Once Upon A Nighttime
I’ve been working on a side story between Wildfire, Emissary, and Secret Life. I tend to do that because it helps free my mind a little.
The backstory behind this particular story I’m working on relates to an event from my teenage years. As many of you know, or may have guessed, I spent a lot of my time writing when I was growing up. If I wasn’t writing, I was reading. As a teenager, I got really into writing music. Anyway, I wrote a song called, ‘Face in the Mirror’. It was this heavy, brooding lyrical story about a man that lives in the mirror and he watches you, feasting on your beauty and your flaws, always wanting the part of you that you hate. The song always stuck with me (probably because I was so withdrawn and self-conscious growing up). Because of that, I decided to write a story about it. Who the man was. What he wants. The girl he watches. Her fears. His world. The desperate feelings of being trapped and wanting more than just being able to watch.
I’m considering writing this story in small portions as a novella box set of sorts. Just something fun. Give folks a glimpse into those awkward teenage years of mine (coupled with my very active adult imagination).
Here’s the first, work-in-progress chapter. The story is tentatively titled ‘Once Upon A Nighttime’.
Chapter One
The sun was beating down hot and heavy, and I hastily fanned myself with my hand, the sweat dripping down my neck in long rivers leaving me with nasty wet marks on my green Ramones t-shirt.
“Ugh,” my friend Abby croaked, fanning herself with a box top she’d ripped off. “I don’t know why the hell you thought moving today would be a good idea! And where the hell is Logan with my water?!”
She looked around irritably for our friend Logan who had promised to get us some cold drinks. He’d been gone for over fifteen minutes already, and I was seriously doubting that he’d return any time soon. I knew if I had been given the opportunity to skip out on moving day, I’d have made haste so quick that my Converse would smoke from the friction of them pounding the pavement as I fled.
“Let’s just hurry up,” I said, wiping my sweaty brow. I snatched up a box labeled books and cringed as my back ached. That was a clear indication that I should start downloading my books rather than keeping heavy boxes of them to lug around. A tablet was so much lighter to lift than a tote filled with fifty books.
Abby growled her dissatisfaction as she hoisted a small box labeled ‘clothes’ into her arms and followed me to the back of Logan’s truck. We continued what we were now referring to as The Trudge of Death for another four trips when Logan popped back in, a huge grin on his face.
“Where the hell have you been?” Abby demanded, tapping her foot irritably, her sweet features twisted into a snarl, her long blonde curls bouncing angrily on her head as her foot continued its tapping. Abby was a major sweetheart, but she didn’t take crap from anyone, and that included our long-time friend Logan Welles. She was short and small, but fiery. Her personality reminded me of a Chihuahua. Super cute, but snarly when provoked.
“Sorry,” Logan grinned sheepishly, taking the box Abby was holding. “Kyle called and was telling me about the new Call of Duty game-,”
“I don’t even care,” Abby said, holding up her hand to silence him. “Like, seriously. Where’s my water?”
“Oops,” Logan grimaced, shifting the box in his arms.
“You were gone all that time and didn’t even bring us water?” Abby asked, her green eyes open wide in disbelief. “Give me that!” She grabbed the box from his arms and huffed away from him.
“I’d get her a water if I were you,” I chuckled, pushing tendrils of my red hair away from my face. Logan grinned, watching Abby walk out to the truck with the box in her arms.
“I don’t know. She’s kind of cute when she’s mad,” he said.
“She’s also fire,” I laughed. “She will seriously cut you if you don’t get her a water.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” he said, pulling out his wallet and looking down at its contents. “I’ll be right back.”
“You better run!” I called to his retreating back, and he waved me off and broke into a trot. The store was only a block away, but knowing Logan, he’d be gone for another half hour.
“Where’s he going?” Abby asked, narrowing her green eyes at him, as I loaded the last box into the truck.
“To get water,” I replied with a yawn.
“What do you want to bet he returns with two Cokes and a bag of Skittles?”
We grinned at each other both knowing all too well how often Logan got distracted. He was an outgoing, friendly guy with the boy next door good looks. His chocolate brown hair fell into his hazel eyes and he had an athletic build. He played basketball and video games, not in that order, and he had a love for all things nerdy. He was constantly going on about Star Wars, Call of Duty, and Dungeons and Dragons.
