The Muse Read Online Free Page B

parents to this day still held firmly to their position that they don’t hate me for ruining their lives by forcing us to pack up all of our belongings and run away from the abuses of many. I still don’t believe them.
    I often wondered if my bullies thought about me and wrestled with conflict over what they did to me back then. The intelligent adult in me understood their actions were marred in fear. The inner young lady who never got to dress up for prom, go on a date, experience a first kiss, still shook and ground her teeth at the loss of it all. Now, as an adult, my life sped by, and time, my big enemy, stomped down on me, robbing me of experiences.
    I dreamt of a day I would arrive at their houses and spray paint their pretty faces and clothes, toss mud at them, flatten their tires, and of course, punch each one of them square in the eye and laugh as I watched their eye turn black as mine did so many times. The ultimate would be to sneak up behind each one of them and cut off their hair just like they did to me every three months or so in class. I’d love to see how they’d deal with raggedy edges.
    Actually, the ultimate revenge would be to emerge as a successful writer and show up holding my head high, my name now famous—my badge of honor, my gun, my spray painter, my scissors—and surprise the prettiness right out of each and every one of them. I, Jane Knoll, despite being bullied and attacked and treated worse than a rat in a New York City alleyway, would be somebody they’d want to know now.
    I mentally carved out my dream. Of course after receiving enough hurtful rejection letters for magazine articles to wallpaper a house, this dream took a back seat. I didn’t totally abandon the idea. I just put it to rest for a while until I could figure out a way not to break into a fit of tears every time I got rejected. Without a dream, what would be left? Sweet potatoes drowning in brown sugar and melted butter? Television show marathons for the rest of my life? More visions of Larry imploding from my sad, teenage stories?
    I needed this dream to wake back up. This dream would restore me to the girl I used to be. It had to.
    # #
    When I returned home to my empty condo that afternoon, I headed to my laptop and landed back on Eva’s Twitter account. I read through her tweets and got sucked in by her wit. She played with followers, stringing them along with short musings, clueless that the girl from the bathroom stall who knew about her mismatched shoes reveled in snooping in on her.
    So, I did what any other bumbling, hormonal idiot would do and tiptoed through her profile, through her mentions, through her Twitter feed, through her followers list, through her following list, through her random images, and sank into a warm and gooey crush I couldn’t squash. I needed to learn more about her.
    I stared long and hard into her deep, dark eyes and welcomed in the flutters. She sucked me into her soul with those eyes. I sat helpless and vulnerable on my stool, a victim to the beginning stages of a crush that would tempt me, dance on my heart, and prey on my romantic weaknesses in the middle of the night.
    I could be anyone to her from the safety of my computer. I could turn myself into a gorgeous babe with a flirty side that twirled her heart and sent her off into the land of flutters and tingles, too. This sent me reeling.
    This could be fun.
    A switch clicked in me. A challenge erupted. A jolt of what could be electrified me.
    I would reinvent myself and tease her about hating Old Bay seasoning. Goodbye @jktwitter. Hello new self.
    Who did I want to be? Rich? Fit? A published writer? A traveler? What a fun article this could turn into for a high profile magazine—an experiment in social networking where shy girls got a chance to have some fun from behind the protective barrier of a computer screen and whether this enhanced their pathetic lives.
    If anyone’s life was worth testing, it was mine. All in the name of