Haunted (NaNo 2020)

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Allen Porter had never felt comfortable in his own skin. He had never been able to shake the wrongness of his life; the inexplicable doubt that he wasn't where he was meant to be. But tonight it was the strongest it had been in a while.

It had been just yesterday that he'd felt lively and bright, but with hours alone, the light had fizzled into darkness.

He knew if his mother could hear his thoughts, she'd scold him; he had it all. He lived in an idyllic town in the north of Washington. While it was small, the schoolhouse at the top of the hill offered a fantastic education, and most importantly, it was safe. He could leave the house and walk to the strip of shops that bordered the sloping landscape of their town without worry. Besides, everyone knew everyone—if something did happen they'd be to the bottom of it in a jiffy.

That had always been her argument until he'd finally stopped confiding in her.

But even though he didn't speak it, it didn't go away. It was this unshakable funk that sometimes pushed him into depressive states or pushed him to the brink of insanity, and he never knew which. It was like being here was infecting him. He knew he could destined for something great, but here anything great felt out of reach.

And it wasn't just his own life; it was the town as well. Everything seemed too perfect; too happy; too everything. Nothing in life was so clean, was it? It was almost as if he was waiting for someone to drop the curtain and say, "Cut. That's a wrap."

But that very same night that he sat alone in his room, strumming chords on his guitar mindlessly, questioning his place there, he would get the excitement he was looking for; the fateful night of August twenty-eighth would change everything.

The night drew to a close with crisp autumn air—weather that was so different than the day before one would almost think it was a different town—and Allen had been in his room since he'd woken up. A song possibility had riddled his mind all day, and now he was finally able to work on it in peace. By the time his mother called him for dinner, he'd figured out the chords and had pumped out all of the lyrics. The melody wasn't solidified, but he was pretty sure it was almost there.

"What're you working on?" his mother asked him. He eyed her warily.

"A new song," he muttered as he started to eat.

"Oh," she said. He didn't miss the small frown on her face and the disdain in her voice. Nor did he care.

"I think it'll fit really well with all of the other songs I've been working on," he explained. "It doesn't fit perfectly, but its vibes are similar enough."

"That's nice," she answered. "Are you, uh, still hoping to be able to get a record deal?"

He knew she was trying to slide it in casually, but he wasn't fooled.

"Yes, I am, and if you want to try to talk me out of it again, you can do it tomorrow because I'm not in the mood today," he said curtly, unwilling to entertain the possibility of hearing the same spiel he'd heard a thousand times. He knew what it was she wanted: the same thing everyone else did in this damn town. Graduate high school, get a job locally, possibly even start his own business. Make enough money to buy a house here. Get married here. Have kids here. Retire here. Die here.

They'd been through it over and over again, but he refused. He refused to fall into the meaningless cycle everyone else did. He had dreams and he wanted to follow them. He was fortunate enough to have found his best friend, Justine, who felt the same way about things. She was about the only solace he could find; the only curves in a line of monotony.