Dark Alley

Chapter 9

     "Welcome to my room," she said while her hand proudly wide spread on the air. "It's small and messy, but it's kind of been my hideout since I was a kid." My thumb is shaking as I bite it when I realized my nails are already short so I ate the skin of my thumb. Sometimes it bleeds but it didn't hurt anymore. I study her room, the printed stain walls, the dolls similar to voodoo dolls hanging on the ceiling, a tray full of unused toys. I can also noticed her  shelf - books, lots and lots of books, I would like to scan them but Tracy keeps distracting me - well in a good way. 

     "Let me tell you to be ready Foster. The outside world is mean - yet forget I said that. The real world is kind when you're kind to it. I have been kind to it with the love of music but sometimes we fight," she says.

     "Are we still talking about the outside world here?" I asked. She sighed. She's lying and I can directly see it from her eyes.

     "Of course, duh?" She said. She lean closer to me and grabbed my hand with hers. "Stop biting your fingers."

     "I can't help it," I say. She only gave it a laugh.

     Tracy pushed a button in an oval device. It surprised me when that device also produces sounds, It was like the radio of the 21st century. The device also produces song. It has lyrics on it and the tone keeps changing every second. It doesn't sound boring, it's instrumentals goes with the vocals.

     "What is that?" I asked, pointing a finger on that object she just pushed.

     "Oh that," she says. "That's a speaker. I use it to hear my music. It's funny because I get my music for free."

     "For free?" I remembered my father who has never heard of new Foxtrot music because we don't have money to buy one. "You mean you don't use vinyl records - to listen hear music?"

     "What? Vinyl?" A pause. I nodded until her face crumpled. "Eww, what am I sixty!" She quickly changed her reaction when she caught my face. "I'm sorry - I'm just not really into it. It's just not my time," she says. "Sorry to offend you."

     "It's okay." Adapt. Adapt. Adapt. I stare at her crystal blue eyes. I am in her room. She likes to be in her room in reverse I hate for my room which is twenty times bigger than hers. I hate isolation as much as she likes it.

     "It's free," she says. "It's free because there's this friend of mine who runs a black market at our school who Bluetooth's music for free - well of course if you're friends with him."

     "Black Market? Aren't you going to jail in that?" I asked. Tracy laughs again.

     "Yeah, maybe," she said, confidently. "But they won't notice it's just a minor thing. Don't worry."

     "But I can make you like it," she added.

     "Huh?"

     "I mean my kind of music, I mean time changes right? You have to learn to go with the flow," she said as she moves two meters away from me. I look at her in the centre of her room, swaying with the beat as if it was her concert ground. "Come on, I like this song. Dance with me," she says while swinging her hands to me. She wants me to approach her. I felt awkward, yet she was like a sister asking to dance with her, she's un-refusable.

      I stood right next to her - Tracy held my hand, my arms. It was like she has the exact fingerprint of Maricriss. I closed my eyes. She raised my hand as she circles me. I try to shut my eyes. All I can hear was the music, unlike what I heard from Calvin's car the song was slow and moody.