Forest of Rope

Chapter 2

Four months later...

Dec 18

Life's a bitch and then you die. It doesn't get any simpler than that whenever Alexis Moore takes a minute out of her worthless day to think about it. Here she was at the prime of her fast-expiring youth with everything a young woman could want. She had independence, a job and a boyfriend...

The three just circled each other like a perfect happy-go-lucky merry-go-round.

In spite of her supposed good fortune, Alexis could neither mentally nor physically be at rest. The question wouldn't let her. It kept Alexis up at night, kept her drinking without end, kept her repeating it daily to herself just in case it hadn't yet become ingrained into her consciousness.

Is it all worth it? She would muse listlessly to herself.

What value did money have apart from providing a mere unit of survival? What was her insecure job actually providing her with, other than more and more pointlessdemands and responsibilities? Even her obscure tastes and interests didn't seem to matter anymore. In the end she was just another carbon copy of the alternative breed, a consumer and a conformist just like the rest.

Painful as it was to realise her growing insignificance in the extraordinarily vast universe, there was something that hurt her even more:

What did the name Riley Steward even mean to her now that she'd realised the utter inanity and fruitlessness of all things?

Sure he was always there for her, like he always had been. Summer or Fall, rain or shine, for better or for worse Riley was there to stay. Perhaps that was the problem. He was always there. Always listening, watching and judging. It never seemed to end. There was no room for a break or mistake because Riley's perfection disallowed it, prohibited it. And Alexis had always known that she was far from perfect. 

Hated by all her family, she was as good as disowned and excommunicated the very moment she stepped out of their door for good. Her parents had been devout Catholics and despised everything Alexis ever did or believed in. She'd been ignored, discouraged and unloved for an insufferable period of time. Those lonely, hateful years helped shape her into the lonely, hateful person she was today. What's more, she had the scars to prove it.

'Hey, Miss Transylvania. Can you hear me in there?' a both bored and frustrated voice demanded her attention. Alexis looked up from her broken daze disinterestedly to her bitch supervisor and reluctantly yanked out her earphones. The gutsy pig's flabby cheeks continued to wobble like jello even after her square, flaccid jaw stopped moving.

'Are you goingto answer that?' the middle-aged cretin directed to the ringing phone with a stubby finger. Alexis hadn't noticed it at all in her daydream. She remained silent, twizzling on her swivel throne as the noise defiantly blared into her pierced ears, warped and distorted by her hangover. She didn't nod until deeming it absolutely necessary to do so. If the swine hadn't dropped in the ironic nickname maybe she would have given a faster response.

Upon first meeting Barbara Sharpton as her new supervisor Alexis had only mildly hated her as she instinctively and vindictively hated everyone over forty. One hundred and fifty-five snarky comments later and she'd successfully graduated to Alexis's "to-die" list.

'Well go on then.' Barbara instructed impatiently, still gesturing to the outdated piece of junk that refused to relent. Alexis simmered under her glare for a while until she finally caved. Feeling defeated she snatched the phone out of its battered cradle and gave a dismal greeting.

'Red Fox Foods, how may I direct your call?'

The voice that replied sent shivers down her scrawny vertebrae.