Narrow Lines-- Ch. 1

OMG claire213 · 2007-05-26T08:40:25Z

Chapter One The alarm sounded like a jackhammer in my ear. The shock of it made my head jerk up off of the pillow. Monday mornings are always a surprise, as if we think they’ll never come. As every day, I grudgingly crawled out of my bed. My cozy, warm, and safe bed. I looked at the window beside the messy mix of sheets, blankets, and pillows. The faint morning sun shined through thin violet curtains. I cursed the sun for bringing Monday morning. It was chilly inside the too clean and too expensive apartment I called home. With a big yawn, I walked into my bathroom. The tile on the floor was cold as ice under my sleep sensitive feet. I shivered. For being so sterile and clean, the bathroom quickly became fogged from the showers’ steam. The hot water felt like heaven after being so cold from the tile floor. My favorite part of taking a shower is that if you close your eyes, and let the water stream rush on your head, you can hear it in your ears, the melodic rhythm of the water, like rain on a window. Unfortunately, showers never last long on a school morning, especially when you live in an enormous city. Urban life is hell. The cause? Traffic. As soon as I stepped one foot outside of my bathroom, an ear-piercing shriek blasted from the lower floor. “Delilah Georgia Preston! You get your ass downstairs, right now!” the piercing voice that could shatter glass emanated from the mouth of the woman my father married, Bit. She was a tall, thin brunette with long legs and a perfect body. My father worshiped her. Well, when he was around he did. All my father ever did was work. Literally. At dinner, he’d be having a conference call with a board of people from all over the world. As a vice-president of Inticoft, some new international software or computer company, like Microsoft, but with newer technology that works faster, my father was constantly busy. Sometimes he had to leave for business conferences in Asia and Europe. Needless to say, with such a prestigious position in a company with skyrocketing income, we were very, well-off. Okay, to be frank, we were rich as hell. Which is how Bit came into the picture. She and my father met at one of the company’s business parties, celebrating the huge surge of clients and the amazing new international business contracts. My father had brought me along, saying he wanted to “show off” his amazingly gifted daughter. Basically, my father gained more precedence with his colleagues, if they thought he was a family man. As I approached Bit in the large kitchen of our apartment, I got a sound thwack in the head. I looked to my right, where the hit had come from, and looked straight into the eyes of a small black kitten perched on one of many floating bookshelves on the wall. She batted her paw at my nose and I picked her up. Immediately a loud and low vibration could be heard emanating from the kitten. I held her like a baby and laughed as she batted at the strands of my hair spilling over my shoulders. I’m not one of those sensitive, mushy romance-ridden girls that don’t know two cents about life. Reality is what I do. That, and simplicity. I really just don’t care about much most of the time. I walked into the kitchen to look straight into the eyes of an outraged step-mother. “Yeah?” I asked as I sat down on a barstool at the island counter in the kitchen. I put the kitten on the floor and it stalked off to its bowl of food in the corner of the room. I looked up cynically at Bit. Her face was turning an abnormal shade of burgundy. I wondered if she was choking. That would be a relief. “You,” she managed to spit out in a hiss, like a snake almost. Funny, she kind of looked like a snake too. “You let that little heathen of a cat loose around the apartment before it was trained to use a litter box!” She trilled her voice at the word box. It’s amazing how high pitched her voice could get when she was angry. It just got higher, and higher, and higher until crack, all of the windows in the room would just shatter. Bit had a high pitched voice at a normal volume, one cannot imagine how painful it is to hear her angry. I looked back at the kitten, chomping away happily on some hard cat food. I looked back at Bit. “No. She’s been using her litter box just fine,” I shrugged and pointed back up to my bedroom. “You can check my bathroom if you don’t believe me.” “You liar!” she shrieked yet again, “That monster left a big...” her voice trailed off as she searched for her words, “a big potty mess in my favorite pair of Prada shoes! Prada! Of all of my shoes, she had to crap in the Prada pumps.” She was literally shaking with rage. I was highly amused watching it. I could almost imagine seeing steam rushing out of her ears like those cartoons on t.v. when someone had eaten something really spicy. She kind of looked like a cartoon too. Well, like Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which I guess would be really attractive to men, considering she really did look like Jessica. And Jessica is one well packaged cartoon. Bit almost even dressed like Jessica too. The red slinky silk tops, tall stiletto heels, micromini dresses. She looked the part of a big-time multi-millionaire’s wife. I, on the other hand, looked nothing like a big-time multi-millionaire’s daughter. “Look miss smartass, you won’t get away with this. You will be home no later than 5 o’clock tonight. One second later, and you can consider yourself under house arrest for the next month.” She heaved her chest with rage. I stared at her. “Good lord Bit. You care way too much about a goddamn pair of shoes. I’ll be home when I’m home. See you whenever.” I said ending the conversation. I left Bit fuming in the kitchen and went to grab my messenger bag in my room. When I got there, the kitten had snuck back upstairs and had curled up in a little ball on top of my bag. I picked her up and tossed her on my enormous bed. She pounced over to the swarm of feather pillows against the magenta-purple wall. I looked at the small digital clock on my bedside table, and panicked. It was already 7am. I grabbed my bag and almost tripped over my own shoe laces I went so fast down the stairs. As I zoomed into the kitchen and into the foyer of the apartment, I barely caught the shrill voice of Bit reminding me to not stay out past midnight again. I slammed the door shut mid-word. The elevator going down to the ground floor was being painfully slow, of course. Things always go slower when you’re in a hurry. I checked the watch on my cell phone and started tapping my right foot. I looked down at my old black, worn in converse. They had finally hit that amazing point in the life of a shoe when it becomes like butter. When they fit so comfortably, it’s like you don’t even notice you’re wearing shoes because they’ve molded exactly to contour of your foot. As soon as I had myself distracted, the