Chapter 1
Riley, that was my name before the start of everything. When I had a home and family where no one appreciated what I did and what I would become. The ones that would betray me hundreds of times to prove that I had no control over my life. That I was just some girl who didn’t deserve to live my life to the fullest of means. You see I always knew I was an anomaly. Something different in this world, I knew things that others seemed to not know and when I tried to them otherwise, they would laugh in my face or just plain out ignore me. Ever since I was a little girl, I didn’t fit in or have any friends. They always choose to ignore me and act like I had no relevancy in life. As if they had any relevancy themselves. But that was besides the point, there are always those who reject the things that they cannot or even care to understand. You see, I was a simple and yet complex person, who liked to see all sides of the argument before making a quite decision. Because to know the whole story means that you must know the empty cracks, the smoothness, and even the shards. The only quite thing that I knew I was supposed to do something important even if I quite did not see or understand what it was. It was destiny calling, yet I had no answer to what I was supposed to do. I had the longing to go out and search for answers even going as far as to try out different things or try to meet new people. But there was always someone or something that would get in the way of what I was on the verge of learning. Like on the tip of the tongue where I could grasp it. But then I would be shoved aside and placed into a hospital, school, or another location where I had to relearn everything and start over again. The process itself had started to become out of control. Where I was thinking of limited choices of limited mindset, that only keeps you in a space of anger and limitations. Where a free thing would become a slave of the mind. And in the recent years, that I what I had somewhat become.
Today:
I peeked from my test in class and looked around at the other students. They were all were working diligently except for duly noted myself. For some reason I couldn’t focus. It was as if the test itself was made up of a foreign language. I my pencil in y mouth and nibbled on the metal bit. Its cold metallic taste making me wonder why I had studied the whole damn two weeks just for me to go completely blank and not remember a single thing. I stared at the clock, it was almost thirty minutes into the test, and I had barley written my name and worked on the first ten questions. I flipped through the workbook again and decided to go backwards. That was when I heard a loud chuckle in the room, startled I immediately looked up, to see my Teachers Assistant, Henry, staring directly at me. No one was laughing, everything was quite silent, but his gaze was intense, unlike any I had seen before. That’s when I got a deep pit feeling in the deep of my stomach that something was wrong. I just didn’t know what, but it scared me like hell. Immediately I looked down pretending to fill in the rest of my answers. Still nothing was coming to me. I was still blanking on the test. I shook my head, if only I could remember.
“Miss Riley, do you need help?”
I looked up to see the teacher’s assistant Henry, in front of my desk. He was taller than what he looked sitting at the front desk.
“Miss Riley?” Henry said again.
I looked up. “Right, no I’m um fine Mr. David” I said sheepishly, looking back at the clock. I had less than an hour to complete this test.
He looked at me with a quizzical brow, pausing for a second before responding. “We’ll I’ll leave you to your test then”
I flipped through my test again before sighing, as I reread a passage that made little sense to me. We’ll might as well make an educated guess, I thought. As I randomly choose an answer from the multiple-choice section. Flipping the page, I started doing this to other items around this, I peeked up again from my test to see if Henry was still looking at me. To my relief he had gone back to reading his book.
As I started to get somewhere on my test booklet. None of the information or my guesses made sense but, I wasn’t exactly in the position to know if this was a good thing or bad thing. The only thing on my mind was completing the test and walking outside and forgetting that I ever had to take the test in the first place. The putrid sons of guns. Whose idea was it to make us retake the admissions test that let us go to the university in the first place? Finally, I was finished with the test and everyone else seemed to be finished as they started to get up and turn in their tests. I got up took my Levi’s messenger bag and stood in line to hand in my test.
I tried not to stare at Henry. He was gorgeous, he was tall 6’3 with blond hair and blue eyes. The whole package I mean, all the girls in class swooned over him with flattery. But not really me, I had only noticed, when I saw him staring at me a couple of times. I wanted to be friendly and try to have a nice conversation with him. But he was also, my teacher’s assistant. So of course, it was out of the question. It was my turn and I nervously got up to the desk to hand in my exam. And I might have just failed the entire test. But I wasn’t going to let him know that. And to mention it, I was nervous around him, he made me shiver. No, I wasn’t afraid of him. Just stunned. There was something about him, that made me aware of myself, for some odd reason.
