Faded

Chapter 4

May 4, 2009

I didn't tell the cops everything and having to hold on to the truth bothers me. I noticed a shift in my life two weeks ago, after I was making my way to the subway after school. Although I wasn't going home that day. I had gone to drop off my sisters duffel bag for her final track meet when I heard the startling news.

"She hasn't come to practice?" I repeated her coach's statement aghast.

"She hasn't even signed up for track this year."

"She hasn't?"

Coach Henderson was massive and her sour demeanor mixed with her deathly dark hair, dark colored eyes and terrible tan made it difficult to stare at her directly without ending up teary eyed.

"No. Is there something going on?"

"No. Its...its nothing." I mumbled. I quickly left after apologizing with Isabel's duffel bag still hanging over my shoulder.

I was walking down the steps to the subway when a woman brushed past me roughly, nearly causing me to tumble. She didn't apologize. Her abruptness yanked me out of my daydream and threw me back into reality. I swiped my card as I entered the gates that lead to the station just as a train set off to its next destination. From the corner of my eye I saw a flash of red hair that disappeared at the top of the stairs and I frowned. I heard the sound of the next train stopping and the murmurs of passengers as they hurried in and out of the train but my mind didn't pay much attention to that; there was something much more important that I needed to get to the bottom of. There was only one person that I knew that had such vibrant red hair.

Isabel? She lied about practice...so where does she go everyday after school?

"Are you getting in or not?" asks a woman inside the train harshly. She was dressed in a black and white suit with her blonde hair pulled in a tight ponytail as her green eyes bore down on me as if she wanted my soul to be ripped from my own body. Her olive skin tone was the only thing that kept her from looking completely menacing and if she had put a smile on her face she would have actually appeared kind and generous. She was gripping onto her cell phone with her foot tapping furiously. She was obviously in a hurry but her strident response caused me to prolong my response just to piss her off even more.

"No, I'm good" I say slowly. The train door closed shortly after my response but I was already gone. I swiftly climbed up the stairs to not lose track of Isabel and attempted to blend in with the crowd of people that exited the subway station as I spotted her only a mile or so away from me.

The crowd grew smaller and smaller as everyone headed to their destination and I was left exposed and vulnerable to Isabel's eyes that was if she had turned back and looked behind her. I began to use my surroundings to navigate through the streets, staying a close distance too Isabel but not to close for she would have noticed me.

As I followed her through the streets the amount of people walking down the streets decreased drastically, the amount of graffiti increased, and the sun began to fall. There were clothes being hanged on the sides of buildings, and as I passed people they began to look at me as if I was a pinata that held the precious candy that they desired so much. I was in the shadiest part of town a place that I didn't belong in. Anyone sensible wouldn't step a foot in this neighborhood unless they wanted to lose one of their vital organs or worse, end up dead. Anyone well dressed would have stuck out like a sore thumb here and someone dressed in a tailored navy blue school uniform would be nothing more than a target, and sadly I was no exception.

What are you doing in a place like this Isabel? What have you gotten yourself into?

"Hey there girly what's a pretty thing like you doing here all by yourself?" asks a woman possibly in her late forties or early fifties. She smiled at me showing her chipped yellow teeth. Her makeup was a mess. Her eyelids were a rainbow of colors and her red lipstick wasn't even put on with any care. Her skin was an array of colors possibly due to sunburns and she held a lit cigarette in her hand as she stood in front of her door in a pink tank top and black sweats. Her feet were bare and her hair already graying was being kept up by a tortoise shell hair clamp.