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A runaway, dressed for the occasion |
CHAPTER ONE: RUN... Fidelity ran upstairs to get Tom’s gun. She knew where he kept it because he hadn’t been able to keep a secret since he started his drinking rampage six years ago; the day Fidelity's mom died. Everything good about Tom belonged to the past. All that was left of him was his hate and guilt. He was an empty shell; a drunken slave to the bottle, a typical tragic offspring of selfishness and wealth. The only person left for him to love was Fidelity, an adopted daughter that he never really wanted in the first place. If he had ever cared for her on any level, he never showed it. Love, in this house, was just a joke that wasn't funny. The only form of love Fidelity ever really felt came from watching poorly acted soap operas on the Spanish Channel, or reading books that had too many romantic clichés and horrible endings. Even then, it was still a joke. Fidelity’s hands shook and her breathing pumped faster and faster, like an old locomotive train starting up on its tracks. Some drunken gibberish version of Tom's voice came screaming up from down stairs as she tore open his night stand. She had the upper hand here, because in his condition, you couldn’t climb half a staircase without falling and breaking your skull in half. The gun was in a little wooden safe box. She didn’t bother trying to pick the lock, throwing it across the room at a wall worked just as well. She would never admit it, but Fidelity so desperately wanted that love. The sappy, everything is going to be okay kind of love. But, like most seventeen year old girls with deep rooted depravities, you'd never know anything was missing unless you peeled off the makeup and counted the bruises, so to speak. If you were to see her at high school, you would have assumed she was just fine. She smiled, she laughed, and she went to parities like anyone else. She even drove a cute red Bug to school. Why wouldn't she be happy? It was inevitable that flesh would break when Tom got angry; which was when he was wasted, which was everyday. Her bottom lip was currently split, right in the center. It dripped a thick line, fresh hot and red, sprinkling the wool carpet. Having sported over a dozen busted lips, Fidelity was used to the potent metal taste of blood. It was as familiar to her as breast milk was to newborns. Her skin still stung around her face and her ears rang, but the angry thoughts inside her head rung even louder. You're not my real father! You cheated on Mom. Why did she ever take you back? Run... You are the reason she’s gone! Run... I hate you! Run... Now... Bending down over the broken pieces of wood, she picked up a Beretta M92F/S hand gun and checked to make sure it was loaded. She knew how to open it up because often times, Tom would pop it open proving that he could use it at anytime on her as a drunken scare tactic. There were nine of them in the cartridge, all lined up, ready to do their jobs like good little soldiers. This made Fidelity a little sad though. It meant she could only shoot him nine times and she had no idea where he kept rest off the ammo. Tom's screams were getting closer. She locked it back together, grasped the handle and stood up. As she headed out, her reflection on a golden framed wall mirror caught her attention. This young girl was looking more and more like someone she didn’t know. Sure, she was still pretty, but somehow she seemed darker, more pale and cold than she was used to. She leaned forward and examined her face. It was once a smooth, gorgeous, work of art that boys at school would gawk at with wanting eyes. Now it was bloody mess with bleached blonde hair smattered on top and fake eyelashes somewhere in the mix. She spit as hard as she could at the mirror and watched the bloody saliva drip down her refection. Then, just to make sure she still could, she smiled, and a tear fell. It was now or never. She flew downstairs. Tom was holding himself up on his Kuhn- Bösendorfer Piano with one hand, and a glass of scotch in the other. She could smell him from where she was, ten feet away. “Want to sing, while I play?” said Tom, with his eyes squinted, and his button down Armani dress shirt torn open on one side. With both hands, she pointed the pistol. He laughed hysterically. The long hissy kind, like an old rusty engine releasing gas. “You gona SHOOT ME?” She wanted to say yes, but she knew how this game worked. Anything she said he could turn around and use on her. Make her feel like she’s the one in the wrong. So she held her tongue and took aim. Then he yelled something that sounded like a string of disbelieving profanity blended into one giant dare. This was her chance. This was for Mom. She pulled the trigger and the glass in his hand burst into a hundred pieces. Only the side of his cardigan was torn though, no harm done. He laughed again and began to slump towards her. He lost his balance for a second, then slamming his hand down on the keys of the piano, he regained it. The loud shrill of the high keys made Fidelity jump and a tear came sliding down like a knife over her cheek. She looked down at his pocket, her car keys were sticking out of them, as a matter of fact, it appeared he had all the cars hostage. Shaking violently, she closed her lids and pulled the trigger again. The bullet flew over his shoulder, skimming his ear, and hit one of three crystal chandeliers hanging above the piano which sent it spinning, crashing into the other two, then finally snapping off and splashed onto the instrument. “My EAR!” The look on his face was a paralyzing gesture of ‘how could you’. He covered his new wound with both hands and roared at her. This was almost an unnatural sort of roar. A deep one, from a place only pure agony could reside. Now she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. It only took Tom a few more seconds to get close enough to grab her neck. With just the length of one hand he could almost wrap himself all the way around it. Her eyes were bigger than pomegranates and her gun was barrel deep into his rib cage. With his other hand he grabbed her wrists and told her to fire. He told her to do it, trust me, you will feel so much better when I’m gone, when I’m with your mother again. It was then she lost the appetite. The thought of this man with her Mom in a far off place wherever the dead people go sounded worse then life in prison for murder. She dropped the weapon, and another tear burnt its way down. If there was ever a moment that felt timeless and frozen, it was this one. She didn’t know what would come next. Another scar? A broken arm? Jaw? Then Tom fell to his knees. They cracked on the hard wood floor