On A Cold Night

She stared her brother down. Figuratively speaking of course; the vindictive girl stood at a measly five foot, three inches. But her petite frame was filled with contempt. She regarded any and everything with the utmost disdain. She had become foul and scornful. The nurses that tended to her pitied the poor child. Her family members did not come, even to the family sessions that were “essential to her recovery” as the doctors put it. No, she had seen hide nor hair of her relatives until now. They feared the worst of her, they feared the cruel glean that had shown in her cerulean eyes the last time any of them had seen her. Present company included.

He was part of it, her mind screamed at her. It kept repeating, like a broken record. The voices in her head told her he was partially to blame for the events that had come to take place. In her twisted mindset, whatever the voices said was the unquestionable truth.

Of one thing everyone who had recently had an encounter with the girl was painfully certain. Karyss Hemmingway was going insane.

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Leia pushed her way through the crowd. She clutched her left hand to her chest. The searing pain of the burn crawled it’s way through her nervous system, sending jolts of electricity to the burnt tissue of her palm. The sensation was all too familiar to her.

The torching cup of coffee had loosened itself from her trembling grip. Hot liquid had shot from it, the lid falling off upon impact with the ground. Brown splotches now decorated the white cotton fabric of her attire.

She struggled to get past the faceless people around her. Even though the air was stale with a chilling frigidness, the day had just reached it’s warmest. The concrete pathway was teeming with passersby, more than likely on their way to get a bite to eat on their mid-day break. She was almost out of the shopping district and into the part of town that housed a slew of fancy, overpriced housing editions. One edition in particular was beckoning to her. The sea of brick and freshly cut lawns was coaxing her forward.

The familiar, uniform homes that Fallen Oaks was comprised of seemed never ending. As the previous house faded, another identical dwelling would take the last’s place. The route had never seemed so long, nor so nerve racking as it did at that moment. It was a relatively short trek from her home, even more so from the coffee house. Yet, she found herself walking still, forty minutes after she had started off.

A nervous chill rolled it’s way down her spine as Sycamore Road made it’s appearance. Of all the numerous streets that the large edition was comprised of, this one, by far, was the most vivid in her memory. The October Glory Maple that stood in the front yard gave the house away. With it’s fiery crimson, red leaves, there certainly was something glorious about the old maple. It was solely because of those leaves, which seemed to be set ablaze in the sun, that she had been able to find the Hemmingway residence when she was younger. Even now, after months of avoiding this place, it seemed routine to find her way back here.

She stopped directly in front of the house, reminiscing. Karyss and herself had spent the majority of their youth either in the lush backyard or up in Karyss’ brightly decorated bedroom. Remembering their relationship now, those precious memories turned amazingly bittersweet. She shook off all the worrisome thoughts that consumed her and pushed herself forward. She crossed the empty road. It devoid of cars, which seemed rather unusual for this time of day. Ten more short strides and she was standing on the porch of an older, brick home with shudders painted the oddest shade of blue.

She allowed one last breathy sigh to fall from her chapped lips before she sucked it up and accomplished what she had came here to do. Her long, thin forefinger pressed the Gothic style doorbell. The chimes of the ringer slid past the smooth wooden door, sounding subdued to Leia’s chilled ears.

Her foot had a mind of it’s own, tapping away impatiently as she waited for the door to be opened before her. The few seconds that it took for the doorknob to twist seemed to span for an agonizing amount of time. Slow motion was not an accurate description of the way time played out as the dead bolt slid unlocked.

The air left her lungs as a face appeared in the partially opened threshold. Brown eyes were tucked away behind a curtain of brown hair and dark circles. Glasses were perched crookedly on the bridge of his crooked nose. An onslaught of golden brown freckles dusted across the apples of his bony cheeks. Leia’s mind noted these features, one at a time. It took longer than it should have for her to register the boy as Rodney Hekler.

His dark eyes seemed to recognize her instantly, darting around her to make certain no one had caught sight of the person on his doorstep. Rough, calloused hands gripped her wrists, pulling her in. For a few minutes, they stared. To an outsider, it may have looked like a couple of teenagers having an intense staring contest. In reality, though, they were both to shocked to look anywhere else.

Rodney’s voice came out gruff and hoarse, but his message was interpreted loud and clear. “Here, of all damned places?”

She was not welcome here.