Closer

The winter has always been her favorite season. The feeling of the cold wind on her skin, the chills she got every time she stepped outside, those were wonders of the nature for the young girl. Every day when she woke up she would look through the window of her apartment and see as the wind passed all over the leafs of the trees on the outside and these would dance around in the air until they hit the cold ground.
Truckee was a small town in Nevada County, California, but not only that. It was her hometown. The place she grew up in. And it has always been a cold place to live in on winter. January was the coldest month of the year, but it was also her most wanted time. That was the funny thing about Truckee. The winters were almost unbearable and the summers were so hot that the people thought they would melt if they stayed outside for too long. Anyway, she was content there. In despite of everything she managed to end up fine. The neighbors walk on the street, hurrying to get to work, others walk their dogs holding their jackets close to their body so the cold won’t get to them. And as they quickly march on the sidewalk she smiles to them. Some make a huge effort to smile back , a disgusting smile that hurts to see. Most people don’t even give back a simple Hello or a plain How are you? Those where the people who have seen her grow up from a little rebel girl to a young rebel woman and still… They didn’t care. And they didn’t care because gossips are so much more important and reliable. But she was never mad at them for that. After all that was the neighbors part on the society. They judged.
Their life was colorful and happy. They would walk with the little girl on the sidewalk hand-in-hand with her. She would jump and dance and smile like it was Christmas. That little girl started to grow up and she wasn’t the same anymore. She was having doubtful behaviors’ on the neighbor’s mouths and they started looking at her in a different way. The little child who once played with barbies and made snowmen’s on winter with the help of her beloved parents, was now having fun with boys at school , playing football with them. She dropped the cute dresses with flower patterns to wear pants and dark clothes, and that was just not right. She would always have her headphones on and after some time they started seeing her with a wooden thing with her all the time. It is said that the old Mrs. Johnson who lives just two houses from hers asked her grandson one day what the peculiar object was. He called it a skate. “What in the lords name! What is she going to do now? Start robbing?! Poor parents… Can’t do anything about their child…” Contrary to her grandson – who thought that was pretty sweet to live next to a skater girl - Mrs. Johnson as well as the rest of the neighbors didn’t approve the young child behavior.
She never had problems with what others thought. After some time she got used to it. But the young girl didn’t imagine what was to come.
One summer night she woke up startled. Maybe because it was too hot, maybe because she was meant to wake up. For the rest of the night she didn’t sleep. The next morning every single person on the neighborhood was at the door of her house peeking in, others just stood in the street as in stretchers got out of the building with two corpses. As soon the dead bodies caught their eyes, gossips started rolling of their tongues, and in nothing more than fifteen minutes the entire town was aware of the incident. The girl’s parents were no more. And that was the day that the whole town started seeing the rebel girl as the killer, homicidal, psychotic girl. “I always said she would end up like this! I never trusted her.” That was the saying on everyone’s mouth that day. “She killed them! She killed her parents!” Nobody even stopped to think that maybe things were different. Nobody cared about her version of the story. Nobody thought that happy, colorful life, maybe it wasn’t so colorful after all.
Police wanted to put the girl in a shelter home, or a shelter family, and that was what would have happened if the rebel didn’t escape the wrath of that town. As soon as she saw the police officers were talking to each other, probably making fake assumptions about her, she took her only chance. The young girl at the age of fifteen, grabbed her skate and a bag of clothes, and ran for her dear life. As she ran neighbors yelled, as she gasped for air the police followed her. But like in everything she did, she was smarter and also faster than the cops.
It took a while to get out of town with only a skate, but she managed to do it. Her life depended on it. And she only stopped when she was safe. Her legs were weak and she was sweaty when shelter was found. And in that night she slept on the ground in an unknown street of an unknown place. Maybe that’s why she prefers winter now. Because it all happened in a summer night.
Now she’s twenty-five years old and she decided it was time to go back to her town. Because in the end she was meant to be there. That’s where her heart belongs to.
As she did every day, when she got up the first thing to do was look through the window. “Another windy day.” She said to herself as she saw people passing by with scarves around their necks and holding onto jackets for their dear life. This was a thing that the young woman did a lot. Talk to herself. When you live alone it’s not easy, so since early she started talking to herself. She laughs at her own jokes too sometimes. That’s the thing about humor. You have to experience a lot of tragedy before you can have a sense of humor like the young girl has. She wasn’t all alone though, she had Ville. And Ville was just like her. He lived on the streets and was raised by himself.
