Dandelion - H.S. AU

Chapter 2

The moment they stepped into the house, the air was all but vacuumed out of her anxious lungs. The room she stepped foot in was dark and cold, strands of dusk peeking through the closed up windows, making everything appear gloomy and obsolete. She remembered the layout of this room from the summers she spent here as a small child, but though it resembled the spacious family room, this place felt completely foreign.

The warm, inviting room she napped in on lazy summer afternoons as an adolescent looked bare and cold. All of the things she once loved in this room had been drained of their liveliness. The books on the shelves looked dusty and tattered, the grey sofa in the center of the room appeared faded and uncomfortable, and even the grandfather clock on the wall had stopped its ticking, it's broken bodice looming over the bitterly unwelcoming living space.

Worst of all, the deep red curtains covering the tall windows brought to mind eerie images of thick, pungent blood seeping in through the openings of the wall. She felt suffocated, like any moment the blood pouring through the windows would flood the room, leaving her drowning in a pool of unrelenting scarlet.

It wasn't until she felt the small finger sweeping across the back of her clammy hand that she was brought back to reality. "What's wrong Dee? You look pale." Clementine peered up at her sister, whose rosy cheeks had turned a shake of sickly green.

Swallowing the bile raising in her dry throat she quickly tried to regain her wits before Clementine noticed too much, but it was obvious she was past that point. "Everything's good Clem." She said a little too quickly, before wiping her sweaty palms against her olive green skirt and brushing the loose hairs from her braid behind her ears before taking a shaky breath. "C'mon, let's go upstairs."

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Small black dots clouded her vision as she bounded down the creaky wooden staircase. Her encounter with her grandfather was mostly a blur of flashing images. Him lying in his bed, all color gone from his face, the curtained windows and chilling wind blowing through the room, the pained expressions on her siblings faces, and the nausea overtaking her.

She ran as fast as she possibly could through the living room, trying her best to suppress the bile rising quickly in her throat. As soon as she made it through the front doors she found herself kneeling behind a bush, heaving up the little food that occupied her stomach. Tears burned past her eyes as a mixture of sobs and chokes filled the air around her.

Trying desperately to recollect herself, she quickly stood up and stumbled away from the disgusting substance she deposited into the rose bushes. She cringed slightly at her less than ideal placement before wiping the stains of tears off of her cheeks and contemplating her next decision. She couldn't possibly go back into that house. It made her feel trapped, and God knows what would happen if she had to face her grandfather again after that terrible incident she had just encountered.

She remembered seeing a small saloon in the town center before her family had began to walk towards her grandfathers house. Normally she wasn't one to drink much, but she did remember when her aunts and uncles back in Charleston would make moonshine and her and Lloyd would sneak some. It tasted awful, but everyone knew what it did; and right now she could use a little buzz more than ever.

She spat her saliva into the grass to clear her mouth of the terrible taste still lingering there, before quickly walking down the hill away from the house that was starting to feel more like a place of confinement than a home.

The walk was shorter than she expected, but maybe that was just because her mind kept drifting while her feet led her to the destination. She thought of how angry her mother would be about her hurried departure, how scared her siblings must have been when they'd seen their grandfather in such a state, and worst of all, how awfully sick her grandfather was. Each time she thought of how gravely ill he was a shiver racked her spine, and she threatened to become sick again, though even if she was she'd have nothing left in her system to heave up.

Eventually she approached a familiar small hole in the wall on the corner of the street. The building was crammed between a drugstore and some sort of men's boutique. The place was covered in chipped black paint and only had two windows that gave an extremely boring view of the dirty street. She looked up at the sign above the heavy wooden door that read "Rally's Saloon" in large, hand painted, golden letters. She shrugged at the site and knew that she had indeed ended up in the right place. Taking a few steps forward, she pushed on the heavy door and walked into the boisterous bar.

The smell of brandy, sandalwood, and vanilla swirled through her senses as soon as she opened the door. The bar was the size of a shoebox, dimly lit and extremely crowded, but yet it still managed to have an extremely charming edge to it. An oak-wood bar was pushed against the right wall of the place, with dozens of half full bottles and a man mixing drinks behind it. The other half of the establishment was full of people and small, also oak tables. Some people were dancing to non existent music, others smoked cigars and emptied their glasses, while others just laughed and sparked conversation with old pals. The scene was exciting, and it helped ease her unsteady conscious slightly.

She walked through a small crowd of drunken people slowly, muttering several 'pardon me's and 'I'm sorry's that became lost in the swirl of mindlessly intoxicated chatter around her. She pushed through gently until she finally reached the bar and sat down on a soft leather stool perched behind the bar.  "What can I get for you, miss?" the bartender asked her in a rough, but kind voice. He looked older, his tired eyes giving off the impression of a long shift, but even the wrinkles on his face couldn't hide his gleeful expression. "Um..." -she quickly glanced up at the drinks written on the large chalkboard above the collection of bottles and chose the first one she saw- "A coffee royal, please." The man smirked slightly before looking at her with an amused expression. "You sure you want it with the whiskey, darling? You can get just plain coffee if you'd prefer..." He obviously didn't think she could handle her liquor which didn't surprise her. A lot of women, especially the ones her age, didn't tend to drink. "Well there's a reason I hadn't ordered just a coffee," she began "I'd like it with whiskey please." The man chuckled lightly and shrugged his shoulders "Coming right up ma'am."

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hello everyone! i'm sorry this books start is actually so slow but i promise, what you all came here for will happen very soon! i hope you're enjoying so far and don't forget to vote and comment! much love xx