In a field of wild flowers.

Little Chicago

"I don't wanna go out tonight Chloe, I really don't."

Chloe just stood there staring at me, with narrowed eyes, a small pout forming on her thin lips.

"I'm finally kid free and you're telling me, NO?! Listen bitch, we are going out. Get ready! I don't want to hear another peep. You're always blowing me off. Not tonight. You've been stuck in this house too long! Now get ready!" Before I knew it she had already taken off and headed back into her room to get ready.

Aside from her being my brothers ex, Chloe was my best friend. I couldn't ask for a better person in my life either. Things were always fun when we were around each other. As much as I really didn't want to, I closed my book I had been reading, let out a loud sigh and slung my feet of the bed and managed to get up and go get dressed.

It felt odd getting dressed up and even putting makeup on, it had been too long really that I had done it. I looked at myself in the mirror though and tucked a stray strand of red hair behind my ear, smiling softly at how much better I had felt already.

I heard feet padding through the hallway and I stepped back from the closed bathroom door because as I suspected, she just barged right in.

She smiled as she looked me up and down. "You look amazing, you definitely need to do it more often."

"Thanks Chloe."

She squeezed her way passed me basically pushing me out of the bathroom in the process as she rummaged through the makeup bag we shared.

"I'm going to do my makeup real quick and then we are getting out of this god forsaken house."

I just rolled my eyes and laughed and went to my bedroom to grab my keys.

"What are we going to even do?" I said once we made our way to the car. She just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know but we will figure it out."

I nodded, put the car in drive and took off.

The town I grew up in wasn't really all that special. It was a small town. It was the same things day in and day out with the same boring people. There's never any excitement and never really anything to do. We have more churches and bars than we did anything else, really.

This place used to be refered to as 'Little Chicago' and looking back now I realized why. There used to be so many people coming in and out of it on the weekends.  We also had a cruise line I remember driving through with my mom that went straight through downtown. All the neon signs taking over and illuminating the streets and all the car shows they would have and the laugher echoing between the small buildings. I remember getting excited about all the cool cars I had seen and how everyone loved my mom's blacked out low rider S10. All the races she would get into and the looks on the people's faces when she won and they realized once she rolled down the tinted window that there was a female behind the wheel. It was fun...

But things were different now. There wasn't a cruise line anymore and the town was just bland. It was almost like the color and life had been drained out of it and it was now running rampant with druggies and teenagers that just didn't care about the history of the town.

This place had completely changed. It was like a black hole. It pulled you in and did away with you. No matter how hard you tried to fight your way out of it, it soon consumed you to the very core. It was damaging. There was too little people and too much gossip. Everyone knew your business and even knew things about you, you never knew about yourself.

I escaped once.

The very day I turned 18, I left state and never wanted to look back. I had the time of my life for a few years but soon enough, I needed to see my family and came back here. I've been stuck here ever since. In this dreadful town where nothing changed. It was the same place and the same stores. Same bullshit.

After making a pit stop at the gas station for drinks, Chloe finally suggested we go to the new bar they had down on third street. It wasn't really all that new, it had been there a few months and I had stopped a time or two but she hadn't ever been there. 

"I heard it was the place to go to now. At least a decent place where's there's not all old people, there's more people our age." Chloe said before she took a big drink of her mountain dew. If I didn't know any better the girl had a serious addictive relationship with that stuff.

"I don't know. Last time I was there it was dead and boring."

Pulling up to the place now though, I quickly realized she wasn't wrong. The main parking lot outside of it was packed so we had to park in the parking lot across the street. I grumbled and let out a loud sigh as I put the car in park.

Chloe had been checking her makeup in the mirror and turned to glare at me in response. "What's wrong now?"

I looked away from her to look over toward the bar. "I think it's a bit too packed. I really don't know if I want to go in."

Before I could protest anymore she had already hoped out of the car and was headed toward the bar. I quickly slipped out, locked the car and followed after her.