Chapter 1 – Blurred Sight
My mental, head case of a mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favourite leaves-not-much-to- the-imagination sleeveless shirt, with a push my boobs up to my ears bra (black lace of course); I was wearing it as a get out of my house farewell gesture. My carry on item was a bottle of Rum.
In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Rusty spoons exists under a near constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was to this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that I was being forced to live. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend three weeks every summer until I was fourteen. (I wonder if the local watering hole still does $1 drinks on Monday.) It was to Rusty spoons that my mother, Renee-peppermint and her new husband Billy-o now exiled me. An action I took with great horror. I detested Rusty spoons, and knives for that matter.
I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city, the free tequila from Jose’ at Del Taco on Thursdays, if you have a low cut top.
The things I wouldn’t miss, my mother, the AA meetings, my parole officer and the nurses at the Betty Ford clinic.
"Stella," my mom said to me, as she slapped me over the head for the thousandth time today. "Get out and don’t come back."
My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines and that drunken stagger we both share. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her with wide, childlike eyes.
“Mum, mummy, mother please I promise. I won’t dance on table tops for free beer; I’ll stop cutting spider web patterns into my flesh and no more satanic slaughtering. I will do anything you want, but please don’t send me on that flappy plane sober.”
“Stella” Billy-o said placing both of his hands on my shoulders “Plane’s don’t flap, now GO!”
"Fine" I shouted as I boarded the plane.
It's was a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small I-will-fall-apart-at-any-moment plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Rusty spoons. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Sharlie, though, I was a little worried about, I was starting to really sober up and reality was approaching fast.
Sharlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car.
Sharlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Sharlie is an ex Police Chief Cheen to the good people of Rusty spoons. He was sacked for drinking the window cleaner.
Sharlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug, in his other arm was a bottle of Jack. I stumbled my way off the plane. "It's good to see you, Stella," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much."
"Dad the last time you saw me I was like 10, so yah I’ve changed, look I have boobs. It's good to see you, too, Dad. Now past that bottle."
I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. My mom and I had sold most of them, to afford more alcohol.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car."
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The Emo, The Sparkly Vampire and the Biscuit.
Fanfiction"Your skin is... pale white, and ice cold. Your eyes change color... and sometimes you speak like - like you're from a different time. You never eat or drink anything; you don't go into the sunlight. I know what you are." "Go on, say it." "You're em...
