unconventional

0.1

...

It was one of those nights where my brain was pacing at one hundred miles per hour but my eyes were craving relief. 3:49 am was when I figured I couldn't sleep my thoughts away so I might as well try to walk them off. I've never left my house in the middle of the night since my mom always watched ID(Investigation Discovery) and restricted me from walking on the road alone saying how, "It isn't you I don't trust but all the other weirdos in the world" which was a completely reasonable statement.  Although, tonight felt different, it felt like I just needed to be outside.

I scribbled on a piece of paper saying I went out for a walk and left it on my pillow, just in case, before throwing on appropriate clothing for my stroll. I remember that night was particularly bitter so I wore black sweatpants with a gray hoodie that my friend left at my house along with beat up converse and a black beanie. After struggling out of my window I was able regain balance and began to walk down the middle of the road.

I wasn't afraid of cars hitting me since it was now 3:55 am but occasionally there was a car heading to work. In that scenario I would jog off the road as much as possible due to the paranoia my mom set in my head about creepers taking children. From there I would wait for the car to be fully out of sight before stepping back in the middle of the road and following the striped yellow lines.

The white street lights illuminated my path. Sometimes I pretended I was in a dramatic music video, other times I would pretend I was Dorothy following the yellow brick road, and most times I just took in the silence. I would inhale the crisp air and watch a cloud form from my lips as I exhaled. My mind would shift from all the thoughts keeping me awake to more intriguing thoughts like how many people aren't able to watch their breath escape their lips like I was right then or how the stars appeared in the sky or how there are probably a million other galaxies other than ours that have life we don't know about. Without realizing it I strayed to one side of the road but didn't bother to merge back to the middle.

"You're on the wrong side of the road." A voice spoke from the side of me about twelve feet away.

My heart jumped so high I thought I passed out and that pondering smile on my face immediately went stick straight with a concerned look smeared across my face. I didn't even bother looking at the person who spoke I just picked up my pace a little bit awaiting the nearest driveway I could turn into to get away from this creep. My mind went into all the situations my mom told me and all the episodes of ID where someone was kidnapped. Meanwhile my heart picked up the pace and my brain told me this walk was my doom.

"You see, you're supposed to walk on the side with the cars coming towards you so you can see them; where you are right now would give someone easy access to hit you and you wouldn't even see it coming." The voice rang again.

That time I glanced at the person just long enough to see he was wearing gray sweatpants and a maroon long sleeve shirt that had some sort of logo and he sported a black beanie as well. I didn't bother looking at him long enough to see what shoes he was wearing I just thought I need to get somewhere safe.

"So what brings you on a walk at oh," he looked down at his black wrist watch, "4:15 am?"

I finally spoke up, "What do you want? I have my phone on me and my house is just around the corner." I warned.

I heard him chuckle, "Calm down please, do I look like someone who would hurt you?"

After he said that I looked over at him. His eyebrows were raised waiting for my response as he held his arms out giving me permission to look at him while he began walking sideways to face me.

"Looks can be deceiving." I stated continuing forward on the road.

He shrugged his shoulders then began walking forward as well. "You should really get on this side of the road though, people can be manicas when it comes to driving around here."

Yeah right, like I'm going to get on the same side of the road as a potential murderer.

As if he read my mind he suggested, "Look if you really don't want to be near me we can switch sides of the road."

"Why are you so concerned for my well being?" I snapped.

He shrugged again.

"Here's my house so I'm going to leave now." I turned into a very long driveway whose owner I didn't know at all.

"You're lying that's not your house." He chuckled again.

"Yes it is! How would you know anyways do you stalk me?" I started getting really defensive.

"No." He pointed down the driveway, "That's actually my house." He smiled holding in a laugh turning down the same driveway I was already walking on.

"How do I know you're not lying to me?" I questioned.

"Well first of all, if it really was your house you wouldn't be asking if I was lying about it being mine."

"I could just be good at mind games." I retorted.

"Second of all," he continued then put his hand in his pocket ready to pull something out which made me flinch. He saw me jump so he kept eye contact with me and pulled out out revealing what it was, "It's just a wallet don't worry." Then the guy proceeded to take a card out of it an approach me which, again, I was uneasy about. "Here look at me drivers license it says my address." Then pointed in the general location of the address before slowly hanging me the card.

I only glanced at the actual address I was more concerned about getting to know who this random guy was. Will Anderson. 6'2. Brown hair. Hazel Eyes. 20 years old. Once I scanned all of that over I handed the card back to him and nodded.

"Well, general curiosity tells me you looked at my name so do I get you know yours?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Nope, unlike you I don't give information about myself to a stranger. Bye Will." Then with that I turned around and began walking back to my house. About three minutes into the walk I turned around to make sure he wasn't following me, luckily he wasn't, then I continued on until I reached my familiar window. After climbing through I was relieved to see the note untouched and the house quiet which means I was safe and back in my house. 5:01 am.

I laid down in my bed after taking only my shoes and beanie off too tired to change my other clothing. I then slid into my blanket curling up around the body pillow I sleep with. Not that much later, I heard walking around in the house which meant my mom was getting ready for work. I checked the time thinking she might have just gotten up early. 5:45 am.

Turned out I wasn't as tired as I thought I was as thoughts of the stranger continued rushing through my brain. Luckily I stopped thinking about what kept me up originally: how conventional my life was.

...

first publish in 2 years, I never stopped writing just stopped publishing. please give me feedback if you like this story! x 

*skip these bold, italicized blurbs at the end of most chapters if you want, it's just random information from me, but you might want to read some of them :)*