Destined Part I

Resurrection

I woke from my catatonic sleep with no pain, no red mist. My heart leapt into my throat in relief when I rolled my shoulders with no consequence…it really was just a nightmare. The damn scariest nightmare I’ve ever experienced, but a hallucination nonetheless. Despite my shaky confidence that it was just a dream, I grabbed my mirror from the vanity anyway. Just to see…

There were no holes. The skin on my shoulders was as smooth as it was the day I was born. And thankfully I might add.

My mind finally beginning to ease, I dragged myself out of bed to prepare for the day. I grabbed my white terry cloth robe and walked into the bathroom across the hall. My apartment was small- I liked to call it petite- but it served its purposes. I had found the place from an online apartment locater. At first I thought that being in the middle of downtown Austin would be too hectic. I was raised a country girl after all. Who would have thought I could ever get used to the hustle and bustle of city life when I was so accustomed to red dirt and cowboy boots?

But I loved this little place.

My bathroom topped the list as my favorite place in the apartment. When I moved in, I decided that I would go ahead and paint it and fully decorate it.

I designed the entire house to have a coastal theme. My parents owned a beach house on the Gulf of Mexico, and the three of us spent our weekends there until they passed away a few years ago. So when I bought this apartment, I knew that I wanted to recreate that house.

I walked into my dune-colored bathroom, started the shower and turned on the new music I had just downloaded. Seashells sat on the counter and black and white portraits of our family at the beach house covered the walls. When the steam rose up out from behind the shower curtain that I had found in a fitting marsh green, I stepped into the heat of the spray. With Wade Bowen echoing through the bathroom singing about resurrection, my worries simply disappeared. The water soothed every ache that resulted from my hard sleep the night before and slowly washed away the after burn of that horrible nightmare. Following a good thirty minute escape, I turned off the shower and began to get dressed, the smell of my lavender soap permeating the warm air.

I decided on my dark washed blue jeans today. Not like I didn’t wear them every other day, but they were a staple for me, so I went for them again. My navy blue tank top, army jacket, and blue sapphire butterfly necklace my father had given me completed my look. Feeling especially pretty today for some reason, I applied the smallest amount of mascara without even looking in the mirror. Wrapping my gold hair into a messy bun, the dream already a distant memory, I decided to go scrounge the kitchen for something to eat.

My kitchen was a close second to the bathroom as my favorite place to be in the apartment. The kitchen is the reason I even chose this apartment in the middle of the noisy city in the first place. It was the most beautiful room in the house with the cabinets in a rich shade of warm crimson maple.

The countertop was white granite with a dark chocolate paint lining the trim of the windows. It was my tropical room. My Bird of Paradise now stood more than six feet tall in the corner next to the stainless steel refrigerator.

My towels and pot holders were even fabric that my mother brought home for me from Hawaii one year.

But my favorite thing in the kitchen had to be the island in the middle of the room. It was my personal resting ground for a moment to myself before the busy day began. Feet stretched out on the counter, looking out the window to the bustling Austin streets, I held my cereal in my lap, and sat there, like I had every morning since I moved here.

As I ate, I contemplated what to do that day. Ever since I graduated, my days were basically filled with work, sleeping, eating, and then work again. My newest job at the local book store was nothing close to what I thought I would do after school, but it paid the bills and kept me busy with all the new books that came in which I, of course, just had to read. I worked the counter usually, but from time to time I would get to walk the aisles of books, searching selfishly for the next novel I could lay my hands on. It wasn’t that bad, though, when a confused customer would approach me with their million questions about a story. At least I got to talk about books all day long.