6:29 AM.

The faint pattering of rain sounds from beyond the window, but the dismal gray morning light remains outside; the black curtain, drawn, lets so little in.

What light there is comes from the soft red glow of the clock; the flashing display of the stereo; the tiny glint of reflection on Amy’s eyes as she lies in bed. The eyes stare emptily at the black ceiling.

The alarm goes off, buzzing in patterns, first once, then twice, then three times. For a full minute it continues its din. Then a hand flails and hits it to silence.

The light flicks on, and is strange in that it’s capped by a red filter. The room is awash in dim crimson, shadows murky. Amy’s eyes still stare, and look black.

A bird calls through the rain, and Amy pulls back the covers. An overlarge t-shirt is draped across her shoulders, and the blood is dried and cracked on her arms. She sits up. Cuts are on the inside of her thigh as well — not as deep.

She examines the cuts. The dried blood is very black in the dim light; she scrapes it away, lets it fall to the floor. Beneath, the deeper cuts ooze, the lighter ones raised and swollen.

When she stands, she takes a towel from the floor — a big one that hangs to her knees — and drapes it over her shoulders. She wraps it tight, and the cuts are hidden. She unlatches her door, leaves the room in dim red light, steps out into the hallway.

 ~

7:15 AM.

The father is hiding behind a newspaper; black coffee steams beside him. The kitchen lights are bright, because the dawn is missing from the sky. Thick, dark clouds peer through the window instead, pouring their rain down upon the lawn.

The mother is not up.

There are footsteps on the stairs; Amy appears in the kitchen. Dressed in black, wet hair, glasses on. Her nose ring isn’t there. She walks across the kitchen, which isn’t large, for the coffee pot, still hot on the counter. Opens the cupboard, takes down a large mug.

“Don’t drink it all,” the father says. He doesn’t look up from the paper, doesn’t look at her. “Your mother’ll want some, and I want some more.”

Amy looks at the pot. There is enough for about two cups. “Can I make some more?” she asks.

“It’s a waste of coffee.”

“I’ll buy more.”

“You never buy more. You just drink what I buy.” All this while, he doesn’t look at her. He flips a page.

Amy doesn’t respond, except to take the coffee jar from a different cupboard. She tops up the coffee maker, with coffee and then with water. It hisses, gurgles, starts to drip more coffee into the carafe.

Amy pours herself a mug of coffee.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” the father says. “You’re too young.”

“I’m almost seventeen.”

“You’re too young,” he repeats. […]

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“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes, absolutely. We’ve been together for two years now; it’s about time.”

The apartment was small, she thought. Ridiculously small, in fact, and their boxes were filling it to the point where it was a squeeze just to get in the front door. Was this really the best they could do?

From the bedroom she heard him cursing, and sighed. Yes, she loved him, and yes, he was an angry pain in the ass. “What is it now?” she called.

“I can’t find it,” he called back. “I remember putting it in one of my bedroom boxes, and it isn’t here!”

“What are you even looking for?”

“My toothbrush!”

This was starting to give her a headache. “Your toothbrush? We can buy a new one.”

“No! It’s a waste of money.”

This wasn’t a conversation she was going to continue, and she turned back to her own boxes. They were going to have to get rid of a whole lot of stuff, and it was probably going to be mostly her stuff. She was a little worried when he realized how many boxes were filled with her clothes. And shoes.

They hadn’t really talked about possessions when the conversation came up to move in together; it had mostly revolved around money (mostly brought up by him), and the idea that if they were both paying rent on one apartment, they’d have a lot more money left over to enjoy life. It had certainly seemed tempting at the time.

In which case, she wasn’t quite sure why their apartment was so small. It was in a nicer part of town, yes, but not that nice. There were still beggars on the corner — just not prostitutes.

She took the last pile of plates out of the box and put them on top of another pile of plates which were balanced on a tea tray that hung half off the edge of the kitchen counter, then tossed the box onto the floor. Shelby screeched.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t see you there. Can’t you keep out of the way for now?”

Shelby mewed disapproval and scowled at her, and slunk back to the windowsill. It had taken a lot of convincing to get him to accept her cat. Her pussy, as he vulgarly called him sometimes. She hated him when he did that. He wasn’t allergic — he just didn’t much like cats. It didn’t really matter though, because Shelby didn’t much like him.

She reflected that they weren’t even supposed to have him here. The landlady had a bizarre rule forbidding male pets. Technically, Shelby wasn’t really a boy anymore, but she didn’t think the landlord would debate the difference. They just called him Shelly when she was around.

She stripped and flatted the box, and started on a new one. Damn, there really wasn’t much room.

Suddenly, there was a cry from the bedroom, and he burst out, holding some little box in his hands. […]

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If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was a setup. Considering where things ended up leading, it might as well have been. All of it, just to meet that one girl.

Marlon was crazy. He owned a huge apartment in the expensive part of the city, and no one really knew where he got the money; he worked at a divorce attorney office, the kind that don’t require a spouse’s signature. He had first met Marlon when he still worked at the big law firm, and he’d fallen in with him right away – the guy knew how to throw a party.

He never quite figured out why Marlon left; something to do with his boss, who Marlon had never really liked. In his mind, that didn’t really justify leaving a cushy job with an almost infinite upward path for a downtown crap shack that got people out of your life for $300. There was no way he was making any decent money there, even if they kept things off the books (which was pretty likely). It didn’t change a thing; he’d kept the apartment, the expensive TV and white leather couches, and he still threw mad parties.

Most of the people who’d shown up were young urbanites fresh out of college (some still in college), starting their career and living the good life in a big city. There was always something to do on a Saturday night, and apparently this was the thing to do this night. There must have been fifty people crammed into that apartment, and there was wine and champagne and expensive beer. The music was loud, the people were louder, and there was a lot of laughter, a lot of joking, and a whole lot of flirting.

He’d come because Marlon had invited him; he liked the atmosphere, when people started getting hammered, when their hair and their guards came down. A lot of the girls were single, and it was a good place to pick someone up (or get laid, if the mood was right). At any given time, there was something or other going on in the bedroom.

Tonight, though, he wasn’t really all that into it. He’d just come off the back of a week of fifteen-hour days, and frankly was planning to stay an hour, get wasted, and go back to his apartment to sleep for twenty-four hours straight.

He’d secured himself a comfy seat in a corner near the windows, having made sure it was only big enough for one. He had a glass of scotch in his hand – no ice – and had surreptitiously liberated the bottle from the little bar shelf in the open-plan kitchen. If he didn’t finish it, he told himself, he’d be taking it with him. It was Marlon’s, and it was expensive, and he didn’t give a shit. […]

Read the full chapter here.