Jenni has a skateboard. Her hair is brown and red and her knees are scraped bright red with grey. She hisses. Her legs are bruised.

My parents don’t like me skating up and down this street but honestly I don’t care.

His dad has been cheating on her mom and her mom never has time for either of them anymore.

It’s always fighting so they don’t notice when Jenni slips away from the house.

In fact, they just don’t care about anything at all anymore.

So Jenni tries again and again. She hisses as she stands up and sees the cut she got.

Secretly she likes the sting. It makes sense of the pain and confusion she feels inside.

Jenni throws the skateboard up and catches it, trying that new trick again, flipping the skateboard twice and landing on top of it. Her friend Mikey twisted his ankle trying to nail it and somehow that made her want to master it more.

She tries again and again.

That night she has a nightmare that she’s practicing the trick again but she falls and cuts herself so bad the cut is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and it doesn’t stop and she becomes mortified. Her body is just gushing like a really bad wound and nobody’s there to help her.

That has all been a memory and she’s now in her first year of college. Her parents have divorced since then and she has changed her hair. Her hair is long and black and she wears it straightened. She goes to the club every so often and loves to straighten her small bangs.

She loves wearing black.

Ever since she started college and moved out with her mom she has been trying new things and her mom has tried to be more present in her life. She tells her “Don’t waste your time with stupid boys.”

Jenni doesn’t care. She doesn’t know if she does it out of spite or confusion but every other weekend she’s making out with a new guy.

None of them are the bring home type of guy.

She didn’t know she would get eaten alive.

But she did.

He gave her a promise, live forever. She declined. Then he promised, I will love you forever. I will give you all the riches. I will give you all the glory. Everything your heart desires.

She knows she should have known better.

Still she took his promises and signed the deal.

He was a demon, some type of creature from darkness.

She lived, but at what cost?

She soon found herself being his meal everyday. Everyday he would tear a leg off, her arm off, like she was nothing.

She would scream and nobody could hear cause he kept her locked in a basement. Sometimes she would come up and see the trees and leaves fall off the branches and think only the trees could see.

Just like me, the leaves tear off one by one.

They would travel the world and she never died. Just an accessory, just a side piece, a treat. They would see century after century and the woman could not speak. She hasn’t known that by chasing after riches and glory she would lose her own voice.

By the worst means, she learned: never make a deal with the devil.