Layla.
Layla - part one.
Some people say that everyone has a place where they belong in this chaos we call a world.
At first, I didn’t agree.
I searched everywhere, high and low for this secret hole in the world where I could escape and finally feel content…
Yet, found nothing.
Everyday played out the same way as the one before.
I woke up at five o’clock on the dot.
Not to the sound of an alarm, but to the sound of the couple yelling at eachother in the apartment above mine.
Every morning, at exactly five o’clock, their baby that they wish was never born made an echoing cry that shook the photographs that hung on my pale yellow walls.
And I would just lay back and listen to the sound of my society crumbling into pieces, right above my head.
After an hour, exactly one hour, I would decide it was time for a shower and walk done the silent halls of my appartment, tracing them with my fingertips along the way.
And everyday, I would dread that walk.
It hurt immensely to see the photographs of me smiling and full of laughter. And I would remember the day that my father told me to leave the house, because I reminded him too much of my mother; The day he told me he liked my sister better than me and I thought “of course you do. Who wouldn’t love my dumb blonde sister with size thirty-six, double d’s.”; The day my high school sweatheart left me for that 1.5 averaged sister I have, saying “she knows what she’s doing”; And the day my mother left this world, leaving me alone with all these idiotic people and just enough money to last me through school.
I cut their faces out of the pictures, hoping to forget they were with me on those days.
But I still knew they were there…
They stained their faces into the back of mind, and trapped me in happy memories I would never relive.
Everything in my life seemed to slow down after the day my mother died.
I would get dressed, go to school, come home, eat, then sleep. Everyday. Replaying the same actions like an over-played song on the radio.
I was invisible to the world.
The kind of person people run into on the streets and don�t even mutter a simple “sorry.”
The best in my classes, but never recognized for my consistent, beyond perfect G.P.A.
The girl who’s pretty, but too dull and doesn’t come off as strongly as others, so is left in the dust.
The girl who always gets an “alright,” but never good enough.
The girl you saw who wasn�t picked last, but not picked at all…
That girl was me.
Then, today, something different happened.
I woke up at five o’clock on the dot, as always...but I had this pain throbbing in the back of my head as the people upstairs argued away.
Everything was blurry, and I walked thru the house, nearly falling over with every step I took, trying my best to grip onto those boring yellow walls. God, I was so sick of those walls.
And I managed to knock a few of those haunting pictures down, as I skimmed the walls.
The frames shattered violently on the hard wood floors. I took a deep breath and slid down the wall next to the loose glass from the broken frames, and continued listening to the episode happening on the floor above me.
After a few minutes of relapse, I force myself to get up and head over to the bathroom cabinet for a thermometer.
Placing it in my mouth, I looked upward towards the ceiling to notice the dust flowing out of the ceiling tiles with every bang the couple made.
It read 103.1.
I looked at it with squinted eyes, trying to believe it was just my blurry vision. It couldn’t be that high.
The couple above me were arguing more than usual, which I thought would be impossible, before.
I heard noises that sounded like they were throwing various items against the floor, more likely, at one another.
And the baby still cried in the background.
“F.uck you!” A muffle scream cried out.
I shook my head and drew my attention back to the cabinet to find some tylenol (or anything, for that matter) to bring down my fever.
I found a bottle of liqiud tylenol inside the cabinet and opened it quickly, drinking more than the recommended dosage.
I figured the more I take, the quicker it works.
I don’t advise this to anyone. For some reason, I hate to read warning labels…
I heard a constant banging against my ceiling, as if someone were hitting something, repeatively.
“�What the heck...” I muttered, squinting my eyes, trying to make the fever subside.
Then in one instance, it stopped.
The banging stopped.
The arguing stopped.
And I heard a man cry, silmultaneously with the baby.
He seemed scared. He cried for awhile and moved around alot, I assumed he was pacing.
Then after that he ran.
He ran out of the room so quickly. It surprised me, because he didn’t usually leave for work until around 10 a.m.
I shakily moved my hands along the walls to make my way over to the front door.
Once there, I cracked it open to see the man running down the hallway to outside of the building.
I knew the old saying “curiousity killed the cat,” but I wanted to see for myself what he was running from.
So, bare-footed, and scraping the walls with my palms, I made my way to the starewell, up the stairs, and to room number 218.
The door was shut and locked, but that wasn’t seizing my curiousity. I felt around in my pocket for a credit card, hoping I left one in there from the night before. I did. I took it in my hands and tried to swipe the lock, but it was so hard, considering the blurriness of my eyesight and the medication was taking its toll.
Finally, that lock clicked open and I stared in disbelief at the sight I saw.
In the middle of the floor laid Carissa Adams, covered in blood. And to the left of her was her one year-old baby, sitting in its crib, staring back at me with bright emerald eyes.
