Chapter Text
Haley has always dreamed of leaving Pelican Town.
When she was five, their parents had taken them on a vacation to California. She and Emily had played in the sand on the golden beaches until their cheeks had burned to a bright red, and Haley had screamed and cried when they had gone back to the airport to go home, insisting that as soon as she was big enough to go on her own, she would come back and live in Los Angeles.
When Haley was eleven and started middle school, she stared out the window of the school bus every day with desperate eyes, taking in everything that wasn’t the boring little town that she already knew all too well. She made friends with some of the girls from a town over, who hated the countryside as much as she did, and started going out to Zuzu city as often as she could to shop and take in the far more interesting city life.
When Haley was fifteen, she had just about lost patience with waiting to leave their ridiculously boring town. She tried to fill her long, monotonous days with as much as she could, with trips out to the city and parties and her newest boyfriend. Emily had started to shoot her disapproving looks in the morning, when she left the bathroom after hours of doing her makeup, and their parents – never having taken much of an active role in their lives anyway – became more removed than ever, as if they’d already written Haley off as some sort of empty-headed floozy.
Well, maybe that’s all that her family would ever think of her, but at school Haley was adored, and she still had her deepest desire buried down within her – to graduate and move far away for college as soon as she could.
Haley never talked about this ambition to anyone, because she had been crushed enough when she was younger, scoffed at and told her grades would never be good enough for college if she didn’t dedicate herself to her studies like her sister did. Emily didn’t even want to leave Pelican Town, which made Haley near apocalyptic with rage.
By the time that she finally graduated, a deep wedge had already driven itself between Haley and her sister, and they did spend much time together anymore. And then Haley got her rejection letters.
She didn’t tell anyone – she hadn’t been stupid enough to tell anyone that she’d been applying, so instead she buried herself under her blankets and cried until her mascara ran down her face and stained her pillow black. It was on that same day that her parents came into her room and told her that they were moving away. Her mom was retiring, and they had decided to head to Europe and to travel the world now that both her and Emily were adults.
Haley had stared at them blankly and asked, “am I coming with you?”
Her mom had laughed as if she’d said something silly. “No, honey, of course not! Don’t worry, you and Emily are keeping the house here. You’re a homeowner now, Haley. All that’s left for you now is to find a job here, hmm? Might be time to consider dedicating yourself to something for once. You’re an adult now.”
Next to her, Emily had nodded importantly, as if her stupid part time work making clothes gave her some kind of adult authority that Haley couldn’t possibly comprehend, and something in her had snapped. She hadn’t mentioned anything about her college rejections, or her love of photography, or the makeup Instagram account that she’d been running for years that had been making her far more money than Emily earned, but she did scream at her parents that they were two of the most selfish people that she’d ever met and she hoped that they would never come back. And she had told Emily that she was so sick of her thinking that she’s so much better than everyone else, and that she wouldn’t care in the slightest if she died.
Things were different after that. Their parents packed up and left, and Haley settled into an increasingly monotonous life exactly where she didn’t want to be – alone in Pelican Town with a sister who she was barely on speaking terms with.
It’s the life that she is still living now, five years out of high school. She still goes to parties, when there are any happening, but most of her friends from school have moved far away and there’s rarely anything going on anywhere within an hour drive. Her only real friend is Alex, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend, and Pelican Town isn’t exactly a place where new people to befriend tend to show up all the time.
She’d pretty much written off any chance of being friends with any of the other people her age around their town back in high school – she hadn’t been the kindest person back then, and had been all too eager to turn up her nose at anyone who hadn’t been floating in the same popular social circles as she had been.
So it’s just her, really. All on her own. Some days, she’ll go hang out with Alex, but more often than not, she just reluctantly drags herself out of bed in the morning, films new makeup tutorials for her Instagram, and then walks down to the beach to stare desperately out at the sea and to dream of escaping to lands far away.
Occasionally, if she’s feeling a little less hopeless, she’ll take her camera out and spend hours taking photographs of nature and the gorgeous scenery. It’s the only redeemable quality of the countryside, in Haley’s opinion.
It’s on one such day, a beautiful sunny spring day not long before her twenty-third birthday, that something happens that breaks Haley’s sad little routine. She’s deep in the Cindersap forest, trying to capture the image of a stunning yellow butterfly that’s landed on a daisy nearby. She’s on her knees in the mud, her skirt hiked up around her hips, holding perfectly still so she doesn’t scare the butterfly off as she hurriedly sets the focus of her camera.