I let out an exasperated sigh as I handed him my exam.
“Miss Riley”
I simply nodded. Ready to go away. But he held my exam for a little bit longer than usual. He looked me in the eyes.
“See you on Thursday Miss Riley”
Stunned, I nodded my head again. “Um, you too”
As he released the hold on my exam, I quickly left the room and headed off campus to the bus stop which I had to take an hour-long ride to get back home. Even the air hitting my face, couldn’t cool down the burning flush on my cheeks. That was totally weird. The whole day, the test, the weird gaze. Just everything was weird. The more I thought about it the redder I would become. But then I would just look like some flushed idiot on the bus. And that would attract god who knows who. As I walked to the bus stop, I tried to cool myself down. Taking out my headphones and turning on some calming music. It’s the only thing that calmed me down before going into the toxic environment I’d like to call home.
When I arrived home to a gray house at the end of nice clean suburban neighborhood. It was a neighborhood in a nice area, nice people, and it was peaceful and quiet. But to me there was always something od about the block how the adult children never seemed to get much anywhere in life and lived with their parents. Or if they did then they lived mediocre lives even if they tried to live differently. It’s funny how I never realized it until recently. I was immediately greeted by my little brother named Sam at the door.
“Mom told me to remind you that you have to pay rent this month” said Sam as he took a bite of the apple in his hand.
“Bug off you little bugger,” I said as I tried to squeeze by into the living room.
“Nope”, he said blocking the doorway. “Not until, you pay your portion of the rent. That’s what mom said, that or you’d have to sleep outside on the porch tonight”
“And I told her that’d I have it by Saturday, today is only Tuesday.” I said pushing him aside to the door and walked into the living room, which was a god-awful mess. “And, whose apple are you eating? Mom didn’t buy any fruit this week, so it better not be mine!” I reached out to snatch the apple out of his hand, but he jumped out of the way and stuck out his tongue as he skittered away.
“Ugh! Are you kidding me!” I yelled, the entire living room was a mess and I didn’t have the time to clean it up and get dinner started at the same time.
“Sam!” I yelled “Get back in here and clean up this mess you made!” I started to open the fridge to see what I can make for dinner. Only for Sam to shout No! from his room in the house. Which by the way was unfair because not even I had my own room? I lived in this cramped cubby space close to the kitchen and almost outside on the porch. Because to be honest if my mother ever decided on a whim, she could just change the locks with everything I have inside, and I’d literally will be sleeping on the porch.
Still looking in the fridge there was hardly anything there except pasta sauce and some pasta in the cupboard.
“Pasta noodles and sauce, it is then”
I cracked open the pasta sauce and put on some boiled water as I checked my phone. There weren’t any emails notifications I had applied to several internships for next semester credit and not one had gotten back to me. I literally have no idea what to do if I couldn’t get an internship for my internship class credit at university. It was mandatory and I didn’t have long before I graduated next year to find another one in time.
The water started to boil, and I placed my face close to it, at least I was going to get a little steam facial from this even though I was going to be eating pasta for the fourth time this week. That or ramen noodles.
“Bon Appetit” I said as I placed the pasta noodles and sauce on the table and begun to set the table with plates and forks.
“Sam! Dinner’s ready!”
His head popped into the dinning room archway. His smelt the air and examined the table. With a turnt up nose he sat down.
“Ewww, pasta again!!”
I went around and fluffed his blond curly hair. “Yeah but you love it” Sam grabbed a big spoon and started to pile on the spaghetti to his plate. Waiting my turn, I sat down and watched him shovel the food in his mouth.
“Yeah, don’t forget to slow down little guy, you don’t want a stomachache do you.” I started to dig into the pasta on my plate. It was warm sauce and a little salty from the pasta, but I was pretty sure that Sam wouldn’t have noticed anything about the food.
The front door opened. “I’m home” mother called as she walked into the living room.
“Riley, Sam? Why is there so much stuff on the floor?” stepping over toys and gadgets she got to the dining room doorway, in her nurse scrubs. She worked the early morning shifts at the hospital. She was the RN on duty so sometimes she had a double shift back to back. Meaning there was no one to take care of Sam while both of them were away.
“Remember lights out at 11pm”
“But, I have tons of work to catch up on, I don’t think that I’ll have that done by then.”
“Hey, tough luck kid, when you start paying the light bill, then we can see about that.”
