ATTENTION - I will start every chapter by stating which characters point of view it is and a quote!!
Chapter 2 - Griffin
"Fear is stupid. So are regrets." - Marilyn Monroe
I sat on the moth-bitten couch, my head pounding and back aching. In front of me sat my adoptive parents, Alex and Meg. They both clutched a bottle and a cigarette dangled from their thin lips. Their eyes were blood shot and both seemed extremely jumpy. I had been sitting on that couch for a few hours now, neither of them letting me leave. It was like this most nights.
Running my hands through my hair, I contemplated how I could get out of this house. Away from them. I could make up some excuse, like I needed to head to a friend's but that wouldn't work. They never let me out of their sights. They won't even let me attend college. Afraid that this society will corrupt me and that I will go out late partying and such. Hypocrites.
This house was only twenty years old, only three years older then me. The paneling had dulled and the window were cracked in someplaces. The screen door was duck-taped in other spots, while the actual door needed a good coat of paint.
My eyes went blurry out of nowhere and I heard something that wasn't quite right. It was the sound of someones heartbeat. Some how I knew it wasn't me but holy hell was it creepy. After my eyes went back to normal and the noise was gone, I shook my head, trying to forget about that weird thing.
"Damn kid. No help at all. Go get a job or something. Your getting on my nerves just sitting there but before you move, I need to rid of my cigarette." Alex said and walked over to me, cigarette in his hand now. I just sat here, not bothering to try and run from him anymore.
He yanked my arm from me and stuck the cigarette into my skin, it burning and searing my skin. I held in my whimpers. You think I would be used to this after eleven years but nope. My arms are covered in scars from them and a few ones from broken glass shards.
But that was a good idea, no matter how much I did not want to admit it. Get a reasonable job. It would get me away from here for a while at least. There was one place that was only two hours drive away and the farther the drive, the longer the time I had away from them.
I got up abruptly, pain blistering in my back again.
"I'm going." was all I told them. Meg screamed at me, throwing their bottles and the glass shattering, littering the floor. Alex just looked at me, his glare giving away that he wanted to say something but, knowing him, he knew when to hold his tongue.
"Your seventeen, you can't leave! You listen to us-" Meg began to tell me but I interrupted.
"I turn eighteen in a month! Let me be, please. For once be good adoptive parents." I retorted and they looked at me, mouths agape and nostrils flaring.
I slowly inched my way toward the broken door, both of their faces getting redder and redder. They were like quick growing tomatoes. It was quite funny, really. But neither did anything. I could tell that they were happy that I was leaving the house, even though they did not like the idea of it.
Two hours later
Standing in front a building, I looked it up and down quickly. The paint was cracked and falling off. The flowers no longer existed where the now dry, weed-infested soil ruled. The whole place seemed caked in urgency. In distraught.
Walking around slowly, hoping to not disturb any of the patient's that were in the front lawn and accompanied by nurses, I went through the front doors.
The man at the front desk seemed rather nervous, his eyes roaming around quickly. His hair was very greasy and he was skinny as all hell. He looked over at me and gasped.
I smiled in return and he gulped loudly. Seemed like he wasn't used to completely normal people being here. If normal included me.
"So-" I began but was interrupted
"If you are here for a job, take mine bucko. You seem about my patients age and if you're a month or two away from turning eighteen take it. My patient doesn't need a diploma or some fancy degree to be taken care of. Also, don't tell the boss I said so." A voice told me from behind. That voice was coming from a bird like woman with big blue eyes.
"H-How?" was all I said.
"No one comes to visit, in this town it's a down right shame to have a member taken here. Those who do come are looking for a job. Figured you were the second option."
"But, um, I am nowhere near qualified for this. I have no training or anything!"
"Listen here, bucko. I need out of this place. It is draining me. My only patient needs this. Management does not trust me anymore. They don't because I saved a life here and you know what they did? They assigned me that patient. Tells you a lot about Ripper, doesn't it? How they are willing to get another patient hurt again, just to keep this quiet and not waste money. My patient needs one who is not riddled in disdain and anxiety. She needs someone who will comfort her and talk to her and hear her out. I don't vare that you are a minor or male. You will help out my patient. No other words."
Then the woman walked away and I went and sat down on one of the lobby chairs. She did have a point though, about how a patient should be comforted an such. Not put back into the same environment they fear the most. I sat there for I don't how long, till I got up and headed toward the door to leave. But I didn't get far before someone ran into me.
"Oh, sorry. Here, let me. What's your name, anyways?" I asked the woman that had fallen on the floor. She was rather pretty, in a way.
"It's Nayleth. Nayleth Drequinn. Now, move because I am not staying here any longer and if you don't, I will drag you with me!" She told me and tore through the doors, guards at her tail. She was much quicker then them, but from what I knew about Ripper, they did not have somewhere to properly exercise. Unless she spent her days running around her ward.
Then, out of nowhere, the heartbeat came back. I could just see her running still and the more I concentrated, the more I knew that it was her's. Either I was an idiot or insane but I decided to follow her. My gut was telling me to, anyways. Something about her was just so familiar.
We walked for awhile, her telling me this and that. At one point I noticed that she was freezing, so giving her my jacket seemed the best option. She had thanked me for that, surprise easily noticeable in her voice.
After a few moment of silence, the birds began to sing. Robins and chickadees, blue jays and mocking jays. Their songs filled the air and made everything seem less stressful, like a burden had been lifted off of our shoulders. The smell of pine trees filled the air and blocked out anything else.
As we walked, the dirt path crumbled beneath our feet, the few stones catching in the grooves of my boots. Her bare feet, on the other hand, were caked in dust but she didn't seem to mind.
"Um, Nat?" I asked her, bumping her shoulder slightly. A woman was running down the road, a red scarf trailing behind her, a gray sweater and identical black hair also accompanied her. Her eyes were also a grayish-blue. Unlike Nat's, which were a lovely chocolate brown.
But Nat did not answer my question. Instead she went toward the woman. She practically leaped at her and neither let go from the others embrace for a long while. I just ran to catch up and stood behind them, rather embarrassed really.
After introductions, I learned that the woman was Nat's older sister, Angela. She informed us that Nayleth's Gram was still well and her mother was, well, the truly insane one, to say the least. As we kept walking up the dirt path, which seemed as it would never end, we finally could see the house. A this point Nat moved back toward me and her sister ran back toward the house.
"Did you tell her to go back up?" I asked Nat.
"Yes. Also, the nickname. I like it." she told me but her voice told me something more.
"You worried?"
"Yes."
We talked for bit after that, her filling me in on little things. Like how her mother should really be in Ripper, not her. How she scared to go home, to see if things were the same or if her family just pushed her from their memories.
We did not talk anymore, after that. We made our way up the rest of the path and the only thing I could hope that this reunion would go well for her. And that no one would be worried about a stranger in the house.
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