elevator dinged and the doors opened to greet me. The elevator was empty, as per usual. The ritzy people who lived up on the presidential apartments levels were never home in the morning. They’re the corporate business folk who work late, and wake up early. By early, I mean 5am, at the latest. The doors shut curtly behind me and I looked around the compartment. The wall directly behind the door was all mirror, of course. The music playing was better than most elevator music because all of the people living in the apartment building were rich. The music was classical, currently playing a nice Polonaise by Bach out of the small ceiling speakers. I’ve always loved the feel of elevators, the sensation in your stomach as you go down. Especially when you go up, the pull, like gravity’s pulling you down, but the elevator is pushing you up, and you’re caught in between, like this bodily state of purgatory. Neither going up nor down, but being caught in between the two. Your stomach, I mean. The elevator finally hit the ground and I rushed out at full speed, ignoring the bellman, Harold, as I barreled out the enormous glass double doors. The smog of the city hit me like a brick wall. Thick and foggy, it was the smell of the deep city life. Urban living at its best, which, by the way, is not so great. I pushed my way into the throng of pedestrian traffic, managing to get ahead of the mob and on my way to the subway. The overwhelming odor of sweaty men and gasoline entered my nose like a virus. I gagged a little. School started at 8am and it was already 7:19am. The subway was about a fifteen minute walk away from the apartment building, on a light traffic day. By the time I reached the stairs leading down to the subway, it was already 7:30am. I was done for. The subway took 45 minutes to get all the way to my private high school located on the complete opposite side of the city. Even worse, the ticket guy hassled me about my year-round subway pass. He had to be new. No subway ticket dealer ever hassled the year-round pass owners. Especially those with the well-known last name Preston. I yelled at the guy until the manager came and clued him into who I was. I thanked the guy and ran to the rail stop, just as the tram pushed off towards my destination. I sighed loudly. Today was just not going well. I am never late unintentionally, anywhere. Today just had to be the day, my finals day to be precise, for me to be late. Any other day would have been no big deal, but finals day, oh finals day was a killer. You weren’t allowed to take the final currently being taken if you were late. No, you had to come back the following Saturday to make it up. I was pissed, to say the least. Having about an hour or so to kill before the tram would come to the stop again, I made myself comfortable on a hard cement bench. By comfortable, I meant sitting on my messenger bag so as not to lose feeling in my bum. The crowd of pedestrians was scarce as everyone who needed to leave at the 7:30am stop had gotten on. I took my iPod out of my pocket and turned it up to a moderately loud volume. I hit shuffle and immediately Nirvana came on. Lake of Fire. Great song from the MTV Unplugged in New York recording. Too bad I was only four at the time of the concert. I would have loved to go. I was bored. I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling for a while. The cement was cracked in some places from age. I got even more bored. I looked back down around me again. I checked out how empty the place was, and was surprised to see a guy standing against the wall down at the opposite end of the station stop. He wasn’t so far that I couldn’t see him in detail. He was leaning against the wall with one foot propped against the wall. He had a cigarette propped between his fingers hanging at his side. He casually looked in my direction and slowly brought the cigarette to his lips and took a drag. He let the smoke out the side of his mouth purposely slowly. He had long black hair. He caught my gaze and for some strange reason, I felt entranced by his stare. He had unique features, I’d never seen anyone like him before. He was incredibly attractive, but he wore it in a nonchalant way, as if he didn’t care about whether or not he was attractive. There was something about him that drew me to him. There was something psychic about his stare. It was like his eyes were penetrating my mind, my thoughts, my soul. He was almost creepy. He took a final drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the ground. He took his foot off of the wall and ground the cigarette out of the floor. He had a strong build, and I could see a strange splatter about the collar of his shirt. It was a faded brown, but was still obviously blood. Creepy began to border scary. I watched as he walked in my direction. His eyes still lingered at what seemed to be myself. I didn’t want to assume, I’m not narcissistic like that. As he came closer to me, I noticed his eyes. They were a natural shade of what seemed to be violet. I had never seen violet eyes naturally before. They were definitely natural. They made me shiver. He was definitely looking at me. He held my gaze, looking intensely into my eyes. He was now standing right in front of me. He didn’t say a word. He was about three feet away from me. He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and pulled a lighter of his pocket. He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. He was still looking me in the eyes. Neither of us said anything. After he took another drag, he let the smoke out from his nose skillfully and let his arm and the cigarette hang at his side. He kept looking me in the eye. His breathing was shallow, but steady. He seemed to not need air, as if breathing was a nuisance and unnecessary. There was something inhuman about him, but I couldn’t place my finger on what it was. Most likely it was the blood stains. I’ve always kind of believed that there are beings out there besides humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. He nodded his head in an acknowledging way, and then proceeded to walk towards the stairs leaving the subway. I watched him walk away. I couldn’t help but notice his physique. couldn’t help but find him extremely attracting. When he finally got to the stairs, he turned around and looked at me again. He nodded his head in the direction of the stairs, as if he was beckoning me. I continued to just look at him. I wasn’t sure if he was nodding goodbye, or silently calling me. When he saw me hesitate, he beckoned with his head again. For some reason, I no longer gave a shit about missing my French final. I no longer gave a shit about much of anything. But then again, I hadn’t for a long time. I stood up and slung my messenger bag around my shoulder. I turned off my iPod and stuck it back in my pocket. I walked towards him, wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

