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[kd-writes]

[kd-writes]

Elie Saab Spring 2017 Haute Couture

[kd-writes]

CHAPTER ONE

There were plenty of things on Pia's twenty-first birthday wishlist. Waking up with a zit the size of Russia was not one of them. Though, it would have been a great indicator of how her birthday would turn out – had she been paying any attention.

Instead, however, the now twenty-one year-old was fussing with her bright ginger hair that just never seemed to do as it was told, standing in front of the mirror unimpressed. She had just about given up when four loud thuds came from the other side of the door. "Give me a minute!"

Another two thuds came with a response, "C'mon, Pia, I gotta go!"

The door knob rattled.

She took one more look at herself in the mirror and sighed. It's no use, she thought as she looked over her appearance. This is as good as you're gonna get. Her hair fell in lazy tendrils, unwashed and a mess, to just below her shoulders. Her work uniform was much like her hair: crinkled and unwashed from sitting on the floor all week waiting to see the inside of the washing machine. Her only makeup, some of her mom's old foundation powder, hadn't worked too well to hide the big round, pink zit popping out in full 3D picture.

"COME ON!"

"Take a chill pill, would'ya?" She threw the door open with a groan. The raven haired boy on the other side stood a good foot and a half higher than her five foot, six inch frame, and his athletic figure stumbled backwards for dramatic effect.

"God, are you growing yourself some new friends on your face?" he chuckled to himself.

Pia muttered something underneath her breath, and her brother pushed her to the side so he could get into the bathroom. "I'm glad you're gonna have some friends to spend your birthday with this year!" she overheard him say on the way.

"Ethan, stop harassing your sister," a voice piped up, and Pia swirled around to see her mother, a beautiful blonde haired woman without a single crease in her own clothing, standing at the doorway to her bedroom.

"Oh dear," she sighed upon the sight of her youngest and only daughter. "I was wondering when that'd pop up. Actually, I was hoping it wouldn't."

"What are you talking about?"

Had she not pushed her way past her mother into her room, she would have noticed her mother's flustered response as she tried to find an acceptable answer. "Oh, just – when I was your age, I had a terrible case of acne. It's a wonder your father ever talked to me at all."

Then she turned to the shut bathroom door, banging on it two times with her fist, "Ethan, I need you home tonight for dinner."

"Oh, Mom, I don't want a big thing. I was planning on going to this party –" Pia stumbled hesitantly with her words, trying not to hurt her mother's feelings because she wanted to spend the night with her friends rather than her family.

"It's tradition, Pia. No arguments." She raised her voice to add, "From anyone!"

"Good God, have you looked in the mirror?"

She hadn't been at work longer than ten minutes before being stopped in the staffroom by a loud, boisterous voice hollering from across the room. She lifted her hand up to cover the large balloon just above her eyebrow as Pia continued to walk to her locker. "Thanks a lot, Sherlock."

"Seriously, what're you feeding that thing?"

"Amelia! Please!" Pia turned back to her locker and opened it up, throwing her personal belongings into it. "This day literally can't get any worse."

Amelia tossed her chocolate brown locks over her shoulders with a flick of her head. "Sorry," she said, her bubble gum pink glossed lips curving into a grin. "Happy birthday!"

"Thanks," she sighed quietly before being pulled into a non-reciprocal hug. Amelia was many things: outgoing and confident being just two of them. Pia often envied her friend of four years for both traits, especially during times when she was being dragged along on adventures she always felt out of place during. People didn't flock to her like they did Amelia, and she commanded the room's attention with such grace and ease that if she wasn't such a kind-hearted person, Pia would be able to hate her for it out of pure jealousy. Instead, she spent most weekends sitting in the corner of the room watching as her best friend danced and flirted, wondering how the hell she managed to do it.

Having the confidence to just get up and talk to someone would probably help, but even that seemed too big of a step for her.

"So, you coming out tonight?"

"I tried but –" she couldn't even finish her sentence as Amelia groaned dramatically.

