Bits and Pieces of the Unfinished

Sunsets and Car Crashes

The second I opened my eyes, I knew I was late. The sun was already throwing thick gold streaks across my pillow instead of filtering in that soft dusty blue so common at six in the morning. Dead filled my stomach and the muscles clenched all over my body. My first day of senior year and I was late. There was no way I was going to be able to blend in with the crowd if I was the only one in plain view.

I bolted upright and leapt from my bed, across the room in what had to be half a second. By the grace of whatever god is out there I had taken a shower the night before, so I stood in the mirror brushing my hair and teeth simultaneously, gazing into my own gray-blue eyes. I looked like a doe in headlights that could put on eyeliner and spit out foamy toothpaste at the same time. I took a deep breath, cleaned my mouth with water, and ran back into my room to find some sort of outfit in my overflowing closet.

There was an overwhelming amount of black. I struggled to find one shirt among twenty others that all look the same from the side, smashed together, and cursed myself for not buying more color over the summer. Color, that was funny. I was convinced color didn't look good against my ivory pale skin, it only succeeded in making me look like one of those photoshopped pictures where only the dress is pink and everything else is black and white.

My fingers brushed across a soft, purple pastel t-shirt with a black lace Peter Pan collar and pulled it off its hanger. I swallowed a heavy lump in my throat and threw it on, quickly coupling it with a high waisted leather skirt. Once I slid on a pair of black suede Mary Janes with bows on the sides, I grabbed my purse and ran down the stairs, each one creaking and bending under my weight. I wasn't big in the slightest, our house was just the crappiest one we'd ever set foot in.

As soon as I got to the bottom of the stairs, I instantly felt the regret that had been boiling in me for waking up late. In clear view, sitting on our dusty, green plaid couch was a man I'd never seen before, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. I would have thought he was sleeping, if it wasn't for my mom kneeling between his legs sounding as if she were slurping up soup. The cracking of the bottom step jolted his head upright, though my mom didn't seem to notice. He was startled at first, but then he grinned at me. Sickness swirled in my stomach, a familiar sense of needing to vomit.

At first I felt bolted in place, unable to even comprehend the scene before me, imagining the little amount of color in my skin draining completely from it, leaving me a ghostly white, even transparent. "Oh my God," is all I managed to say, and the words seemed to free me from where I was standing. I saw only my mom's head bob up and swivel around, her glazed eyes changing to that of panic before I ran out of the house, across our weedy, knee-high lawn, and into the street.

I heard a deafening screech across the wet asphalt and I looked to my left, just in time to see a candy apple red convertible flying straight towards me. I couldn't think, I couldn't react. And just like that, black consumed me. Suddenly, there was nothing.

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This one I feel like I was trying a little too hard to capture the pastel goth element, but whatever. It was meant to be a prologue, but I never got farther than that. I don't know what I had in mind for the rest of it.

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