New in Town

Amethyst
I stared at myself in the mirror. The blonde hair was still new to me, and I had to get used to it sooner or later. My shoulder was a little red from the newest tattoo which was tender to the touch. I didn’t have the blonde hair and as many tattoos three months ago. I only had a couple of tattoos, and my hair was a dark brown.

I looked like a stereotypical innocent girl that had never been touched, but that was the problem. I had been attacked in a dark alley by my ex-boyfriend, Boyd Rowland. The images of him ripping my clothes off of me flashed through my head and brought the fear back. I had been afraid of men and any person I didn’t know before.

The only person who believed me was Lyall Mackay. Everyone else said that I was just making it up. If they did believe me, they thought I was lying about who raped me. Boyd was a highly respected man in Chicago. He set up charities for orphans, homeless people, and people with cancer. No one would believe that he was rape a girl; he just didn’t appear to have it in him to cause harm to anyone.

After that incident, I felt like I was lost in my own body. There were nights where I didn’t sleep from the fear of the nightmares, and there were times where I wouldn’t leave the apartment that I shared with Lyall. I wanted to know why he did it, but then that was like asking why do people kill. I wasn’t ever going to find the answer.

When I did go out, I always had Lyall or someone else with me. There were times that Boyd came around when I wasn’t with Lyall. I would just hide in the apartment for the rest of the day, and then I would think of a new tattoo or something else I could do to my body to make it mine again.

I turned away from the mirror to see the boxes that were piled in the corner of my room. I was still wrapping my head around the fact that I had agreed to move away with Lyall. She had told me about her uncle that she was really close to until he moved away. She had also explained that she had already called him about moving out there. I knew that she was doing this for me, and that I was thankful for it. It was just that I had grown up in Chicago, and that I didn’t know any other place. I was used to the busy streets and tons of people in the big city.

Lyall was a close friend of mine. We had met in school when she moved from Scotland to the states. Most people didn’t understand her accent, and I had a hard time understanding her at first. The more time I spent around her, the less I heard her accent. There were times where it would flare up, and I would have to take a second or two to comprehend her words. It was just something that I have grown accustomed to over the years of friendship.

The town was Charming, California which I never heard of. I didn’t even know what was in the town. The map showed it to be a small town that didn’t seem to have a lot to it. I could only wonder what the town was like.

Lyall walked into my room and smiled. “I see you have your things packed and ready. I’m think that we should leave in the morning, okay?”

“Yeah, the morning will be good,” I replied, nodding in agreement.

We both grabbed two boxes and walked down the stairs to her SUV. She had a bigger car, and it just made sense to put the bigger things in there. I just had a small Fiat, that didn’t have much to it. We put a couple of bags and smaller boxes in the trunk and backseat.

We went back inside to our apartment. It seemed empty now that it just was the furniture that we were leaving behind. The pictures and decorations were in Lyall’s car which left the walls bare. I don’t even remember if this was how it was when I moved in the first time. It had been so long ago that I just didn’t think about it.

“It’s so strange, seeing this apartment like this,” Lyall admitted. She walked to the couch and sat down. Her brown hair fell in her face, and it covered her eyes.

Before I could reply, my phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. I froze when I saw that it was from Boyd. He had still been texting me, and every time I changed my phone number. It still frightened me when he found out my number. The only people that would give my number way would be the people that didn’t believe me when I told them what happened. They just thought that we had broken up.

Lyall picked up the phone, already knowing who it was. She turned the phone off and threw it in the trash. “He isn’t going to bother you anymore,” she assured me.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked. “He always finds out what my number is.”

“Because no one knows where we are moving. We have told everyone that we are going to New York City which isn’t near California. They aren’t that smart,” Lyall said, grabbing my shoulder. “It’s probably just Crystal who keeps giving him your number. You know how she is.”

I nodded, knowing that Crystal was one of the people who continuously told me that Boyd would never cause me harm. She even seemed to make it her life’s mission to tell me how much Boyd really loved me, and Lyall would tell her off every time. I seemed to be stuck in the middle of the disaster where there was only one person I could trust, and I wanted to believe her when she said that he wouldn’t come anymore.