Chapter 1
It was always so dark at night on the street that led up to the trail to my house...
The jagged gravel under the soles of my shoes crunched beneath me signifying that I was, in fact, still on the path and not at risk of tripping over a hole or stepping in a puddle of stagnant water beside me. I puffed a bit as I carried on up the trail annoyed that I had to make the trip because I needed to take my shoes off and put my feet up.
I grew up in the country, moved to the city and lived there for most of my teens and now here I am back in the country to try and find myself as a woman now in my mid-twenties. This is my second month in this house, purchased from an older couple who had lived there for as long as they could remember. They reassured me that they were “free of riff-raff for over twenty years” before handing my new keys over to me.
I feared living alone and terrified of being almost completely surrounded by woods, but they were so beautiful and peaceful that it quelled my fears of being eaten by bears and surrounded by creepy people watching me. I also had full cell service and internet so it wasn’t like I was completely isolated and waiting to be murdered.
As I approached my house, I decided I’d had enough and kicked my shoes off and ran to the door to unlock it so I could collapse into comfort. I’d get them in the morning or whenever I remembered. As I sunk into my couch with a beer in my hand, I checked the time and called my sister to complain about my day.
“Well, well, well look who has finally returned my calls” the phone didn’t even complete one full ring… “I don’t even know what to say, I didn’t have time to think about it why did you answer so fast” I laughed to her.
“I won’t answer your next call if that makes you happy Danielle,” she joked dramatically back to me “how was your day? You worked way later than you were supposed to.”
I let out a disgruntled noise as I took a drink from the glass and sat it down on the table next to me. “Listen, I don’t know how I didn’t absolutely go insane today but I’m prepared to lock them all in a cage and drop it off a cliff…” I rambled on for far too long about my disdain for the bulk of my coworkers at my job. After about an hour, we got off the phone and I remembered my warm beer and took another drink of it. My face soured, nice and warm so delicious. I frowned at myself and drank it down. I was so bad at finishing drinks at home, I made a pledge to myself to stop wasting them.
I walked to my bedroom and put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt before walking into the bathroom to finish my nightly routine. I looked at myself in the mirror, tied my shaggy brown hair back and put a headband on to keep the shorter layers back as I began my endless skincare routine in an effort to age backwards. “Someday all of this shit will come together” I said aloud to myself as I patted my night cream around my eyes, my lightly tanned olive skin shining and surely begging me to leave it alone.
I took my hair back down and walked into my adjoining room and climbed into my bed, glancing out the window through the blinds at the cloudy night sky to see if the stars would shine through or if I could spot a UFO and scare myself. I always thought that if I ever saw one, it could see me back and it kept me awake for hours under my blanket as a child because every star looked like a spaceship after you stare at them for so long.
When I decided that the clouds had won, I turned on a random video for background noise and laid my head down and let it carry me into whatever dreams would be laid out before me that night.
