Drinking Numb (The Numbing Series #1)

Chapter One

<"ı ṅєṿєя єṅjȏʏ ѧṅʏṭһıṅɢ. ıṃ ѧʟẇѧʏṡ ẇѧıṭıṅɢ ғȏя ẇһѧṭєṿєяṡ ṅє×ṭ.">
•ᖇᑌE•
•July 8, 2015•
Its awing how I'm not but half a mile out, yet there is such a drastic contrast in scenery. Here there is an aura of something magical that shimmers through your lungs as you breathe it in. It's almost as if I can picture myself living a completely different life in a completely different world. It'd be a happy life where anything is possible.
I'd be free.

I can look over the dancing waves to see lamps every once in a while that emit their light over the boats they hang over. I see the sunrise peak over the never ending blue, imagining that maybe one day such a light would find me in my darkness.
It's doubtful.

Here there is light to outshine the darkness, but of what I call a home half a mile down the road, this will never happen. My life's horror story started not when I was ten or three or born but when my mother told her "lover" the news; my story was labeled to be a horror show even before I took my first breath. To my knowledge, that's when my mother's horror story started too.

I stare up at the ceiling of the pavilion ringed with white Christmas lights even though it's not Christmas. It's the eighth of July and the third night since my birthday- since I was drunkenly peeled off of the floor of a stranger's closet by a boy I cannot remember. I stare up at the ceiling, my head resting on my backpack with a blanket, my keys, and a half gone bottle of tequila, urging myself to remember more about that night when I turned seventeen.

I remember the pounding of the heart of the party. I remember the closet. I remember staring at a piece of glass denting into my skin. The only thing I remember of the boy, however, is the fading scar across his shirtless back.

I look down at the not-really-needed-bandage around my wrist that I put on this morning. I didn't cut it deep enough to have to go to the hospital. Thank goodness, for I wouldn't have been able to afford it.

The sun is half way up now. Standing, I sling my bag over my shoulder and begin the trudge home. I live in a small town on the California coast called Dunsmuir with a population of 1600 people.

I pass by the mini gulf course and the surf shop heading to the Yaks Coffee Shop & Cafe. It has twenty-four hour service which is beneficial, especially for me. I'm a usual here because Mom believes the only thing that we'll cure a hangover is a large madness mocha with extra whip-cream.

"Well, I'll be damned if it isn't the famous Ruby Sapphire Emerald," he welcomes me with his famous smirk walking to the counter.

"Come on Charles. You know it's just Rue," I tell him. He's the only one that I'll let get away with calling me my full name.
I hate it.

"Time for your season rounds?" Charles starts on my usual, a small peppermint latte with no whip and an extra cherry. Needless to say, he's my favorite that works here.

"It looks that way." He started here the same day I came in for the first time. He's one of the two employees here who will willingly work the nightshift. He's only three years older then me hitting a spanking 20.

"I'll let the boss next door know," he says popping his head into the mini refrigerator for my cherries.

Next door is the bakery my mom has worked at since she dropped out of college and moved here. The boss there is very lenient when it comes to my mom. He knows about her yearly habits, resembling her own hurricane season if you replace the hurricane with alcoholic beverages and strange men July through December. When December hits, she only goes crazy about once every two weeks saying how she is going to get her crap together for Christmas, and she does. I can give her that much, I suppose.

Good news is that she could have been a famous baker if she wanted to be. Her cakes and pies are to die for, so she brings in a lot of money when she actually goes to work making wedding cakes and such. I remember one time she got a call from a California senate.

"Thanks." Accepting my latte, my chair releases air under my weight as the morning surfers unload. Charles is good about leaving me be. Finishing my drink, I grab Mom's from the counter, leave the usual amount of money, and yell a goodbye before heading out the door.

The street curves left, leading directly to my driveway and crumbling steps in front of my faded-to-dark-blue house. The vibrations of my mother's music through the doorknob, and the sound proceeds to rush through the front door. Switching on the light, I find myself stepping over a man's shirt just to make it to the stereo. Turning off the music, freeing my hands, and grabbing a wooden bat from behind the TV, I find myself taking a very deep, shuddery breath.

"Mom, I'm home!" The words echo down the short hall receiving nothing in return. Deciding to speed walk down the hall before losing my nerve, I hope that the man just forgot his shirt on the way out the front door. I step into the ugly brown carpet of my mom's room to find her laying in a baggy shirt sleeping in bed, and I hear her shower running in the joint bathroom.
Shit.

"Hey!" I pound on the door with my bat and barge in keeping my eyes from veering to far down on the body presented in front of me. I am trying very hard to prevent myself from being even farther scarred for life. "Get out of here! Get out before I call the police!!"

"Hey, calm down little girl. Just let me finish my fucking shower," the man says unconcerned.

"Get out of my house! You can finish your fucking shower where you came from!" I scream clenching the bat in my hand, my knuckles turning white as I reach in with the other quickly turning the shower off and jerking myself out of range.

"Damn girl, calm down. At least give me a towel," he says stumbling out the shower.

"You know, I don't think I will. I will ask you one more time to get out of my house before I knock you upside the head with this bat of mine."

"Man, you're as much of a bitch as she said you were. You know, we could figure something out here if you would just put down that bat. I'm even willing, very willing, to share shower space," he says taking a step toward me.

I swing my bat hard into his stomach and kick him toward the door blinking away angry, mortified tears.

"Get out!" I watch him leave tripping once over his pants as he tried to put them on cursing under his breath the whole way. I throw his shirt at him before closing the door. I flick the light switch to find the living room light not working just like my life. It's not working for me.

"Mom, your mochas here!" I announce before locking the door. Just another day in the chaos left from hurricane season.