Darkness: The Life Beyond

Chapter. 25

Aria walked down the street from her job which gave her time to think as the chill breeze blew across her face and her hands were inside her pocket to keep them warm while walking home in the winter.

She watched the cars drive by and in some of the cars, their children looked out the window and thought to herself that every one of those people ran from what they feared most, hid from what they hated; rather that be the insecurities they have about themselves. Or people they hate and blacklisted, but at the end of the day, you look in the mirror at yourself every day.

And people project their insecurities all the time; Aria continues to think to herself, in somebody's eyes, I may be the prettiest girl they've ever seen or the smartest, but in another person's eyes, I'm ugly and dumb. Just to have an enmity antagonism viewpoint because they're insecure about themselves and got nothing better to do than hate.

The cars continue to pass by as Aria continues to walk getting closer and closer to her house, but as she's walking she spotted a corner store and decided that she'll make a quick pit stop for an Arizona and hot Cheetos.

She enters the store and sees some shady-looking men so she adjusted her pocket knife to where she has easy access to it in case she has to act in self-defense and pulled her zip up hoodie—that she got from Jordan—down a bit over her gray sweat pants and she had Jordan retro 4s white oreo with a white t-shirt.

She grabbed a watermelon Arizona since that was her favorite Arizona and two bags of ships, she grabbed hot Cheetos and hot cheese puffs.

She paid for her stuff and left, the men were still looking at her all creepily as she was actively aware. She made her stop as quickly as possible and left, not even taking the time of day to make a quick conversation with the cashier; who is a guy in his fourties'.

She left the store, walked down the street a bit, and turned around to make sure those guys whom she thought were overly weird weren't following her, they weren't. So Aria pulled out her phone and started listening to music on her Spotify playlist; the first song that played was Don't by Bryson Tiller, which was one of her favorite songs.

As she was walking down a street she came across a girl who was taking a jog at 9 am because Aria's shift was from six-to-nine today.

"Girl you're so pretty, I wish I had your perfect body," The lady said to Aria as she then passed by Aria and began jogging backward.

Aria gave a head shake indicating a yes but then she said "Thank you boo," following shortly afterward as she turned her head back around from facing the stranger and waved bye.

"You're welcome," She said as she turned around and began jogging away from Aria and with her hand waving bye as well.

Aria arrived home and she turned off the music that was playing, which was Work out by J. Cole. She put her iPhone 13 headphones in her pocket and she opened the door. Her dad was an alcoholic, smoked a lot, and was abusive towards her. And he gets especially mad when she leaves the house without telling them where she's going.

He walked down the hallway slightly falling over on the hallway walls and knocking over the candles on the table with all his clumsiness then once he managed to stand right in front of Aria as she had this look of annoyance on her face he asked her, "Where the fuck have you been?" You then can hear a slight burp from all the alcohol he ingurgitated.

Aria said, "None of your business, I'm eighteen years old and about to be nineteen in two months I don't have to tell you where I'm going; I'm grown." which was pretty dumb but she had pretty solid logic and a point.

"As long as your dumb ass is living under MY house eating my food and sleeping on a bed I gave you, you follow my rules, so answer my question WHERE, HAVE YOU, BEEN?" Dave asked which is what her fathers' name is, as he made extra emphasis on the where have you been and my.