The Exchange

Chapter 1- The Beginning

It was the hottest week of the year. So hot that tarmac burnt under feet and a constant buzz melted the horizon. A strong smell of barbecue filled the winding streets, and sunburnt children shouted over fenced gardens.

The sun was heavy, shrouding the world in a fizzing light. A light that bronzed limbs and bleached hair and pulled everyone outside and into the open air.

In the town where nothing ever seemed to happen, there was a distant sense that something was about to change. Or someone was going to change.

The constant roll of mundane life would be altered by a blurry and unforseeable future. A blur that could change a life in just one moment. A moment in the hazy days of summer.

Sasha lay on a towel in her garden, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her sun kissed shoulders were bare and wet and her hair was still dripping from the pool. In the background she could make out the muffled orchestration from the hum of winged insects, her neighbour expertly playing the piano and her mother on the phone inside.

The French doors that led out onto the stone patio had been left open, allowing a floral scent to waft through the house. Wet towels, scuffed shoes and an old book with a broken spine were scattered around the wooden table and chairs which had been positioned here.

Finally the long sunny days of summer had arrived, leaving her with a sweet taste on her tongue and a pulse in her heart.

Wiggling her toes she sighed. Maybe things would finally come together? Maybe this would be her summer? The summer where it would all unravel and never be able to fit back together again?

Although her town was picturesque it was secluded and lacked diversity which sometimes had Sasha wondering whether she did indeed know the entire community. Even when college was closed for holidays it always appeared as though every family were continuing their same boring routine. Everything was so incredibly regular that she could most likely guess what was happening behind each closed door on her street.

Her mobile buzzed from the grass beside her and a text from her close friend 'Polly' lit up the screen informing of plans for the night. Sasha typed back an approving reply.

A boy from college was throwing a party as his parents had gone away for the weekend and all of Sasha's group were going.

Sasha's friends were the type who rarely knew when to stop. They were often the ones still up at 6AM, throwing crazy parties in fields and dancing till their feet were swollen. However, Sasha's closest buddies were Cass and Polly and together they had formed their own inner circle during the first week of college. The three girls had devoted themselves to an unbreakable trio termed 'the pussy pack' and since then had become thick as thieves. 

The one thing that Sasha felt left out on though was her lack of experience with guys. When she saw her friends in their couples, so happy and enamoured, she couldn't help feeling lonely. People would always say to her, 'Don't worry! Your time will come, just be patient', and she would smile feebly and nod her head.

She wanted to be seen, properly seen. Have someone know her flaws and love her anyway. Someone to wake up to in the morning, make coffee and listen to jazz.

Sasha's mother walked out on to the patio looking down at her daughter on the grass below. Annette was a tall, blonde woman with dark eyes and hollow cheeks. She was striking but not classically beautiful.

Sasha had inherited her fathers dark hair and freckles but her face shape matched her mother's. Annette would often say, as they sat studying their reflections side by side in the mirror, 'See how our jaw lies here? And how our chin curves so smoothly down to our neck? We do not have a fools face. See how it points here and not here? Your father had a liars face, I am glad you did not get that'.