“Wow, you are the last person I’d have expected to see in the dirt like this.”
The noise startles the butterfly, which immediately flies away, but it startles Haley more. She’s never ran into anyone in the forest before, and she realizes now that she’d gotten far too comfortable assuming that she was completely alone. The moment the words register, she surges to her feet, spinning around as she smooths her skirt back down.
It’s Abigail, leaning casually against a tree trunk behind Haley as if she didn’t just completely shatter her peace.
Instinctively, Haley lets her mouth curl into a sneer and she tilts her head back so that she can look derisively down her nose at Abigail, praying that her embarrassment doesn’t show on her face. “Yes, I suppose you’d fit the bill far more, hmm?”
Abigail doesn’t reply, simply raising an eyebrow with an unruffled expression on her face, and Haley is left feeling horribly exposed. “What do you want, freak?” she asks, hoping that Abigail doesn’t notice the way that her voice cracks a little on the familiar insult.
Abigail just snorts. “How old are you turning next week again? Twenty-three, yeah? Maybe one day you’ll manage to outgrow the insults from high school. Or not.”
“How do you even know my birthday? What are you, obsessed with me or something?”
Abigail rolls her eyes. “There are, like, twenty people in this town. Not to mention the giant parties you used to always throw for your birthday. It would be hard for me to forget, and believe me, I want to.”
Haley hates how hot her face feels right now, and the uncomfortable itchiness that is growing under her collar. When had a simple conversation with a dweeb like Abigail become a stressful thing for her? “I don’t understand why you’re bothering me. I’ve got better things to do than to talk to you, Abigail.”
“So you do know my name. Yoba, Haley, doesn’t it get exhausting to just hate everyone so much all of the time? How do you –”
“Wait, shh!” The beautiful yellow butterfly from earlier has just fluttered down and landed directly on top of Abigail’s head. The colour of it contrasts perfectly with the bright purple of her hair, and Haley has instantly zeroed in on it, previous conversation forgotten. “Don’t. Move.”
Miraculously, Abigail obeys. She holds perfectly still aside from the slightest tilt of her chin to face the camera that Haley has lifted to photograph her, and the attractive smirk that slides naturally onto her face.
Haley slides the lens into focus and starts taking photos. First, she takes a few from exactly where she is, but then, as the butterfly stays where it is, she moves in closer, taking some at different angles and featuring different parts of Abigail’s face.
By the time the butterfly finally flies off, Haley has taken dozens of photos. Glancing through them briefly, she can already tell that they’re some of her best.
“If you wanted photos of me that badly, you could have just asked.” Haley glances up just in time to catch Abigail’s wink, and she immediately feels her face heating up again. Fuck. She’d been so excited about the photographs that she’d forgotten that Abigail now knows way more about her than she should have let on.
“Whatever. I just wanted photos of the butterfly, not you. I’ll be lucky if you being in it doesn’t completely ruin it, actually. I’ll have to edit your ugly face out.”
It’s cruel, even for her, and regret is already setting even before she sees Abigail’s jaw tighten.
“Well, I’m terribly sorry for bothering you then, your royal highness,” Abigail snaps, voice positively dripping with sarcasm. “I hope you enjoy yourself up there so far above everyone that you’re completely alone.”
She turns on her heel to walk away, her hair whipping around behind her in a gorgeous purple wave. Haley opens her mouth to call after her, realizing that she’d never even asked why she’d been in the forest in the first place. Before she can speak though, Abigail suddenly stops and whips back around.
“You’re pathetic, Haley. Pathetic. You do know that nobody likes you, don’t you?”
There’s suddenly a lump in Haley’s throat, and the words die on her lips as she watches Abigail walk away.
It’s true, is the problem. She knows that it’s true. She’s pathetic, she’s failed at every single thing that she ever wanted in her life, her parents abandoned her and her own sister hates her, and she has essentially no real friends. Every day she’s just been trying not to think about it or to acknowledge it, but now that Abigail’s shoved it right in her face, it finally hits her full force.
She chokes on a sob and sinks to the ground. It’s been a while since she’s cried – years, maybe – but for once the knowledge that she’ll ruin her makeup isn’t enough for her to be able to bite the tears back. She curls up into a loose ball on the muddy ground and sobs until the sun starts to set, her camera cradled against her chest.
When it starts getting dark, she forces herself to her feet, still sniffling, and starts her long and lonely walk home.