Status: Okay, so the whole 'get everything off my laptop' plan went to hell. The harddrive is messed up. All the chapters I'd written are gone. I don't think I'll delete ACA and I will probably continue it, but I can't say how long it will be before I do. I am considering redoing it completely.
A Cigarette Affair
Coping.
Have to get away, have to get away, her mind urges, and, I’m going, I’m going, she shouts back in frustration.
Pippa’s fingers twist in the tendrils of her hair, yank at them ruthlessly. The screams are too much for her today and she strides down the road, intent on escape. In one pocket rests her altoids tin and in the other, a pack of menthols.
The dogs are barking and everyone is shouting at each other and she can’t even bring herself to scream at them all to just shut up. Too many dogs. Too much noise. She can feel a panic attack coming and she tries to push it back, draws in deep, deep breaths. Strides down the road in an effort to get away from the clamor. Tries the exercise her therapist taught her. Breathe in through the nose, hold, 1, 2, 3, out through the mouth. Repeat as necessary. It helps, a little, and she finds herself calming, slipping into the familiar apathy.
It’s a slow process, she remembers, one that she knows all too well.
Too tired, her mind murmurs and she can’t even bring herself to nod in agreement. Her limbs are heavy and her thoughts are frenzied, running this way and that. She is exhausted, both physically and emotionally and she wishes, just once, that her brain would shut down and allow her to rest. All she wants to do is lay down and sleep, but doing that would mean going home and she knows, without a doubt, that they’re still arguing. Better to wander around exhausted than to go back to that.
It isn’t long before she reaches her destination, a dilapidated old building sitting on the edge of town. It isn’t much. Just a square of concrete blocks with a few small windows set up high on walls coated with peeling, white paint. She thinks it might have been a storage building once, though she’s never been inside. Hasn’t even wondered about it, really. It’s where she comes to get away, though, and in a way, she supposes, it is hers.
Pippa sighs, slowly, softly, and can feel her frustration and anger washing away, only to be replaced by cool, empty apathy. Another sigh and her shoulders slump beneath the invisible weight of exhaustion. She wants to sit down, so she does, resting her back against one of the building’s walls and sliding down it until her butt rests against the asphalt.
She closes her eyes and listens to the whoosh of the cars as they drive by on a distant road somewhere. She feels safe here, with a border of trees on three sides and an abandoned playground on the other. If she listens closely, Pippa thinks she can hear the gentle creak of rusted swings swaying in the wind.
Her fingers fumble absently at her pocket, dip into the tight confines and pull out her pack of cigarettes, the edges of the box looking a little worse for wear. She thumbs the lid open and shakes out a fag, tosses the pack to the side as she brings the filter to her lips. Flicks her lighter and cups her hand around the flame, the action as sacred as a ritual by now.
Inhales deep and lets it out in a sigh.
“Mind if I bum one?” And Pippa’s relaxation takes wing in the shock of the voice. Hazel eyes swing to land on the person so rudely interrupting her peace, and surely someone is out to get her because it's the new boy standing there at the edge of the building, looking infuriatingly smug.
Pippa’s fingers twist in the tendrils of her hair, yank at them ruthlessly. The screams are too much for her today and she strides down the road, intent on escape. In one pocket rests her altoids tin and in the other, a pack of menthols.
The dogs are barking and everyone is shouting at each other and she can’t even bring herself to scream at them all to just shut up. Too many dogs. Too much noise. She can feel a panic attack coming and she tries to push it back, draws in deep, deep breaths. Strides down the road in an effort to get away from the clamor. Tries the exercise her therapist taught her. Breathe in through the nose, hold, 1, 2, 3, out through the mouth. Repeat as necessary. It helps, a little, and she finds herself calming, slipping into the familiar apathy.
It’s a slow process, she remembers, one that she knows all too well.
Too tired, her mind murmurs and she can’t even bring herself to nod in agreement. Her limbs are heavy and her thoughts are frenzied, running this way and that. She is exhausted, both physically and emotionally and she wishes, just once, that her brain would shut down and allow her to rest. All she wants to do is lay down and sleep, but doing that would mean going home and she knows, without a doubt, that they’re still arguing. Better to wander around exhausted than to go back to that.
It isn’t long before she reaches her destination, a dilapidated old building sitting on the edge of town. It isn’t much. Just a square of concrete blocks with a few small windows set up high on walls coated with peeling, white paint. She thinks it might have been a storage building once, though she’s never been inside. Hasn’t even wondered about it, really. It’s where she comes to get away, though, and in a way, she supposes, it is hers.
Pippa sighs, slowly, softly, and can feel her frustration and anger washing away, only to be replaced by cool, empty apathy. Another sigh and her shoulders slump beneath the invisible weight of exhaustion. She wants to sit down, so she does, resting her back against one of the building’s walls and sliding down it until her butt rests against the asphalt.
She closes her eyes and listens to the whoosh of the cars as they drive by on a distant road somewhere. She feels safe here, with a border of trees on three sides and an abandoned playground on the other. If she listens closely, Pippa thinks she can hear the gentle creak of rusted swings swaying in the wind.
Her fingers fumble absently at her pocket, dip into the tight confines and pull out her pack of cigarettes, the edges of the box looking a little worse for wear. She thumbs the lid open and shakes out a fag, tosses the pack to the side as she brings the filter to her lips. Flicks her lighter and cups her hand around the flame, the action as sacred as a ritual by now.
Inhales deep and lets it out in a sigh.
“Mind if I bum one?” And Pippa’s relaxation takes wing in the shock of the voice. Hazel eyes swing to land on the person so rudely interrupting her peace, and surely someone is out to get her because it's the new boy standing there at the edge of the building, looking infuriatingly smug.