Course Of Action

CHAPTER 1: Bearings

Our Baringsville. The little town situated where the sea kisses the land.
A town independent from its neighbours.
The one who always has been since its birth centuries ago...Just like someone I knew.

I truly didn't take much cause a cold wind to course through our town,
blowing us off our feet and to shake what had previously been a paradise.
To change a life...And you knew just how to do that

All it took was a breath. A thought. A feeling...

If you told me the devastation would hit so close to home,
I would've denied it...For it didn't fit the reality which I had painted for myself.
I was in denial about how it could happen to us.
How it would burn me as bad as it did.

The scars would heal tougher than the delicate skin that once was before it,
however, and we'd find ourselves emerging from the ashes to continue our journey.
Those of us, who made it out...

I see nothing wrong with straying from one's path;
to deliberately choose another end for oneself isn't bad,
or wrong. It's your actions along it that matters.
Unlike many, yours I still have trouble grasping,
no matter how I try to make the pieces fit.
...Trouble having them fit you.

That, even after I followed you down that very road, watching as you neared your end....

–                                                                                                    –
B E A R I N G S

"You coming?"

Diana's hoarse voice cut through the somnolent morning as she stood waiting for me, her slender silhouette framed by the open door. She was clad in her beloved white leather jacket, the one she wore shamelessly for years without a smidge of worry for its imminent death. I had spent the night at her place, just like she stayed at mine the year before, once again leaving together for our first day of school. The only difference was, it would be our last time doing so, and for a split moment the passage of time made itself known ever so vividly, whether we wished to acknowledge it or not.

"I'm good to go! I'll leave my stuff to pick up later."

I placed my bag with the remnants from the night before in close proximity to the door. As much as I hated cluttering other people's homes with my stuff, to drag it all with me to school was a burden I preferred to live without. I doubted it would even fit in our tiny lockers in the first place, seeing how most of the space was already taken by books and stationery I had stuffed it with over summer, making the idea of bringing it even less popular.

"Sure thing little Sunflower~ You'll catch me in the car!" She called out as she had headed down the drive-way, and I followed suit after bidding her mother goodbye. She, who had been working diligently to give us a luxurious morning experience.

Closing the deep moss-coloured door with a click I rushed over to the impatiently humming vehicle, and as I joined her, Diana let no time to waste, driving off before I had managed to either close the door or throw my bag between my legs.

"It's as if you've missed the place." I joked, hinting at her seeming desperation to get back to the campgrounds we had yet to decide our feelings for.

"Nah, just setting the pace. Gotta get you on your toes after all those weeks of slacking!" She laughed, her pearly white teeth looking even whiter against the dark and dull plum-coloured lipstick. The one which already contrasted like day and night against her porcelain skin.