THE ORANGE GIRL

chapter seven

Friday, 30th October 2015

4:35PM | Yoongi's Apartment

You wanted to go back outside.

Not to run, to escape Yoongi and his fingers laced around your wrists and ankles, hailing the first yellow cab that you see to take you endlessly far from here. No, the nagging feeling that tickled at the back of your thoughts like a headache since the day he guided you through racks of clothing and ordered you to choose was because you wished to see the world moving, breathing, living once more.

You craved the sound of bike tyres skidding across cement pavement, babies bubbling from their prams. The sight of fairy lights winking in cafefront trees, bodies flowing like water through crosswalks when stopchanges to go go go. The scent of croissants wafting out of the bakeries, the oaky musk of exhaled tobacco from the lips of business men. It kept you laying awake as the night rolled into the next morning, watching the overhead fan languidly carve through the still air. It kept you staring a moment longer at the door after Yoongi would depart, etching the whoosh of air followed by the firm thump and click of the entrance closing, the grooves that carved through the polished wood into your mind.

It had your fingertips curling around the cold silver handle, twisting and easing so cautiously as though you expected Yoongi to be standing on the other side with ropes and chains and a bullet.

Click.

Oxygen was caught in your throat, itching and painful. Muscles were replaced with stone, stilling you to the spot as the door swung wide and open so effortlessly, a hand sweeping out in welcome as the small hallway lit up in a smile. It was only after a moment of heart-stopping silence that you could will yourself to move, take a stride, exhale and inhale as your feet shuffled slowly onto the carpet outside. Baby steps, progress, no red lasers to slice your body to pieces, no guns aimed at your head and heart because you broke the golden rule. When the door softly thudded back into its frame and your shaking hand was pressing against the elevator button to go down, your fingers nervously reached up to your lips to confirm the grin splitting at your cheeks. Thirteen levels were passed until you were on solid ground, opening doors and unbolting gates and then you were finally there.

You were outside.

The street was quiet, only a few cars humming down the road, a smattering of people dotting the pathways who spared you no attention, not even a glance. You stood like a child seeing snow for the first time, turning around and around as you inhaled fumes, week old trash, grotesque scents that would otherwise have you cringing with distaste but all you could think about was how damn beautiful the light blue of the sky looks when it is not watching you through glass. The world was mesmerising, and you were completely captivated, entranced by its calamity as it hooked you by the knees and guided your feet everywhere and nowhere, down sidewalks and through weaving alleyways and across bustling streets. It was simply everything you had imagined in your time spent daydreaming, so alive and robust, full of the personality that the prison lacked.

You tightly swallowed the urge to continue on living once more.

In your walking trance, you happened upon a supermarket that threw fluorescent light onto the pavers, sliding doors sucking you in before you even had the chance to think. There felt to be more people within the aisles that lined the store than on the streets, some settling their gaze upon you as you aimlessly drifted about the tinned fruit and cartons of milk, enough to make you gather up a plastic basket to hook over your wrist in an attempt to look casual, normal. And without noticing, your demeanour changed entirely.

You became just another shopper in the supermarket, running a list of necessities over your thoughts before beginning to collect.

Lamb shoulder, carrots and potatoes each found home in your basket. Followed by garlic, rosemary, and a bottle of warm red wine. You picked up items and analysed the packaging before placing them back upon the shelves, you smiled politely at other customers whenever their eyes would accidentally drift to yours, and you even raised an eyebrow at the deals that were pinned up beneath boxes of fruit in posters of red and yellow.Two for the price of one!