Chapter 1: Parker

                                    

                                              
I wrote this novel a while ago with the idea of posting it on Wattpad.  The novel is finished, I'm just editing it heavily chapter by chapter, so I plan on posting every week.  For anyone who's read my writing before, this is a little different in that it's not fantasy.  It's more of a mystery novel.
                          
Anyway, hope you guys like it.  Feedback is appreciated!  Thanks so much to anyone taking the time to read!



                          
********************************************


                          


                          


                          
Chapter 1: Parker
                          


                          
Parker Hill had never met Mira Caulborn, but he knew her name.  Then again, everyone knew her name.
                          
    It was an unspoken whisper carried by the wind when she arrived; a nameless day in the summertime that suddenly had meaning.   'Mira is here.  Mira is here.  Have you seen her?'  As if her perfectly manicured fingernails and five hundred dollar pumps gave their shitty little town life.
                          
    The first time Parker had laid eyes on her was during his thirteenth summer.  It had been his first party, at a boy named Tom Baker's house, and he had stared at her far longer than was appropriate.  She looked unreal, as if she was a fictional vision crafted from his pre-teen mind.  Her skin was flawless and freshly tan, her hair: long and dark, curled midway down her back.  Her face was small and cat-like with huge green eyes and perfectly symmetrical lips.  And she smiled like someone in a teeth whitening commercial.  As if she had been trained since birth to genuinely look happy when she smiled.  As if she were famous, looking at an adoring fan when anyone spoke to her.  'You really love me don't you?', her smile said.
                          
    And for that one party, she captivated all of his attention.
                          
    The next time he caught sight of her was two years later when they were both fifteen.  Parker had gotten a piercing with his best friend Heath: a ring through his left eyebrow.  He thought it made him look unique and edgy.  Looking back on it now, he was sure he looked ridiculous.  Not a week after he had gotten it, his entire eyebrow had turned bright red and swollen to nearly twice its usual size.  In the end, his mother had taken the ring out and brought him to the doctor to treat the infection.
                          
But on that day, it had been newly pierced.  And he had been proud of it.  He had seen Mira from across the street surrounded by a group of the more popular boys from his high school.  Standing next to her was her little sister, Aggie.  She was a few years younger than Mira and shared a few of her striking features: an angled chin and perfect ski tip nose, piercing green eyes.  Next to anyone else, Aggie would have looked stunning.  It was only because she stood next to Mira that everyone thought of her as plain.  The side character in Mira's glamourous movie.  He almost never saw the two sister's apart.  They were often spotted walking hand in hand down main street, wandering through antique shops, a blur of Aggie's strawberry blonde hair next to Mira's dark locks, and long flowing sundresses littered with floral print.  Just as they wore on that particular day.
                          
Mira had been holding an ice cream cone and smiling.  She looked just like she had at that party two years ago.  Polished, flawless; as if someone had packaged her up and kept her perfectly preserved in a box for those two years, untouched by age, dirt, or the harshness of life.
                          
She had glanced towards Parker and his friend and as her large green eyes met his own her face turned into a strange contorted laugh.  She tried to cover her mouth and look away, but he saw it.
                          
It was then that his infatuation with Mira Caulborn subsided and a very specific disdain for her took its place.  When anyone spoke of her he got a bad taste in his mouth.  And when he saw her from afar he got that slight loathing feeling in his heart.  That distinct loathing feeling that was reserved for girls that seemed to know without a shadow of a doubt that they were better than him and the rest of the world.