𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 » 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠

PROLOGUE | | TIME

PERHAPS YOU'RE SMILING NOW,
SMILING THROUGH THIS DARKNESS.
BUT ALL I HAD TO GIVE WAS THE
GUILT FOR DREAMING.

TIME — DAVID BOWIE

☾ ✩ ☽

Chicago was home.

The city was dirty and loud and dangerous at night, but it was where Mel had carefully constructed her nest and felt as if she truly belonged. Where her favorite diner sat nestled between an adult comic shop and an Amish Furniture store that always looked closed, where the coffee was always hot and there was always a slice of apple pie sitting in the display case by the register, waiting to be eaten. Where her favorite record store always left the door propped open with a cement block, no matter the weather, so whatever record was spinning could drift out onto the city sidewalk, reaching into ears and pulling patrons inside like how the scent of freshly baked bread does with alley cats.

Where her father's offices were, and where her mother would spend her Saturday afternoons shopping and meeting women for brunch and mimosas. Where Mel's life began, and where she always expected it to end.

But, just as with any benevolent entity, it gave and gave and gave, rarely asking for anything in return. And when your hand reaches out towards it, open and excited and ready to receive, sometimes you're the unlucky person who isn't chosen to receive, but to give back. Miles, Mel's big brother, was that unlucky person on one humid summer night, who was plucked up by this benevolent city and handed over with no preamble or warning, an unwilling sacrifice that devastated the lives that he was ripped from.

And now, a year and two months later, Mel sat on the stripped mattress in her bedroom, staring up at bare walls and trying not to cry. Her eyes followed along the constellation of small holes left behind when she'd taken down her music and movie posters, sports memorabilia, and other various things she'd collected over the years that made their way up to her drywall.

If she stared long enough, she probably could've made a picture out of it, like one of those connect-the-dots, a dog or maybe a flower. A tear leaked from her red-rimmed eyes, and Mel wiped at it furiously.

"Let's go, Melanie!" Diane, Mel's raven-haired mother, hollered from the bottom of the staircase, her voice traveling up through the hallway and landing at Mel's feet, broken and decrepit and sad.

Mel knew that her mother was just as heartbroken to leave their city as she was, she knew that it was where Diane had built her life with Mel's father George and where she raised her kids and spent nearly half of her forty-one years. But it was hard to stave off the resentment that scratched and clawed at Mel's gut like a burrowing animal.

"One se—second!" The sob in her voice was hard to miss, and Mel figured that her mom took pity on her, because she remained silent at the foot of the stairs for another moment, before the sound of the front door hinges creaked, and the house was still once more.

It was a nice house, tall and made from sturdy, white-washed brick, with navy shutters and a bright red front door. A long driveway that was normally the nightly resting place of the family cars—her dad's flagship Rolls-Royce, which Mel can still remember the shade of red it brought to her mother's face when she heard he'd traded in his perfectly practical sedan for this overzealous, over-priced land yacht (her mom's words, not Mel's); her mother's wood paneled station wagon, a big, hulking machine that Mel had spent many hours cramped inside of; and her brother's prized Chevy Citation. Miles treasured that car, washed it every week in the summer months, and promised to hand the keys over to Mel when he went off to college and needed something a little more spacious.