Back Again: Uncertainties and Surprise Drafts

Can't believe it's been almost a decade since I last posted here.

I was going to just type up a short little paragraph to, I don't know, close out this page. Obviously, life has changed since the last time I've written anything to post on here. I no longer have time to attempt to write short stories, must move on to new pursuits, blah, blah blah, blah blah.

When I opened up my account though, I saw something in my drafts that got me curious. I apparently, I'd begun writing something around the end of October 2012 that I never completed, and thus never posted.

I don't even know if I can complete it. I don't even remember typing the words, much less if I had any plans for the plot moving forward.

But I'm intrigued enough to want to try. 

So yeah, just below the jump break, I'm posting the bit of the story as I found it written up in my drafts. It doesn't have a title at this time, that's something I'll have to come up with, too, as I try and move this forward. I'm not even sure if I should try and continue this story here, or just create another blog somewhere else, to try and keep my posts somewhat cohesive.

But, hey, read on, and maybe you can turn this to a complete story.

Untitled

She watched as the raindrops created little puddles on the windshield, blurring her view. Not that there was much to see, for night had fallen, and the car in which she sat was parked outside a grocery store that still had yellow crime-scene tape hanging from one of the broken windows. The street behind her wasn’t a busy one, and beyond---although she couldn’t see it from her place on the passenger seat---were old rundown commercial buildings with their precariously perched signs and graffiti ridden walls. Anne turned in her seat to stare more closely at the store. She had known its owner and his son, and she wondered why no one had bothered to fix up all the holes in the wall.

“Sean” she whispered, remembering the storeowner’s son.

It had been two months since she’d last seen him. She’d been walking home from school, trying to figure out how to tell her parents that she didn’t think she could go back, not after the events of the day. Perhaps it was because her head was down, or because she was too preoccupied; she didn’t notice that the way ahead was blocked by a couple of police cars and a crowd of curious onlookers.

Not until she heard him scream.

Up to this day it unnerved her how immediately she knew that the scream was his. She had stopped in her tracks and turned her head up to look so quickly her head spun. Several feet away, she saw Sean, his skinny form heaving against two or three burly policemen, screaming incomprehensible words that Anne understood to mean he didn’t care who he hurt or who held him back: he needed to get inside behind the yellow tape, towards the broken glass and gun ridden walls.

In the end, the policemen were too strong for him.

Another moment passed, and Ann had seen him being pushed inside the open ambulance door, one of the cops shouting for someone to give him something, anything, to help him calm down. He had stopped fighting back, his body sagged, but he was still screaming, and this time it was clear: he was calling his father’s name.

“What’re you thinking ‘bout?” the high-pitched voiced brought Anne back to the present. She hadn’t noticed Kim return.

She shook her head in response. “What took you so long?” she looked at Kim in the darkness, quickly realizing the answer: the brunette had changed her entire outfit, again. When Kim had left her to wait in the car more than an hour ago she had been wearing a pink hoodie over a purple tank top, a matching pink mini skirt and purple flip flops festooned with glitter.

“It took you an hour to change into that?” Anne waved a hand at her companion's black Super Mario t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

Kim grinned. “No, idiot. I had to wait ‘til dad cleared out so I could get these.” She showed her a large green plastic bag, out of the top of which protruded the upper third of a soda bottle.

“Who’s the idiot?” Anne swiped the bag from Kim’s hand and rummaged through its contents. “Please tell me this isn’t all of it.” She grimaced, glancing at the back seat, where, sure enough, three more bags had been carelessly thrown, and were sitting beside her duffel. “Never mind.” She added, turning back to the one she held.

Kim turned the engine on and quickly backed out into the street, not even pretending to check the rear view mirror. Anne, used to her driving, paid no mind. “I prefer this.” She said, nodding towards Kim. “I never understood why you have to have two sets of wardrobes anyway.” She added, munching on a cookie she’d found in the green plastic.

Kim shook her head. “I told you. It’s for boys.” 

Yes, Anne thought, but mostly for you. Out loud, she muttered, “I didn’t know boys liked pink and glitter so much.”

Kim simply raised a thin, penciled-in eyebrow but said nothing.

She had known Kim since they were little, because they had grown up in the same neighborhood and their parents had been friendly. They weren’t exactly the best of friends, but they have each professed a preference for hanging out with each other, and they did, all the way to high school. There, however, Kim ran with a different crowd, and she and Ann had an unspoken agreement to keep out of each other’s way.

“Why did you bring so much food?”

“Why’d you bring a duffel bag?”

Anne shrugged.

“Bingo.”

A few moments passed, and the rain outside started to gain strength, so that the car’s wipers were hardly effective. Still munching on her cookie, Anne muttered, “I was thinking about Sean.”

