Author’s Note: This unedited spew is the result of a 750words.com session – I’d like your opinions, good and bad, but understand if it’s just too much to read. I’ve got a first and second part to this now, and it is definitely shaping into a real story. (Read the 1st excerpt or 2nd excerpt - remember none of these are consecutive.)
Abigail was slowly coming back to the world.
Admittedly, she had been hiding.
Ever since her phone had been destroyed, by her, of course, she had been concentrating very hard on something. It didn’t matter what, but whatever she did, it was focused. Clean the apartment, don’t think about Bob or Ted or Mother, just clean. The pinprick at the end of her tunnel vision was supposed to be light, but instead it just became another project. Get the beer, talk the distributor into the best price, no flirting, just business, and oh, would you please deliver?
Even when spending time with Elise, Abigail was focused on being normal. Not freaking out, not exploding…well, except for that once.
And then the other thing with the smoking.
She was going to try to forget she’d ever actually done that.
But lying there on her bed with her new friend beside her, actually voicing concerns she had but sounded too ridiculous in her own head to actually voice, Abigail found something.
She wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.
What she did know was that sitting in her room with a stack of magazines that Ted subscribed to but obviously only used for toilet entertainment wasn’t cutting it any more. She’d had her share of naked women, tattoos, and cheap gossip magazines she was pretty sure someone had purchased for Ted as a gag.
Now, she was restless.
The apartment was unusually quiet for an afternoon when Ted’s friends stopped by. She almost didn’t leave her room, but she was bored. It sounded like they were playing video games, again, and for once Abigail was interested in watching.
“Hey, Abigail,” one particularly infatuated young woman called out when she opened the door to her room.
“Hi, Tess.”
It was a bad idea to encourage the puppies.
She walked to the kitchen, and Tess’s attention quickly wandered back to the video game Ted and some guy Abigail didn’t recognize was playing. Opening the refrigerator she took out one of the bottles of iced tea that had been left with the last beer delivery.
Abigail looked at the group surrounding the TV. Ted, Tess, Brian, and two strangers. A small, eclectic crowd.
And none of them had anything to drink.
“Anyone want something from the fridge?”
Ted nodded for all of them. “Sure, thanks,” he said without removing his eyes from the game.
Abigail couldn’t tell. She thought perhaps he was winning.
Piling five bottles of the least drank beer in the refrigerator, she passed them out one at a time to everyone on the sofas, then walked back to the kitchen island.
She could still see what was going on. She still felt like part of the group.
But not really.
It was guns and cars, and Abigail really didn’t understand the game or who was playing, but it seemed rude of her to ask. She drank her tea, and was about to give up and crawl back into her cave when Tess stood, stretched, and grabbed a couple empty bottles and came to join her.
“Some game, huh? It’s not even released yet, and Ted got a copy.”
“Bootleg?”
Tess shook her head, perfectly coiled curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Dave works for the ad agency, and he got Ted a job testing it so they can figure out how to sell it.”
Abigail nodded vaguely. “Um, which one is Dave?”
“Oh, he’s not here. Bones and Bruce brought it over.”
The two Abigail didn’t recognize. Good to know.
“So I’m surprised we don’t see you around more often.” Tess pulled two more beers out of the fridge and handed one over. “You really made quite an impression the other night.”
“Thanks,” Abigail responded. “I was just really frustrated. Didn’t mean to make such a scene.”
“Oh,” Tess said, nodding, “I totally know how you feel. We’re all here to let go, you know?”
Abigail couldn’t help letting a laugh slip.
“What?” Tess asked, curious.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized, busying herself with opening the bottle. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Tess’s smile was friendly and curious.
Just like a puppy you called to you so you could kick it.
Abigail hedged.
“Come on, spill it.”
“It’s…I’m sorry, there’s just…I mean, what do you have to let go of? You’re all kids with very rich parents who are bored. If anything, you need to start grabbing on.”
Tess cocked her head. “What makes you think our parents are all rich?”
Abigail gave the girl A Look.
“You’re hair. Your clothes. Your purse, which I am absolutely certain is not a knockoff, but the genuine article, and the fact that most of you are here so often there’s absolutely no way any of you are either holding down a job or still attending school.”
“Hmm,” Tess replied. “So you’re judging us?”
Well, that stung more than Abigail expected. But…
“I suppose so.”
“We’re not judging you,” Tess pointed out.
“Way to make me feel like shit.” Abigail’s response was muffled by the neck of the bottle she was drinking out of, but Tess smiled.
She’d heard.
“You should relax more. You obviously need to relax.”
“I don’t need to relax,” Abigail snapped, setting her bottle down hard enough to pull a couple sets of eyes off the video game for a brief moment. “I need to…I have to get…” Growling in frustration, Abigail stood up and started walking toward her room, and then before she reached the doorway turned right back around again. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I want. What I do know is that everything was perfect, and then what the hell did I do to deserve it being fucked up like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like this,” Abigail gestured at the apartment around them.
Tess looked around. “It looks pretty good to me.”
“But it’s not mine,” she said, sitting back down but no less frustrated. “It’s not even Ted’s. It’s his dad’s. Nothing is mine any more.”
“The beer is yours,” Tess pointed out.
Abigail sighed, deflating a bit. “I bought it for Ted so he’d let me stay here.”
“And the clean is yours,” Tess added. “And it’s a very nice clean, by the way.”
“Again, only because I needed a place to stay.”
“But it’s yours. Aren’t you proud of it? I’ve known Ted for a year or so. I’ve never seen this place so clean. I mean, even when he gets a cleaning crew in here after a really good party, it looks like crap within an hour. You know what you did?”
Abigail drained her beer and left the island to rinse her bottle. She didn’t turn to face Tess. “What,” she asked the tiled wall in front of her. “What did I do?”
“You made Ted care.”
“Yeah, right.”
But Tess didn’t answer, because Abigail had been too quiet, and the young woman was busy raiding the refrigerator.
That was the end of their conversation, as Tess walked back to the group and handed out additional beverages.
There was only one thing Abigail wanted right now.
To be alone.
