Chapter 1
Stevie-Lou's Forecast for Friday, October 5th, 1979:
Cloudy Autumn day in Indianapolis, with dried dead oak leaves lying around this side of Greenwood. The air smells of old library books that require dusting and it's quite pleasant to the nostrils if I may add.
Biting the cap of my pen, I close my diary.
As a police officer in Alaska who still struggles to fit into her job with unresolved crimes and a little bit too scared to face hardened criminals, I never thought I'd be transferred to Indianapolis of all places. I've left my family, and literally everything behind.
I lived in Alaska my whole life. Grew up there, had friends, went to college, had my first everything there.
I am thrilled to continue my job at Indiana. It was made known to me that Indianapolis is one percent safer than most cities in Indiana. Unlike Alaska with the highest violent crime rate where I was chased with a butcher's knife by a homeless street panhandler, I caught pickpocketing. Now I don't want to go down the memory lane where I got stabbed in the wrist with a pocket knife because I was trying to talk rebellious teenagers out of smoking in the most friendliest, non-threatening manner possible. I still have that scar there. It's permanent.
Right now, I am in the car with Jonathan Quinn, my colleague who was sent to pick me up at the airport. He has a charming personality and made me feel welcomed with a hug. He's driving through the streets of Greenwood, heading to my apartment.
A new apartment in a new town is making me a nervous wreck. My shoulders are visibly sagging down and my chest is swollen like it's filled with several bubbles.
The low sound of Reminiscing by Little River Band gets tuned high, and I look at Jonathan who throws me a tight-lipped smile.
"Are you jivin' yet? You'll like it here." He assures me.
"That's one of my favorites. But I prefer ``Lonesome Loser'' on the album ``First Under The Wire." I mirror his expression, trying to change the topic because talking about relaxing makes me even more anxious.
"Your taste in music speaks a lot about your personality." He kisses his teeth then takes his eyes off the road to shoot me an interesting look.
I stare out the window because I don't want to talk about how I know the lyrics of the song A-Z because I always had it blasting through my earphones with my knees curled up to my chest whenever I had flashbacks of teenagehood.
As a child, life wasn't so rosy. Mom caught dad banging a Burger Chef's waitress in his office. She filed for a divorce and so we had a broken home.
Dad slept with everything in a skirt afterward. I thought he'd change and maybe try to beg for forgiveness but he didn't. Every day different girls who were as young enough to be his daughter kept sneaking out of his room. This triggered mom and she filed a case, won, and gained full custody over me.
My mom's married now, to a preacher who treats her better than my dad ever did. My dad on the other hand changes women like his briefs.
As I grew up, my relationships with men didn't go as I had fantasized.
I was beyond devastated when I caught my boyfriend, butt naked pumping his dick in and out of my moaning best friend who had her polished red fingernails digging into his sweaty back and leaving bruises. You can imagine such a heart-wrenching sight to behold. My heart dropped in my stomach because I felt betrayed and hurt to a stupor. Joseph Wolfhard had no respect for me at all.
And Millicent Matthews was a bitch with Obsessive-Compulsive personality disorder.
They swore it was the first time, but I could tell it wasn't. Apparently, they were having an affair behind my back the whole time and kept it a secret. And on that particular day, they thought it'd be the usual, having not the slightest idea that I would show up unannounced.
I've had casual sex, dated a few men, but always made an excuse to leave the relationship because I wanted to avoid getting hurt before going in deep.
Letting out a low heave, I blink to push these thoughts away. The sun is making people walk faster than normal because it's pounding with excessive purposefulness. Slipping out my shades from its case, I put them on and then pop my head out of the car window as I tap on the door to the lyrics of Lonesome Loser.
Jonathan deliberately played it because somehow he noticed I was deep in my thoughts.
I shoot him a thin side-lipped smile before letting it disappear as I sing along to the lyrics and nod my head to the beat of the song.
A light wind blows the dried oak leaves off the ground when the cream Vauxhall viva swerves into a quiet street.
Something like shivers Cascades through me, rising goosebumps on my pores as a sickening feeling runs through my gut about this place. It reminds me of the constant chills that travel down my spine when Marco, my mother's husband, talks about demons when I lived with them.
I gulp, with this sudden urge of lightning a cigarette overwhelming me. I want to touch my pockets for a packet of cigarettes then stop halfway.
Although smoking helps in calming my nerves and makes me think straight, it just isn't proper to smoke in someone else's car.
We drive past Woolworths with Jonathan increasing the car gear and there's this boy that I see wearing jeans pants, Chelsea boots, and a black hoodie.
He's walking really slow and steady in the middle of the road with his hands fisted in his pockets. If he's aware of his surroundings, he doesn't act like he cares and Jonathan seems to be speeding, expecting him to get off the road, but the boy doesn't.
I turn to Jonathan because it's obvious this mysterious dude has gone bonkers, but no words come out.
"Stop the car!" I almost yell the roof off, and Jonathan's eyes widen in their socket when his brain finally aligns that someone is actually being suicidal on the road. He steps on the brakes to stop the car, but it's already too late. The car is already a few inches away from knocking the boy over when it stops.
"Murderation!" I yell, mildly upset and mildly relieved that we didn't hit the reckless boy.
"That's a colorful variation of murdering infants here in Indiana." A panting aggressively Jonathan still manages to make this known to me with his hands still on the steering wheel.
Still bemused, we both stare ahead of us at the boy in a black hoodie who is squatting to dust dirt off his boots. And it's kind of weird that Jonathan's car is the only car on this side of the road.
"Jeepers creepers, you've got to be shitting me," I mutter under my breath then pop my head out the car door, making sure my shades are uplifted over my eyes.
"Hey space cadet, keep on steppin," I shout, hitting my hand outside the car door.
"Youngblood, do you have a death wish or something?" Jonathan gives a hairy eyeball to the boy. "We just bugged out because of you. So don't be a bunny, now get off the road."
People are already stopping to watch the whole scene and I let out an eye-roll. But it's best I leave everything to Jonathan.
The boy finally rises to his feet and turns around. I am thinking he'd look at Jonathan but he doesn't, it's me his eyes capture.
And I feel my anger mellow down because he's young, young enough to be my brother. With face swollen from punches. He even has a cut on his upper lip, with a nose that looks like it has been broken one too many times.
There's this quiet mysteriousness surrounding him and despite his bruises, it's hard not to notice his good looks.
A few strands of dyed-white hair are falling over his forehead from his hoodie. And his gray eyes are trouble-free.
"Go look for your age mates to lust after, pervert!" Jonathan hisses, making me peel my eyes off the boy who seems to be feeding his eyes with my face.
And he chuckles, catching a drop of blood from his bruised lip. With his eyes still on me, he recoils and steps backward to move out of the road as he puts his bloodied finger into his mouth and sucks on it.
"Freak." Jonathan curses, turning on the ignition to start the car.
The car doesn't start for some seconds like the engine got frozen or something.
When it finally starts, I hear Jonathan swearing under his breath.
On sensing I am being watched, I whirl my head to my side to see the weird boy still looking at me, with his hand grabbing a pole as he nibbles on his bottom lip.
I can feel my face forming into a giant scowl because I'm having the creeps right now. There's this nefarious seductive look in his gray eyes as he looks at me. And I am left wondering if it's possible to have both emotions merged in one's eyes.
I heave out a huge breath of relief when I see that he's finally out of sight, hoping I never see him again.
