the air is just cold enough to make her nose run. the jeans and flannel shirt she ran out of the house in is not enough to keep the shiver from coming up her spine. she runs past the neighborhood houses with their warm lights and the dinner tables full of food. their fireplaces leave a smoky trail in the night sky that blows down into the streets where she can smell them. the wood smoke has always smelled inviting. it isn't inviting to her. not now. not at this moment.
the tears that won't stop drip onto her chin. she wipes at them with her sleeve, ignoring the mascara smear they leave. her throat closes with the lump of pain she can't scream out. she slows to a walk. she stops. she stands on the sidewalk in the shadow between streetlamps. frozen in place by indecision.
her mind spins. she is alone. she is afraid. she can't go to her parents. they haven't spoken since she left. her friends don't know her. they don't know the truth. they don't know what her life is really like. she can't go home. he is there. he is angry. he is waiting.
fall used to be her favorite.
he used to be her love.
everthing changes.
1 comment:
Reading this post reminded me of why Stephen King, Dean Koontz and others of the horror genre are so popular. By allowing us to escape into a world of fictional monsters we can forget for a few moments that there are monsters in the real world that are scary beyond anyones imagination.
Beautiful post. Beautiful writing. Wicked scary that you actually had to live through this. Inspirational that you survived and came out the other side a better person.
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