Layne's POV
One. Wake up. Two. Shower. Three. Wash face. Four. Brush teeth.
Five. Eat breakfast. Six. Go for a jog. Seven. Come home (That's an important one). Eight. Relax. Nine. Eat lunch. Ten. Nap. Eleven. Eat dinner. Twelve. Go to sleep.
One. Wake up.
There should be more in a person's day than that, except there isn't in mine. Step one, I wake up, slowly but surely, yearning to stay in my dreams. I can almost never remember then, only I know that they're sweet and nice and warm and fluffy-- Like a marshmallow on fire.
I shower, and braid my damp hair into a long braid that reaches my butt. It hasn't been cut since who knows when-- Definitely before the accident.
I brush my teeth and cook myself breakfast of toast and eggs. Dil is already gone for work, and so is his boy toy.
Max waits at my side for me to finish eating, and yaps excitedly when I do. Even the fucking dog has my meager schedule memorized.
And then--- There's a shift.
I head over to my front door wear my trusty running shoes are normally waiting for me and find then gone. Fucking Dil. My brother, intent on refusing to let me be to regulated, often interferes with my routine. He'll go a week without buying eggs or bread and force me to eat something else. He'll hide Max's leash from me. He'll disconnect our router and force me to do something other than watch Netflix.
And today he's hidden my shoes. "Dammit!"
I search high and low for them, as sometimes I find my things in the most obscure places. Not in the kitchen. I was just eating in there. I head to the bathroom and open a cabinet at random.
"Fuck!" I retract my hand as a blur of orange, black and white darts past me. When I glance at my hand, I see it's scratched and turning a violent red. "Okay then. Not in the bathroom."
I head back to my room and check the obvious-- under my bed.
I drop to my knees and find them rather quickly, tossed to the back near my headboard. I reach for them, but not before tossing aside a bunch of other shit. Balled up sweaters. Other shoes. A couple shirts. A pair of underwear I've never seen. Okay... I grab the shoes and shimmy from under my bed, mildly disgusted at the habits of my seventeen year old self. Gross.
Anyway. On to part six of the day.
***
Max and I take the same usual route on our jog, which was another thing regimented by Dil. Takes me to the end of our street, through the woods, and down another residential street that circles back to ours.
As my feet slap the pavement I can't help but wonder who's underwear were those. And what the fuck they were doing under my bed. They were boy boxers--- and I hadn't hurt my head hard enough to forget that I'm in love with the pussy. These are the facts.
Lost in thought, my jog seems to go faster than normal. I stumble back into the apartment hot and sweaty, the summer heat starting to settle into St. Louis' classic humidity.
Seven and a half. I shower again, feeling kind of gross. I finish and change, afterwards taking my braid out, my golden hair falling into soft waves. I stare at my spot on the couch and consider it. Seven and three quarters....
I head back into my room and get back under the bed. This time a I grab everything, laying the clothes out on my bed. Upon closer inspection, they also aren't mine, clearly sized for some one bigger than my 5'3'' frame. Odd. I'm drawn to one-- a hoodie from a school I never officially graduated, and a vague memory of the classes there flashes before it's gone again. Dammit.
I look under the bed again, drawing out the older sneakers and some more graphic tees, also too big for me. Some of them seeming hand made-- unlike anything I could've gotten from a department store. I notice something else--- a square shape near the headboard, where I'd found my sneakers. I have to go to the other side of my bed and scoot over my nightstand to reach it, but when I do, I find it's actually a notebook, bound like an actual book.
I gather everything I've found and reorganize beneath my bed, lining up the shoes and removing all the trash. I take all the clothes down to the washing machine and then head back upstairs.
Eight. Relax. Eight and a half. Relax with a good read.
YOU ARE READING
no savior.
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