Preview of my work in progress

When No One Was Listening

Introduction

           I could hear her pacing outside the bedroom door. The stutter of shadows crossing back and forth through the thin sheet of light hadn’t stopped once in the past hour. If I didn’t have my iPod blaring I would be able to hear the annoying sound of her thumbnail flicking against her teeth. I wanted to scream “GET OVER IT” or “NOT ALL GUYS ARE DAD, SOME ARE WORSE” but I just sat there watching the shuffling of her feet. Soon she would knock, later we would yell and eventually she would give up. It was the same old song and dance. I couldn’t see why this time would be so different. There were plenty things about this time I didn’t see coming.

SLOANE

            There are many things that I am not, like; popular, drop dead gorgeous, or good at math, but it’s the things that I am that bother me the most. I am alone, I am broken, I am a murderer, and at present I am the crazy girl who just punched the future prom queen.

 I almost drowned when I was eight years old, a fact that has nothing and everything to do with my cold, wet fist smashing into Bitsy Ramones perfect nose. It shouldn’t have been a good feeling, her nose crunching under the rage, but it felt good.

Hell it felt great!

Thin drops of blood stained her porcelain white skin, rolled, splattered and pooled at her feet as the dirty grout sucked it up. The sound of the room rushed inside my ears, pounding in my head, her gasps, the jeering of onlookers, the sound of feet slapping against wet cement and loud, shrill laughter. The smell of chlorine, wet clothes and iron swam up my nose.

My perfect unbroken nose.

My sides ached with laughter that I didn’t know was mine. Stuttering breaths and every bit of my will power couldn’t stop the cackle rolling forth and ricocheting off the walls. Before Bitsy could swoon and pass out like a good dignified southern bell we were surrounded. Principal Hawthorn, head of security, Mr. Ivans and the school nurse, all stared in utter disbelief at the chaos I created. I found very little composer in the harsh stares, and lost it again as Bitsy whined,

“My nosth sthee brothke my nosth”

I went willingly as Mr. Hawthorn led me toward his office. The resounding slam of his door brought forth thoughts of jail cells clanging closed.

Sloane Christianson cheerleader slayer.

            “Sloane, it’s been a hard year for you.” Mr. Hawthorn leaned forward in his chair, as if trying to see through me, trying to grasp how he could have missed the hidden psycho lurking beneath my fragile exterior, looking for reason in the random chaos.

Pick a reason Hackthorn.

“With the death of your grandparents and the unexpected family trouble we have tried to be lenient on you.”

 He looked away when the words fell from his fat, spit covered lips. I wanted to scream, wanted to stand on his desk and tell the whole world how good ole Hackthorn had come to my house the weekend my father bailed on my mom and me. He soothed our pain by sending me to the movies and being my mother’s “special friend”. That’s what she called it these days, like I was 12.

“Sloane this is my ‘special friend’ Donnie, Tommy, Randy, Joe…”pick a name my mom’s friends with them all.