Running with Scissors

Chapter 1

He had played out scenarios in his mind of how he would eventually introduce himself to her, had tried to think up ingenious ways to engineer a meeting.  It hadn’t occurred to him that it would happen purely by chance as it had today.  He had almost panicked when he had realised it was her approaching him, had almost let the moment slip by without uttering a word to her.  In that second he had felt something completely unexpected.  It had felt almost like fear, although he could not say what on earth could have caused him to feel that!  Maybe fear was too strong a word.  More like a mild concern, a momentary, fleeting thought that he wouldn’t know what to say or that she would just ignore him and keep walking.  He smiled at his brief flash of self doubt.

 Once he had past that moment and gained control of himself he had found her so easy to talk to.  She was just a kid though, wasn’t she?  Was 16 still a kid?  Maybe it was her youth that had made it undemanding.

He had always found it difficult to talk to women.  The few he had liked hadn’t liked him, and the fewer that he had had relationships with had bored him after a few weeks and drifted away almost unnoticed.  He felt it could be different this time.

Anyway, at least he had found out her name.  Nicola.  It was a nice name, he thought it suited her. 

He closed his eyes, picturing her in his mind.  Her slim figure and pretty face, her beautiful dark, wavy hair and equally dark and beautiful eyes.  He had watched the way her face would light up and she would become so animated when she was chatting with her friends.  And yet there was also something about her that made her appear vulnerable.  He couldn’t explain what it was but for some reason he liked it.

He smiled, maybe 16 wasn’t still a kid these days.  He would just have to wait and see what happened.

Nicky lay on her bed listening to music playing on her headphones.  She knew her time would be better spent looking at the chemistry formulas that she was supposed to be learning but she seemed to be completely incapable of concentrating on them at the moment.  Her mind just wouldn’t focus, her thoughts repeatedly turning to her family.

Almost as soon as she had walked through the door Jayne had started.  This time it was because Nicky had forgotten to turn her TV off when she went out.  It was always something!  It wasn’t like the power used by a TV on standby was going to break the bank, was it?

Why had her dad married that woman? 

Nicky had been 10 when her mum had run off with another man, leaving Nicky with her dad, Ian.  After the initial shock they had worked out how to get along on their own.  Nicky had grown up quickly and over the years had taken on much of the cooking and cleaning when she saw how her dad struggled to keep his job and manage their home.  She knew that her dad felt guilty that she had taken on the responsibility to keep things going and she guessed that in his own way he tried to make things right. 

Her dad’s strategy for coping with the situation seemed to comprise of two things.  First, he had joined a help group.  Everyone had said that this was just a fad and he would stop going once he got tired of their do-good interfering.  It hadn’t worked out that way.