The world’s worst YA protagonist

“Chad,” Ella whispered, her voice breathless, “you said you would do anything for me.”

“Of course, my love,” Chad sighed.

“And Dan,” Ella continued, “you also said you would do anything for me.”

“You are my sun,” Dan yelled, in a tender way. “If you aren’t with me, I don’t know how I can go on living.”

“Ok,” said Ella. “So what you’re saying is, we should definitely have a threesome.”

The two boys looked at her in stunned silence. Both wore equal expressions of confusion on their perfectly symmetrical faces. They were like two flawlessly carved Greek statues, and like Greek statues, they were going to do things that Victorian archaeologists would have censored in the name of public decency.

*

Damien stared deeply into Ella’s violet eyes.

“Yeah, I totally have an eyelash in there,” she said. “Can you see it?”

*

There were tears in Lucius’s perfect cerulean eyes. “This is a love that will last forever,” he breathed.

“About that,” said Ella, “I was thinking we should break up when I go to college. I don’t do long distance relationships.”

“I would follow you to the ends of the earth!” Lucius cried. His perfect amber-colored hair shimmered in the sunlight.

“Yeah, I know.” Ella patted him companionably on the arm. “It would just be kind of weird to have my high school boyfriend hanging around campus, you know? Besides, I was kind of planning on going through a slutty phase.”

*

Ella awoke with a start. Her dreams had been troubled, full of flashbacks to the traumatic event in her past that had left her damaged, but stronger, in a way that was a little bit tragic but also kind of romantic. Someone was standing at the foot of her bed. He wore a tight-fitting black t-shirt, and though it was dark, she could sense that his abs were totally killer.

“Go back to sleep,” she heard Drake whisper, his voice soothing and familiar. “I’ll watch over you.”

Ella reached for the can of Mace she kept on her nightstand for this sort of occasion.

*

Ella’s English teacher had assigned Wuthering Heights. It was the fifth consecutive year that Ella had been required to read it.

“I’m not sure high schoolers have enough experience with Gothic romance to grasp the satirical elements,” she told her friend Kate, who was pretty and popular, but in a conventional way that was ultimately shallow and lacking in mystery.

“I think it’s romantic,” Kate breathed. Then she sighed.

Ella stared out the classroom window, which overlooked a moor. Raven was out there again. The rain had plastered his shimmering jet-black hair to his sunken cheeks, and his eyes were like limpid azure pools.

“Ugh,” said Ella. “I just know he’s brooding again.”