and his dinner and alcohol came whirling up out off his stomach onto Fidelity’s Christian Dior boots. She screamed then tumbled backwards and tripped over a hallway table top and fell on her tail bone. She watched him as he slowly blinked open his eyes, found the pistol, wiped the digested Filet Mignon off and pointed it. She knew that he was too far gone to try and reason with. It would be like trying to compromise with a zombie. Amongst all the irrational thoughts that came flooding into her mind right then, only one logical one stood out above all the rest. Run... It took her forty two seconds to jet from Tom’s marble walled hallway to the front door. She Knocked over the victorian styled wall chairs and tipped over a century old grandfather clock on her way out. More obstacles for Tom equalled more time. She heard him blurt out something that sounded like ‘come back’ mixed with an angry humpback whale before she slammed it behind her. Hitting the cold, wet, midnight air felt like getting shrink wrapped in ice and thrown into coffin full of little needless. Who said California was perfect all year round? Down the long stretch of pavement she went, like a professional sprinter. Despite how superficial it sounded, throwing up on her her boots was the last straw, the final deal breaker. She could take a few broken bones and couple bloody noses, like a good girl should, but if you puke on any love deprived girl’s brown leather Dior’s, you can turn her into an instant track star. Chances are, you’d never see them again either. It was all downhill from Tom’s house either way you went. She ran and ran and ran and ran. She cut through neighbor’s yards, avoiding the streets as much as she could in fear of seeing those beaming Ferrari Maranello headlights of his. She knew he would come after her. Maybe not tonight, but he would. She knew that no matter how much he hated her, he needed her. He wasn't alone when she was there. Not to mention it was like a knife to his jupiter sized ego if he let her get away with something like this. That’s just the way he worked. But she knew that the biggest reason he would come after her was for a different reason. Her song-voice. He had told her that It was the only thing that could make him cry, and he couldn’t live without crying. He would play the piano and she would sing. She knew this was one of the few ways he could escape imploding from the guilt. That, was the only reason she had stuck around all this time, to sing for him. She tried her hardest to keep any lyrics out of her head. Especially anything that had to do with hope, pleasure, or love. It’s funny, how in your darkest moments, the songs designed to uplift and inspire you only set you off worse. At least that was the case for Fidelity. She ran for the better part of the night, only stopping a few times to prevent her lungs from exploding and to cry her guts out. She was wearing a silky victoria secret white blouse and Acne Kex Fade skinny jeans. Not the best attire for running away, especially in this weather. ‘A hot mess’ probably wasn’t the best term to use, but it fit. An expensively dressed icicle in heals probably described her better. Death started to cross into Fidelity’s mind. She had always wondered how she would go. Freezing wasn’t one of the top five ways on her list, that was for sure. Rescuing someone from a speeding train, or at some sort of protest sounded a lot more interesting. Doing something, standing for something; dyeing because it’s cold just sounded boring, and a tad bit lazy. Like, you locked yourself out and now, whoops you’re dead. If she were to croak young, she would want it to mean something. She would want it to impact the heartless and those who were blind to her pain. She had not mattered to anyone for a long time and if it was going to take death to get someone to care, well, she wasn’t quite there yet. Not while Tom was still alive anyway, and definitely not wearing this outfit. She had to get somewhere warm and safe, and she had to get there quickly. She didn’t have any friends in this place, not any real ones she could count on anyway. Even if she could think of someone it wouldn’t do any good because she didn’t have her phone, or any credit cards for that matter. You wouldn’t want to go breaking in any houses, it wouldn’t work, the’ve got alarms up the whazoo. You couldn’t go ring doorbells, begging for a room, because nobody in this neighborhood would help a runaway. If anything they would turn you back in and expect a hefty tip. There were here weren’t any hotels near by either. The only thing that she knew of was a shady gas station that was open twenty-four seven. She'd have to trek it for a few more miles. Could she make it? Maybe, hopefully, probably not. Determination was the key. She had to weigh the scale. How much did she want to live? How much did she want to die? She was just glad that these Christian Diors had the two inch heals instead of her normal three. As she thumped along, she made a promise to herself that if she got out of this one alive, she would go to the shooter’s range and get some hard core gun handling lessons. When she saw the gas station sign finally popping around the corner it felt like seeing the pearly gates of heaven. For a moment she wondered if it was, then she reminded herself of her chances of going to heaven were almost as slim as getting an apology from Tom. Then, she tripped. This was the second time this night, how embarrassing. She lost her balance and came tumbling down in the parking lot, face down into a puddle of something that wasn’t water. Unbelievable timing and placement on fates part. Somewhere deep down inside she felt like laughing, but the pain and exhaustion were doing their best to keep her sane. Her legs had completely given out and her head had given its all. Every little bit of her had given its everything. She couldn’t cry anymore, she couldn’t scream for help, and she had become numb all over, through and through, to the core. When you hit the peaks of your emotional and physical staminas, your mind goes blank, and you see stars. Fidelity had become so much the definition of emptiness in all its aspects, it would seem to the uncaring passerby, that she couldn’t be anything less than dead. But as sad and as laughable as this scene looked, she was still breathing. Rich. Beautiful. Talented. Heartbroken. Just feet away from the finish line, helpless, hopeless, and horribly dressed for the occasion, her vision goes black and a thought hits her like a ton of bricks out of no where. She’s been alive for seventeen long years and not once has she ever had the chance to be kissed. CHAPTER TWO: SAWYER |
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