Salt--January

This is the opening scene of the longest story I have attempted so far.  I will be posting scenes as I write them, so the writing will be a little rough. 

January

Deidra sat in the kitchenette, leaning back in the creaky wooden chair .  The way she saw it, she had only two real choices.  To make it easy, she had laid them out, right next to each other, facing her on the small, bare wooden table.  On the left was option number one.  She could finish the glass of wine in her hand, open the flat white box, remove the three flat white pills, and take them—one tonight, and two tomorrow.  On the right, option two—she could drink the rest of the bottle of wine.  Then, she could tip the small, orange plastic bottle of Valium into her mouth and swallow a dozen or so of the blue tablets.  Deidra took another long, slow sip.  She let her hand fall, dangling the glass absently on the ends of her fingers. 

She hadn’t noticed until now how bare the apartment looked.  As she was packing up Aunt Elaine’s things, she had felt like she was being buried in an avalanche of stuff, little knick-knacks, books, mysterious kitchen utensils.  She’d been so relieved when she had finished, like she’d finally surfaced after living underground for months. Now, she realized for the first item how cold and uncomfortable other people must feel living like she had always preferred, in a home with bare walls that looked like it could belong to anyone.  She raised her eyes to the wine bottle, then winced as her eye caught a sudden, bright reflection of the overhead light in the green glass.  The yellow, incandescent light was bearing down on her oppressively with little else in the room to absorb and soften its glare.  Deidra stared down at the table, fingering the smooth, worn wood, and took another sip of wine.

The question was really this—did she think she could beat him at his own game?  Did she have a chance, however small, of getting the better of him, of walking away unscathed?  If not, better to finish things now, quickly and on her own terms, before he got a chance to get creative.  But if there was the slightest chance...

Deidra closed her eyes, and raised the glass of wine to her lips.  In one long gulp, she drained the glass and gently lowered it to the table.  Folding her arms, she stared straight ahead, past the bottle and the pills, trying to see into her future.