Saving Aidan

Chapter 1

I was in a library on a Saturday morning, which was the most deserted place in my town. I was the only one here besides the old librarians and the occasional adult that dropped off a few books. I was sitting in a chair that had seen better days in front of a window.

 I wasn’t doing homework or a project, which were the main reasons why anyone would dare to be in a library at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning. I was actually staring out the window and watching the different cars that drove by. It was a stupid reason to be in a library but it was better than being home with my self-centered, vicious, foul-mouthed mother.

I was the only child in our family and that is including cousins and siblings. My mother had cut herself off from the rest of her family when she got pregnant with me and she says my father was a scoundrel who deserved to be castrated for getting her pregnant, even if it did bring me into the world.

 I used to think that she had meant it as he was a jerk because he left her alone when she was pregnant, not because of me. I had been naïve back then and young.

 We also had a neighbor who asked too many questions, as my mother said, and paid attention to each misplaced strand of hair on my head. I loved Mrs. Niles but my mother had despised the older woman and eventually moved us to a new apartment that had bright green walls and pink carpet.

 I smiled as I remembered Jillian, the property owners’ daughter, who liked me and was my very first best friend. She and I used to hang out in her bedroom and paint our nails. She would tell me about all the boys she had ever kissed and I would tell her what it was like to live in the wild outdoors for a week.

 It had actually been a crappy time but, back then, I had thought constellations were cool and that feeling a breeze along your forehead when you woke up was refreshing.

We had moved again to this yellow house with white shutters after my mother had gotten drunk and told Jillian’s parent that they were the scum of the Earth for letting their daughter speak to me. I still feel the prick of tears in the back of my eyes as I remember Jillian looking at me as if I was on my mother’s side. She had stared at me with a look of shock and hurt that quickly became anger and hatred.  Jillian had told me that she never wanted to see me again and that I was never her friend because I associated with big, fat, uncool bullies. Being in fifth grade didn’t help the sharpness that was delivered with these words but it did help with the words themselves.

Now that I was in the twelfth grade, planning to go to college next year, still was dirt poor, had two after-school jobs, and my mother had become an alcoholic, the words that were thrown at me were so mean that sometimes I wished I was back in fifth grade and had Jillian yelling those things at me.

 I turned my attention away from my memories as a sharp one that happened last week popped its ugly head in my mental slideshow.

I stopped staring out the window and got up from the table to go find a book that would distract me from the despicable life that gained me so much pity from others.

I walked over to the teen reader section and squatted down at the M’s. I was working on reading every single book in the teen section. I had started in February when my mother had found out about my third job as a bartender.

 I had gotten a fake I. D. that looked so much like a real one that my mother had actually been confused if she had always gotten my age wrong. Then she remembered how she had to run away from the hospital with me and then was landed in jail, etcetera etcetera. I was forced to quit even though the job allowed me to stock up about fifteen dollars for my college savings with each paycheck.

 Now, we were short on money, my mother was still furious with the deception, and I had a scar on my jaw from where I was slammed into the coffee table after being shoved. I really had needed stitches but my mother swore up and down that I didn’t. I had ended up using butterfly stitches and had received a scar, not that I actually cared about scars.

 I found a book with a girl on it who was staring straight at me like I pissed her off. She had two boys behind her that looked like they were about to get into a pissing match to see who was the better alpha. I shrugged as I read the back and sighed when I saw it was another romance. I had no quarrels with romances but they usually led me to hoping that one day, I was going to be saved by my very own prince charming who would kick anyone’s butt that went against me and no one knew better than me that that would never happen to a girl like me.