At first, I didn’t agree.
I searched everywhere, high and low for this secret hole in the world where I could escape and finally feel content…
Yet, found nothing.
Everyday played out the same way as the one before.
I woke up at five o’clock on the dot.
Not to the sound of an alarm, but to the sound of the couple yelling at eachother in the apartment above mine.
Every morning, at exactly five o’clock, their baby that they wish was never born made an echoing cry that shook the photographs that hung on my pale yellow walls.
And I would just lay back and listen to the sound of my society crumbling into pieces, right above my head.
After an hour, exactly one hour, I would decide it was time for a shower and walk done the silent halls of my appartment, tracing them with my fingertips along the way.
And everyday, I would dread that walk.
It hurt immensely to see the photographs of me smiling and full of laughter. And I would remember the day that my father told me to leave the house, because I reminded him too much of my mother; The day he told me he liked my sister better than me and I thought “of course you do. Who wouldn’t love my dumb blonde sister with size thirty-six, double d’s.”; The day my high school sweatheart left me for that 1.5 averaged sister I have, saying “she knows what she’s doing”; And the day my mother left this world, leaving me alone with all these idiotic people and just enough money to last me through school.
I cut their faces out of the pictures, hoping to forget they were with me on those days.
But I still knew they were there…
They stained their faces into the back of mind, and trapped me in happy memories I would never relive.
Everything in my life seemed to slow down after the day my mother died.
I would get dressed, go to school, come home, eat, then sleep. Everyday. Replaying the same actions like an over-played song on the radio.
I was invisible to the world.
The kind of person people run into on the streets and don�t even mutter a simple “sorry.”
The best in my classes, but never recognized for my consistent, beyond perfect G.P.A.
The girl who’s pretty, but too dull and doesn’t come off as strongly as others, so is left in the dust.
The girl who always gets an “alright,” but never good enough.
The girl you saw who wasn�t picked last, but not picked at all…
That girl was me.
Then, today, something different happened.
I woke up at five o’clock on the dot, as always...but I had this pain throbbing in the back of my head as the people upstairs argued away.
Everything was blurry, and I walked thru the house, nearly falling over with every step I took, trying my best to grip onto those boring yellow walls. God, I was so sick of those walls.
And I managed to knock a few of those haunting pictures down, as I skimmed the walls.
The frames shattered violently on the hard wood floors. I took a deep breath and slid down the wall next to the loose glass from the broken frames, and continued listening to the episode happening on the floor above me.
After a few minutes of relapse, I force myself to get up and head over to the bathroom cabinet for a thermometer.
Placing it in my mouth, I looked upward towards the ceiling to notice the dust flowing out of the ceiling tiles with every bang the couple made.
It read 103.1.
I looked at it with squinted eyes, trying to believe it was just my blurry vision. It couldn’t be that high.
The couple above me were arguing more than usual, which I thought would be impossible, before.
I heard noises that sounded like they were throwing various items against the floor, more likely, at one another.
And the baby still cried in the background.
“F.uck you!” A muffle scream cried out.
I shook my head and drew my attention back to the cabinet to find some tylenol (or anything, for that matter) to bring down my fever.
I found a bottle of liqiud tylenol inside the cabinet and opened it quickly, drinking more than the recommended dosage.
I figured the more I take, the quicker it works.
I don’t advise this to anyone. For some reason, I hate to read warning labels…
I heard a constant banging against my ceiling, as if someone were hitting something, repeatively.
“�What the heck...” I muttered, squinting my eyes, trying to make the fever subside.
Then in one instance, it stopped.
The banging stopped.
The arguing stopped.
And I heard a man cry, silmultaneously with the baby.
He seemed scared. He cried for awhile and moved around alot, I assumed he was pacing.
Then after that he ran.
He ran out of the room so quickly. It surprised me, because he didn’t usually leave for work until around 10 a.m.
I shakily moved my hands along the walls to make my way over to the front door.
Once there, I cracked it open to see the man running down the hallway to outside of the building.
I knew the old saying “curiousity killed the cat,” but I wanted to see for myself what he was running from.
So, bare-footed, and scraping the walls with my palms, I made my way to the starewell, up the stairs, and to room number 218.
The door was shut and locked, but that wasn’t seizing my curiousity. I felt around in my pocket for a credit card, hoping I left one in there from the night before. I did. I took it in my hands and tried to swipe the lock, but it was so hard, considering the blurriness of my eyesight and the medication was taking its toll.
Finally, that lock clicked open and I stared in disbelief at the sight I saw.
In the middle of the floor laid Carissa Adams, covered in blood. And to the left of her was her one year-old baby, sitting in its crib, staring back at me with bright emerald eyes.