“Hmm?” Kim’s attention was on the road, apparently struggling to see past the streaming water, but didn’t slow down the car. “What about Sean?” she added, her eyebrows knitted together in concentration.

Anne shrugged again. “Nothing. Just the last time I saw him.” She rummaged through the bag again, “It’s been, what, two months? I wonder what’s happened.”

It was Kim’s turn to shrug. “Greg said,” Greg, a high school junior and Kim’s current boyfriend, Anne remembered, used to hang out with Sean a lot. “that he’d tried callin’ him loads of times, but nah-uh.”

“The vast range and profound nature of your vocabulary never ceases to amaze me.”

“Shut up.”

They drove in silence, listening to the rain as it hit the car windows. The streets were mostly empty, which, in Anne’s mind, was fortunate, because they weren’t going a notch lower than fifty kilometers an hour. She knew she should worry, that she should ask Kim to slow down because the road would be slippery, but she would rather not argue.

She’d rather think about Sean.

Before that last afternoon, Sean had been her friend. It was in Lit class, when Mrs. Gomez had snidely reminded him that classes started at 8 o’ clock and not a minute later, and made him sit at the back. Ann usually sat at the back herself, so they ended up sitting next to each other. As Sean went to sit in the empty chair, he had turned to wink at her, to which she responded by rolling her eyes, and pointedly turning to face the front of the class.

When class was over, she'd quickly picked up her bag and books and headed out, not even bothering to look at him. She was already near the library when she realized that someone’s been calling out her name. She turned, and found him gasping for breath, his hand on his knees.

“What?” She had asked him, alarmed at the stares the students in the hallway were sending her way. Sean wasn’t exactly popular at school, but he wasn’t an Invisikid either---something that she called herself---and the fact that he’d been calling her name out didn’t exactly help.

He raised a finger, signaling for her to wait, while he straightened up and gasped some more. After a few more gulps of air, he said, “Why the hate?”

“Not hate. Annoyance.” She answered, then turned to walk towards the library again.

She heard him chuckle. “What? Because I was late for Lit?”

She stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn. “No, because I know you do it on purpose.”

Sean had proceeded to argue with her, and she had argued right back, and before she knew it, they’d been spending more and more time together, sometimes arguing, sometimes just sitting quietly in the library together—she read, he worked on his homework for Math, his favorite subject—and Anne didn’t really know why or how, but they had become friends. He still hung out with Greg and the rest of the more popular kids, but the end of the school day would often find Sean waiting for her at the gates, ready for the long walk home.

“Were ya into him?” 

Anne was startled by the question, mostly because she’d forgotten where she was.

The car was at a standstill, already in a basement parking garage. “Why are we here? I thought we weren’t stopping until we’d gotten to your Aunt’s?”

“Can’t, weather.” Kim stepped out of the car and opened the back door, starting to haul the bags out. Ann stretched out on the seat and got out herself.

While waiting for the elevator doors to open, Kim persisted. “So, were you, like, in love with him or summin'?” 

Anne shook her head, paused, and then answered, “I’m not sure.” She’d never had a boyfriend, and she didn’t remember looking at Sean and wishing he was hers. But then again, Sean had been the first boy she’d ever been friends with.

“Yeah, right.”

“Shut up.”

They had apparently stopped at a small wayside hotel --nothing too cheap, Kim wouldn’t allow anything of the sort—and when the elevator doors opened, Anne was surprised at how nice the lobby looked. Kim walked directly towards where the receptionist stood, and started asking about rooms, and Anne looked around.

The huge windows facing the street revealed that the rain had gotten worse; she could see the water hitting the panes of glass, almost rattling them in their frames. What seemed strange to her was the silence. If she turned away, she wouldn’t be able to tell that there was a storm surging outside. Everything seemed muted in the small lobby, and even Kim’s voice, usually high-pitched and confident, seemed hushed.

Beige, beige, wood, beige. Ann thought, looking at the staff uniforms, the wall, and the reception desk. She glimpsed at the floor. Wood. Not even a fake plant. I hope the rooms are better.

“Lezzgo.” Kim shook the key at her.

“What?” Anne raised an eyebrow. “Lezzgo? Who says these things?”

Kim frowned. “I do.” She turned once more towards the elevators. “C’mon already.”

When they got to their room, Anne was please to see that at least one wall was painted a cool green. She went to the bed nearest the window, dropped the bags she’d been carrying, and walked to the TV.

“We leave tomorrow noon. I want to sleep in.” Kim was yawning. She carelessly threw away her sneakers before getting into bed.

Anne didn’t turn. “It’s your money. Also, this hotel has excellent cable TV, and can I order room service?”

Kim snorted, her face deep in a pillow. “It’s his money.” She answered. She lifted her head slightly to look at Anne. “Think of how much you need to order then ask for twice that.”

Ann chuckled. “If you say so.”

Kim had already drifted off.