"You're twenty-one, you don't have to do everything your mother says."

Pia loved her mother, but she had a tendency to be extremely overprotective. She always figured it had to do with being a single parent, she had to take on the worry of two people for both of her kids, and it only got worse the older she got. She couldn't even broach the topic of moving out without her having a coronary. "I can't, okay? We do dinner every year and – we'll hang out another night. Besides, it's a Sunday!"

"Fine. I guess I'll have to tell Jason the party's off." Amelia knew she had hit just the right topic to bribe her friend, Pia's eyebrow twitching upwards at even the mention of her crush since junior high. "Yup, that's right. I had this whole big party planned, and Mr. Perfect told me last night he was coming. He sounded suuuuper excited to see you."

She groaned, "Fine. I'll try."

Amelia laughed proudly, "You're so predictable."

"And you're a bad influence."

If there was an excuse guaranteed to be trusted by Mrs. Lancaster, it would be coming from the lips of Theodore Bell. For years, he had been the only friend that would come around and beg for Pia to come out and play. Growing up next door neighbours, the Bells and Lancasters became good friends and welcome sights most weekends at each other's homes. Theo had never stepped a foot out of place in his young life, always playing by the rules. He was the type of person you'd want on your side in a fight because his loyalty was unwavering.

So of course when Pia asked him to lie on her behalf to tell her mother he had planned a special birthday get together that would mean a lot if she could come to, she folded.

"I can't believe you talked me into this," he said once more for dramatic sake. She followed this with a loud groan, as if to say enough already. When she looked across to the boy sitting in the driver's seat, she still saw the same ten year-old she would beat in every board game known to man. His parents no longer cut his hair with a bowl on top of his head, and his mother, who had a thing for florals and neon, clearly didn't pick out his wardrobe anymore. Thank God, she thought, he couldn't pull that off anymore.

"It'll be fun, alright. And I'll make it up to you, whatever you want."

There was a long few seconds of silence as Theo kept his vision on the road ahead, and then finally, he sighed, "We're leaving by midnight."

Pia grinned appreciatively, bouncing up in her seat before leaning over to give him a peck on the side of the cheek.

Theodore was sure he had never been so grateful for the lack of light on the road in that moment.

[kd-writes]

LETTERS OF GOODBYE [SHORT-STORY]

[867 words]

You shouldn’t come back to me.

She knew it was better off this way. Her life was a wreck; her mind scattered just like the clothing all over her bedroom floor. Nothing was right, but he always was. That in itself was wrong to her. How could one thing fit into such a world, where nothing was right? He didn’t understand. He tried, but he couldn’t.

Marc and his perfectly tailored suits, perfect pearl white teeth and his perfect posture. The only thing that was ever even slightly out of place was his hair, but even that didn’t make him fit into her world. Her world was reminders to take her pills, therapy sessions and filling out journals explaining how she felt that day. Any sign of being anything but positive, as defined by the many psychiatrists, set off alarms to everyone around her. She was never allowed to feel anything; she was a porcelain doll put into a display case for everyone to look at, but not touch.

As much as she forced it; shoved the square into a circle and slammed a sledgehammer to it over and over again, it never changed shape. Its bruises were still black and blue, and she hated seeing what she was doing to him. The people she loved she hurt, and it shouldn’t be that way.

Cécilia’s fingertips ran across the folded piece of paper like he did her hand when he held it. There was a second she hesitated, staring down at the ivory colored slip of notepaper sitting sadly on top of the table. Her fingers slipped underneath it, almost picking it up, and a moment later she pulled her hand away from it.

Her ocean blue eyes skimmed the scene in front of her. From the seat where she had eaten breakfast most mornings in the last five months, to where Marc would be reading the morning paper. She pictured him in his regular seat, every so often glancing up from The Chicago Tribune and his sparkling emerald eyes.