She got out of the bed, picked her clothes for the day and went to the kitchen. Black tank top showing off her tattoos on her arms, beanie on her head and tight jeans covering her long legs. She would put on some converse shoes later, but right now she didn’t feel like it. The young woman had no job. Yet. She was looking forward for one, or better, she was looking forward for the will to look for one. The money she got was pretty good, but it wasn’t going to last forever. After she put on her converse she grabbed her iPod and her skate and walked towards the little ball of fur in her bed. “I’ll be back later Ville.” She said as she petted the little black cat, then she grabbed her pack of cigarettes. She closed the scratched wooden door behind her and felt the chilly weather on her skin again. She head off to the towns new skate park. She liked it a lot. Since she go to Truckee again and she found out a skate park had been built on the little town, she couldn’t help but laugh. She even replayed on her head several sayings from Mrs. Johnson about how rebel and not right that was.
The green eyed woman started skating as soon as she stepped on the concrete. When she arrived to the skate park she soon recognized a girl and a boy who were already skating. They were her only… what you can call friends? No! Not friends, maybe just… colleagues. At first when she started skating there she didn’t have plans to talk to them. To talk to anyone at all. But when Violet and Dave started talking to her nicely she didn’t figure out why not to talk back. She didn’t say a lot though. She said the necessary and she was happy they were ok with that. Contrary to the rest of the town, they seemed to be unaware of what had happened with her and they didn’t ask questions. And she was thankful for that.
“You’re going now? C’mon!”
“C’mon what? I’m sweating like a pig! And I’m as hungry as one!” They chuckled at the girl’s statement. “See ya tomorrow.”
She went to the little coffee she used to go every day after her skate session. The windows of the place were all wet with heat and there weren’t a lot of people inside. She looked around and laughed to herself , as everybody inside was wearing scarves and coats and there she was with only a tank top. She sat on a chair waiting for her breakfast, playing with the buttons from her iPod. She pressed one, making the screen light up. “Avenged Sevenfold – Brompton Cocktail” it was one of her favorites and it was now playing. She loved the band even though she never saw their faces and what they looked like. She didn’t mind though. For her that wasn’t important. What minded was the amazing music that was blaring at her ears every single minute of her life and they were the ones providing it to her and bringing a little bit of happiness to her life. Her breakfast soon arrived to her table and she was dying to devour it.
As she took the bread in her hands and opened her mouth to take a bite of it, the door of the coffee place opened causing the decorations hanging from the ceiling ring in a screechy melody making her to jump in her seat. A man walked inside, his black leather jacket dripping a little because it was starting to rain outside. As soon as the man entered the place, he proceeded to take his aviators of his face placing them in the V-Neck of his white shirt. For some reason the young girl wasn’t that hungry right now, and her bread landed on the plate when she saw the guy. She couldn’t stop staring at his spiky hair, and when he took his sun glasses off she fell in love with his beautiful brown eyes. She also admired his thin lips forming a smirk when he realized she was staring, making her cough in embarrassment looking down to her plate. He walked towards the counter so he made his demand. “I want a white chocolate mocha please.” Hearing those seven simple words coming out in a sweet velvet voice as his made the young girl shiver and even though he was behind her she could swear he turned around to look at her. The young woman had no idea why she was feeling like this, but it was a good feeling. The shivers came back to her when the man slowly walked form the counter to the table right in front of hers, sitting down at the opposite chair making him look at what was in front of him, being that, her.
She proceeded eating her breakfast, trying to move her gaze away from the man, but it was almost impossible since he was looking straight to her eyes. But she didn’t felt awkward at all , so she decided to look at him too. He stared back for some seconds and smirked looking back at his chocolate mocha. She smiled as well. When the man was done with his beverage he stood up giving her a last look and started walking towards the exit. As the young woman had her breakfast already, she quickly grabbed her skate and followed the guy outside. He was walking in a steady pace a few steps in front of her when she passed next to him skating, being now at the same level as the brown eyed man. He simply looked at her smiling.
“What did you say it was your name?”
“I didn’t.”
The young woman skated faster until she was out of sight from the man. She only hopes to see him again.