Years after her parents' death, Evangeline Parker thought she was finally beginning to put her life back together. When a handsome stranger attempts to pick her up at the bar, she thought she had chased him away for good. Instead he waited to take h...
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I was at the bar. It was a small place, with many round tables, and booths, but no dance floor. The floors were made of polished wood so worn down from people walking across its surface that the sheen was gone. The booths and stools were upholstered with red plastic-like fabric that was old and torn in places. The wood tables were covered with clear glass to protect the surfaces from being damaged from condensation that dripped off the glasses.
A juke box sat in the far corner, away from the door. No songs were being played, not this late at night. There were few patrons inside, most of them too drunk to see strait let alone be able to drive themselves home to continue on with their miserable lives.
I was alone as usual, drinking my sorrows away. My twenty-second birthday was two days ago, but did anybody notice? Of course they didn't. I didn't even exist. It was okay, that was the way I liked it. I liked to not be noticed, I liked to be invisible. I liked to blend in the background. That way nobody would bother me.
After my parents died in a car accident six years ago, I snapped. Stupid drunk driver deserved what I did to him. I hope he was rotting in hell. It was the most that lowlife could be warranted, even that was a privilege. Of course I would probably see him there in a few years anyway. I couldn't wait, I would kill him again.
I would have seen him sooner right after I killed him, but just my luck I didn't take enough pills. The cops got to me just in time and brought me to the hospital where they pumped my stomach and shoved coal down my throat so my body wouldn't absorb the taint. The court decided that I was insane. Insanity caused by grief. I didn't even need a good lawyer for that one, apparently it was obvious.
I never got into any trouble before that. I was a straight A student, never even snuck out of the house. According to my lawyer, who was pretty much useless, the judge let me off easy because I had already been traumatized by my parent's death.
They ended up sending me to an asylum until I was twenty- one. It wasn't too bad a place – if you were too crazy to know better. It had the usual padded walls, barred windows, and of course a few orderlies who got a little too touchy-feely with the younger female residents.
Knowing my past, most didn't dare touch me. They were afraid that I would snap again and beat them to death with my own fists. The more pathetic ones sedated me so I was too weak to fight back. Eventually the sedatives quit working and I ended up cracking an orderly's skull on the cement floor. That stopped the rest of them for so much as looking in my direction.
The doctors enhanced my room to include a padded floor. It wasn't for my safety, because I never smashed myself against anything. It was for the safety of the staff. They didn't believe me when I told them what really happened, but that orderly no longer worked in the facility once he was cleared to come back. They sent him away to contaminate another place.
Three days after my twenty-first birthday, I was a free woman. The therapy at the asylum helped with my psychotic attitude. Or so they thought. My attitude was obviously the effect of beating somebody to death and had nothing to do with the trauma I had endured while actually in the facility. At least that's what I wanted them to think.
