Excerpt- Part I

This comes from yet another work-in-progress novel, which I can't decide on a title for. Maybe I'll ask for everyone's input in the future (and I affectionately refer to my two readers as 'everyone'). Also, could I get some opinions on a name? Has to be old fashioned- it's important to her character for reasons which you may pick up in later excerpts, if I post them. Emily, Hazel, Ethel... any other suggestions please?




I had to sigh when I realized that he was walking here again, because this was my path. I couldn't claim it, but somehow I had managed to fill it up with my own footprints and thoughts until it seemed to know me, and for that, I decided I owned it. But there was always the thought that occurred second, which was that I wasn't the first here. It was worn into the piney soil of the wooded countryside long before I ever bothered to think I'd be stuck here. Maybe he belonged here before I did... But that just made me angry again. Why didn't I fit here? Why wasn't there anybody else like me, anyone who didn't care who I was, anyone that could just swallow and gut it if I was different? I didn't care... I had to believe that. Caring meant getting hurt, and that was the name of the game, right? Defense? Keep out or I'll bite your head off? Yes, it sure was the name of this one. I ground my teeth, digging my fingernails into the skin of my palm, as I watched him ease his way down the path in front of me, walking as if he had belonged here his whole life. Why couldn't I feel like that? I braced myself to dig my fingernails into my palm again, but instead heaved a sigh and felt my eyes well up with tears. He couldn't see me like this... I turned my back and sat down, sliding myself down into a ditch that was filled with fallen leaves, crisp chocolate. My body folded itself under until I was curled up on the ground, staining the perfect leaves with wet, salty tears. This was too hard. Too big. Too much. Ironic, wasn't it? The tiniest town I'd ever laid eyes on was too big for me to swallow, yet all my life I'd lived on a fourth floor apartment complex in Chicago, which was ten times as big as I'd ever be able to memorize. I knew every inch of this town just weeks following the move, yet I still couldn't handle living here after six months of around the clock purgatory. I choked on a sob, pulling my sweatshirt up to wipe my eyes. The wind whipped across my face, the air frigid and unfeeling against the wet tears, to remind me that it was getting colder. "Crap..." I muttered to myself, burying my face in the earthy pile of leaves that was the only shelter I could find from the cold. Why had I walked here? Stupid. I knew I was. The sobs came harder until I couldn't breathe and my sleeve was covered in eyeliner and mascara stains. I didn't bother to look to know they were there; It wouldn't have done any good in the dark to begin with. I could scrub them when I got home, if I got home that was. The walk was two miles, and shaking so hard, I'd never make it. I could spend the night out here, all alone, I guessed. I settled into the leaves, prepared to abandon myself in listless sleep some hour or so from now when the crying settled down enough for me to move on to being cold, and then to falling asleep. I'd get through them slowly, one by one, until the sun came up and it was warm enough to leave the insufficient safety of the tall trees that I lay among now.