Amberian (Gods of California I)

Chapter 34: Ghost Town

The Halloween decorations lining the halls of Asoonax High made Amber feel like she was in a haunted house as she roamed the halls with her binder in hand.

They'd truly gone all out. The corpse in the janitor's closet with the dangling organs was legitimately scary. 

Asoonax was a place where everyone knew everyone, but months into her second year, she still felt like a third wheel. A spare part. She'd still been unable to find her place in the well-established social dynamics.

"Hey, Amber!"

She winced.

Fuck. Almost made it out with no one talking to me.

She turned and saw it was Whitney. A gorgeous Native-American girl with dark eyes she'd often been too nervous to talk to. Unlike the others, Whitney had at least been courteous to her, and the fact that she even knew her name made her think there was a path to friendship.

"Did you see 'Insidious' yet?" the fellow sophomore asked with eagerness in her eyes, like she was expecting her to agree with her opinion before it had even been given.

Amber looked at her like she was speaking another language.

What the fuck in the huh?

She finally just shook her head.

"Don't you go to the movies?" asked Whitney, eyeing her with a raised brow.

"I'm not much of a 'going out' person I guess."

"So, like what do you do? Are you on Facebook? Myspace?"

"Oh, no. I'm not really on social media either."

It looks like she either wants to hit me or run away. Wonder which one it'll be.

"So, like. What do you do all day then?"

Amber let out a long exhale and shrugged. "I guess I just like, lay around and romanticize the past and dwell on my mistakes and stuff."

It looks like she's gonna settle on weird.

"I watch hockey sometimes!" she added abruptly, but by the time she blurted it out, the others were already on their way.

And they're gone. Fuck, I want Cheetos.

__

The walk home from school was one of the only things she liked about Asoonax. In the autumn breeze it was particularly nice as a blanket of orange and gold crinkled underfoot with every step.

Boys skated along park paths, passing long forgotten baseball fields where old men and women read books in windbreakers and solitude.

She passed diners with fading open signs and barber shops with those spinney peppermint cylinder things she'd never learned the name of.

The freeway was visible and heard wherever she went. Having lived with traffic sounds her whole life, she'd come to rely on them for comfort. It was a sort of atypical white noise that always had a way of lulling her to sleep. 

Somewhere beyond the distant hills were memories ingrained in the dusty blue canvas, but they were hidden by murk, as Ally was, and maybe always would be.

She finally reached her one-story blue and white house which sat solitary on the other side of town. Though it didn't look like much on approach, the many acres of land behind its extrinsic made the property one of the most expensive plots in the entire area.

Her father had long worked for the city of Dayvale - even serving as mayor for a term before being voted out when she was little. When she'd heard they were taking up farming as a means for political respite, she'd expected to be ploughing the fields in overalls, but it wasn't like that at all.