say my name one last time. But the truth is, I never really liked the way she said my name. There was always a harshness to the way it slipped from her disgusting fake lips. The way her nose would scrunch up as if it disgusted her just as much as her uselessness disgusted me. Whatever she was going to say was better left unsaid. Before she could get the words out. I pushed the letter opener into her throat and then yanked it out. Her hand wrapped around her throat and she began to choke and blood gushed out from the small insertion. Her other hand reached around for something, anything she could use to save her. I put my hand in my father's and he held on to it tightly. The two of us watched as she died a slow painful death, drowning in her own blood. With a smile on his face, he knelt down in front of me the way Jenny used to. He pushed my hair out of my face and let out a heavy sigh of relief. It was the first time I every felt like I was worthy of being his daughter. "Ex, you can never tell anyone what you did tonight. You promise?" he asked. "Yes, Daddy. I promise," I nodded. His smile turned into a grin and he pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly. That night and every night after that until I was twelve, my father tucked me in and read me a story. He taught me things. How to fight, how to use weapons, how to hunt. Patience and everything there is to know about doing bad gangster s**t. William Hale Jr. the King of Muse found his inspiration for a second time in the emerald eyes of his ten-year-old daughter. Exael Hale. He turned her into a weapon that he wouldn't be able to control once she realized that she could be more than just his little princess. The night I stuck that same letter opener in his throat, the mother fucker look back at me with pride, and that same deranged smile on his lips. "Can you say hi to Jenny for me, Daddy?" I whispered in his ear and his last words to me were: "Of course, baby. I'll tell Jenny you miss her,"