Cold Hands Cold Heart

Chapter One

She sat in the little cafe on the street corner downtown. Of course she was at a cafe. A small, quaint, cute cafe. It serves Italian Sodas and coffee, sandwiches and cookies, all the aspiring writer might need to tide herself over as she either gets lost in her own world or someone else's- she doesn't like this one all that much. And of course she was sitting on one of those spinny bar stools, drinking her steadily cooling cappuccino from the fun sized teacup, because that's how every cliche story begins.

A book rests in front of her today, and she flips through the pages at a speedy rate, fully engrossed in the words. Her eyes blur as she scans the lines, taking in the characters, the plot, the story. She likes losing herself for a little while. She falls in, deep, and she doesn't pay attention to any of her surroundings. She's made a habit of pretending she's apart of her own little universe (with her favorite characters, of course).

It hardly matters. No one tries to join her today. No one tries to talk to her, or approach her, or tell her that she's expected at her a party at her best friend's house, or worse. We haven't reached that part of this tale yet.

***

In fact, I don't return to that cafe for many weeks later, and it's role in this story is hardly vital at all- what's a setting compared to what happens there? A few barstools, a shattered cup of coffee, a few other things broken here and there along the way...

But nothing's broken yet. People are stronger than they appear, and I've managed to make my way through seventeen years of life without shattering like an insignificant bottle of coke (or wine). This long road eventually leads to me sitting in the Fine Arts Hallway of my high school- not that I'm in any way involved with the fine arts, but it's where my friends usually are. I tried helping out with a show for maybe two weeks before respectively dropping it. No one really held it against me- I don't think they were expecting me to last long. Now, a notebook is propped on my crossed legs, my lunch cold and forgotten beside me. I don't notice when my stomach rumbles.

I lounge comfortably in the spot I eat in everyday- against a set of ratty, unused lockers that would probably break at the hinges if someone tried to open them. The familiar, cool metal soothes the muscles in my back, dully aching from bending over the pages I now frantically scribble in. Letters ooze wickedly from my red pen. I've found that when words want a way to come out, you really should let them.

"Ayla," Addison interrupts my thought process, drawing me painfully back to reality as my fingers momentarily still. A vision of Addison leaning against the doorframe above flashes in my mind, her sleek dirty blonde hair pulled over one shoulder in a loose ponytail. A bland but beautiful description I might find very difficult to write- to make a character out of. "What is it that you're always writing in there?"

While I hear her, I don't look, and just mutter, "I'm plotting your murder." I vaguely hear her laugh, and she doesn't say anything more.

I only glance up upon Katherine's entrance, because, as usually, she plops down across from me in a rather loud and wild manner, still managing to send my pen scrawling across my paper in an ugly red line. I stare at the mark that vaguely resembles torn skin before turning to scowl at my friend.

"I just ate three bags of Doritos," Katherine informs us upon greeting, beginning to dig into her cafeteria-made sandwich. Her chipped, bitten nails stand out starkly against the bread, painted a dark blue-black.

I furrow my brow. "Why would you eat three bags of Doritos?"

"Well, you see, my dear Ayla, I had three dollars, and that's enough for three bags of Doritos, if you were wondering."

I roll my eyes, but don't add that I know the real reason she's suddenly plagued with the munchies. Her dark brown eyes that almost match the inner pupil are rimmed with a thin veil of red. But otherwise, she looks generally put together after her "lunch break." Her shoulder length blonde hair is combed and hanging in pretty, if a little limp, curls, the front pieces pulled back with a clip. Though I always tell her makeup will draw more attention to her red eyes, she insists it only makes the brown more noticeable and helps cover up the red. I've stopped arguing at this point, and the makeup, which was probably running with coughing-tears barely twenty minutes again, is once again pristine. Besides, people don't pay much attention to her eyes. She's much too short for that.