OMG claire213

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Mon May 28, 2007 7:54 am

OMG claire213 says... · Mon May 28, 2007 7:54 am

like after he talks about the traffic being like trying to run in chest-high water.
but i edited stuff, so basically all of chapter two (which is completed) is new.

life is multifaceted: some people see it as hell, some as heaven, and... some just don't give a damn.

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OMG claire213

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Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:20 pm

OMG claire213 says... · Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:20 pm

I could use some more advice on what I've added! Any ideas??

life is multifaceted: some people see it as hell, some as heaven, and... some just don't give a damn.

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JC

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Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:19 am

JC says... · Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:19 am

Could you do me a favor? (this would also work in your favor as well, you would get more critiques this way)

Could you please separate all of the chapters into different posts? That would make it easier to find what I haven't read, and easier to crit! Thanks! =D

-JC

But that is not the question. Why we are here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come. -Beckett

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OMG claire213

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Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:47 am

OMG claire213 says... · Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:47 am

That better Becks??

life is multifaceted: some people see it as hell, some as heaven, and... some just don't give a damn.

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JC

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Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:16 am

JC says... · Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:16 am

muchos!

But that is not the question. Why we are here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come. -Beckett

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OMG claire213

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Points 890

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Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:22 am

OMG claire213 says... · Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:22 am

Thoroughly edited!!!!

life is multifaceted: some people see it as hell, some as heaven, and... some just don't give a damn.

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