The three of us grew up on the same street and I couldn’t remember a time when we weren’t all together. Things were different now. We were going off to college and this was our last night together before everything changed. Logan would be heading off to study psychology at Berkely, I’d be headed to Stanford, my dream college, to study medicine, and Abby would be off to UCLA to study design and fashion. We wouldn’t be far from one another, but it still wouldn’t be the same. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I couldn’t look from my bedroom window into Abby’s and shout for her to come over.
Logan had agreed to drive me to college since my dad couldn’t take time off from work to do it. It wasn’t too far out of his way anyway. My mom had left us when I was eight so it was just me and Dad, in it for the long haul. I knew my departing for college was hard on him, but he had my best interests at heart and had agreed to my leaving to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor. I wasn’t going to live on campus. I was entering as a sophomore. I’d started taking college classes as a sophomore in high school and had accumulated enough credits to enter college as a second year student, much to my father’s pleasure. College wasn’t cheap! I was getting scholarships, but would still have to pick up hours at a part time job somewhere. My dad was our town’s sheriff, which didn’t pay much. He had his own bills, and I didn’t want to burden him with mine. I had enough money saved up from my job at the Java Jones, a local coffee hut, to last me until I found something out there.
Abby and I laid beneath the willow tree in my backyard, something we’d done as kids. It would be a game for us. The tree was so large, its limbs so thick and low hanging, we’d pretend we were in another world since our world was so blocked off by it. My dad had even built us a tree house in it, complete with a tire swing, slide, and a fireman’s pole. We’d camp out there, giggling into the late hours of the night, Logan always tiring of our girl talk and falling asleep before we did.
“I figured this is where you guys would be,” Logan came into view, pushing the low branches aside, two cherry Cokes in his hand.
Abby and I exchanged looks and giggled as he plopped down beside us.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Abby snickered, taking the drink from him. “Thanks.”
Logan shrugged off our laughs and rested his arms on his knees, a faraway look in his eyes.
“This is going to be so weird.”
“What?” I asked, already knowing what he was talking about.
“Us. This. Leaving.” He gestured around sadly. “Remember when Ronnie Babcock and James O’Neil tried to infiltrate our tree house back in sixth grade?”
“Yeah, and you stole your mom’s new carton of eggs and pelted them with it from the window in the treehouse! Your mom was so pissed!” Abby laughed, shaking her head.
Logan grinned at the memory, and I had to admit, it even brought a smile to my face.
“So many good memories,” I murmured, feeling nostalgic.
“We’ll make new ones,” Logan said, nodding his head.
“It won’t be the same though,” I sighed. “We’re going off to college, guys! We’re going to meet new people, see new places, experience new things without each other!”
“Ari is right,” Abby frowned. “This is our last night together. This is it. We have to make it count!”
“What do you have in mind?” Logan perked up, his hair falling into his sparkling eyes.
“Go raid your mom’s liquor cabinet, I’ll get pizza, and Ari can pick out movies. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again! We can stay in the treehouse and have one last hoo-rah!” Abby said, her eyes lighting up at the idea. My dad had put electricity in the treehouse when he built it because I’d had a fear of the dark growing up. I kept telling him there was a scary man that would watch me from my bedroom mirror, something my mom had given me as a birthday present. It was really quite a beautiful mirror with its full length oval obsidian colored glass, and intricate gothic design. The feelings of being watched only got worse when my mom left us. Over the years I’d sort of grown out of my fear of the dark. It did rear its ugly head from time to time, like when there was a storm and the power would go out in the middle of the night and I’d awaken to the desolate pitch black of my bedroom, the unnerving feeling of being watched from my mirror settling over me.
Maybe it wasn’t the darkenss that scared me. Maybe it was that damn mirror, which is why last summer I’d moved it to the attic, far away from my dark bedroom. I’d slept a lot better since then.
“I’m down,” Logan said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Ari?”
“Let’s do it,” I grinned, fighting the butterflies in my stomach as I remembered the mirror that was hidden beneath a large wool blanket in the attic above my bedroom.
This was it. No more thoughts about that stupid mirror. This was our last night as neighbors, best friends, and treehouse heroes. If only I’d known how much I’d miss them, I’d have hugged them tighter, told them how much their friendship had meant to me, and how I wouldn’t be able to face my world without them.
A new world. One where the man in my mirror was very real, where the darkness I feared could consume me if I didn’t remember to breathe, if I failed to remember who I was.
If I failed to accept who I really am.