Staying would be easy. Days had become predictable; her every moment scheduled because any type of surprise could derail her progress. Who knew being mentally ill came with a caution sign stuck to her forehead? “No fun to be had here. Thanks anyway.” It’d be easy to wake up everyday, take her medication, go to therapy and then to university. There’d be no drinking anymore, which was probably best considering the many nights she already couldn’t remember. Staying would be comfortable.

It wasn’t the schedules, pills or the almost obsessively perfected folding patterns of her clothing in the closet that got to her. Watching the life being drained from her own eyes every morning when she stared at herself in the mirror, that was part of it. Feeling numb when she wanted to feel the ups and downs of everyday life was another part. Mostly, she didn’t want to look over and find someone next to her and watch his own life being leached from him. From someone who would do anything, including putting his own life to her own schedule to make sure she stayed healthy.

Nobody should have to live like that.

He canceled plans with his friends, afraid it’d be too much. He visited her in the hospital after watching her lock herself in a public bathroom during a manic episode. She hadn’t known it at the time, she had just been angry. Mad that her father stood her up again, and mad that she had fallen for his charm again.

“You deserve the world,” she mumbled hopelessly into the dead air. “That’s not me.” It felt like someone was digging into her chest, pulling her heart out piece by broken piece. She slipped a newsboy hat on top of her golden locks and picked up her bags.

He’d be angry at first. He’d probably curse at her on the phone like he did when she took two hours to get ready. She would yell back and then leave the house without another word. He’d call back and apologize for being so mad, and ask her to please come home so they could work it out. He’d tell her he loved her, that he wanted to be with her no matter what that meant for them. She’d tell him she can’t ask him to deal with all her baggage, and he’d say it was his own choice.

But she wouldn’t pick up the phone this time.

This would be for all the times he proved to her that love was real; that it didn’t have to be this thing people used against each other. This would be for when he forgave her after she spat on him with rude words and called him names she hadn’t meant at all.

She closed the door behind her, saying one last goodbye by pulling the door completely shut. This was the last time she’d hurt him, and she made that vow as she slipped into the cab waiting for her down the driveway.

He had tried to save her life, but she wasn’t sure she was able to be saved. Or if she was even worth saving.

[kd-writes]

[kd-writes]

melancholy peggy’s cove 🌬🌊

[kd-writes]

adventures

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Hellas.Messinia, Peloponnesus,region,Golden Coast.

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[kd-writes]

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Hallstatt, Austria

[kd-writes]

PROLOGUE

“The first casualty of war is innocence.”

The light of the crescent moon shone a path against the pebbled dirt walkway for a plump young man hurrying his way down towards a large forest. Much of the greenery that once existed had turned a terrible colour brown, much thanks to the drought and surrounding poverty the locals suffered from. Thirsty trees bent every which way into the sky, blocking out any moonlight for the man as he was forced to turn on a small flashlight once he entered its depths. 

His feet padded along dry soil, crumpling dried leaves and dead petals, as he made his way through. Following the path at first, he approached an old treehouse that was once filled with giggling children and at night animals that once inhabited the forest. He veered off the path then, turning left at the treehouse and making his own way further into the forest. 

There were no more sounds from animals skirting around in the shadows, though he knew he must be careful to avoid getting caught in the abandoned woods. It was a risk to be seen in areas that were no longer allowed to be crossed into. Some trees had been charred since the new reign of terror began, in an effort by the King to make his mark. 

He counted his footsteps until he reached twenty, then took a right through tangled shrubs. He ducked through fallen trunks and branches, finding himself in front of a small shack that had been strategically hidden and built within the tangled mess. The windows were darkened out and the one-floor cabin would be easily missed to the untrained eye.

The man took off his hood, revealing a thick scruff of blonde hair, and knocked quickly three times before closing his fist and wrapping on the side of the doorframe, kicking his leg to the side and stomping. The door opened a minute later, revealing a much taller, stronger man. He was older with distinct wrinkles framing his blue eyes and his defining greying ginger hair was showing signs that the man had just stumbled from bed.

“Sir, they’ve found her.” 

The man looked down at his visitor, lips pursed together, “It’s time.”