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🥘 twenty-three. new noise .⊹ °ʚ☆ɞ°.⭒₊
FOUR MONTHS AGO.
Mornings within Chicago would either be chaotic or completely calm, no in between. Every other morning, there would be some sort of noise from outside and the neighbors would be up, making all sorts of noise from the inside of their apartments. In some rare, peaceful mornings, the city wouldn't stir for awhile until in the late hours of the morning and it would be nice for a few hours. That why Odessa loved the mornings and the city so much because it was so unpredictable. One day, it can be completely calm and quiet, the next day, cars would be honking at each other in slow morning traffic. It was so unpredictable and weird that it was strangely calming too.
It wasn't Odessa's idea to even be born in the city, but she wouldn't want to move away at any possible time. She loved the smoggy nature of Chicago, she loved the loud banging of pots in the kitchen of The Beef, she loved the griminess. She loved all of it, but as the brunette laid in bed that peaceful morning, she wondered if she would ever leave this cycle of staying in the same city.
Odessa did leave the city plenty of times to pursue her career in culinary arts, but she was always drawn back to Chicago since it was her homeland. She was starting to regret leaving the city because her father needed her and so did her mother, but she wasn't there.
She tried to comfort herself through it all, telling herself that she tried her best to be there, but it constantly failed and she just wanted to be buried in the dirt like her parents were. Maybe she would find peace then, but she had to pinch her skin and bite her lips because she felt so stuck in a cycle that she was sure she would die.
Odessa was quiet as she sat on her windowsill, ignoring the stray cat happily licking up the milk in the steel bowl, and she stared out into the city that was barely getting up. Below, she could hear the other tenants waking up for work and their alarms going off like crazy, dogs barking nearby, then the groan of rusty pipes going off when showers were turned on. In her apartment, it was dead silent except for the hand of Fatima twinkling underneath the rising sunlight.
What if Odessa was there when her mother suffered through her breast cancer? What if Odessa was there when her father died in his sleep? Maybe she wouldn't blame herself as much as she did now, but she was on the brink of tears because of the regret that was gnawing at her.
The scruffy, stray cat meowed loudly and it clawed at the empty bowl of milk.
"Sorry. Budget cuts." said Odessa, wiping at her eyes and she smiled lightly when the cat purred as she pet him. "I'll get you some food next time, okay?"
