Rescue (Emily and Mason)
Read Rescue (Emily and Mason) Online
Authors: Nadene Seiters
Text copyright © 2013
Nadene N Seiters
Image Copyright © Yuliya
Yafimik
Image Copyright © Aleshyn_Andrei
Cover Art © Nadene N
Seiters
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,
places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s
imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Rescue
Nadene Seiters
For my Great
Grandmother and Grandmother, the two women in my life who taught me that all
life matters.
Emily
The light filters in through my window blinding me even
though my head is under a sheet. I roll over, sniffing at the fresh sheets that
smell like Gain, my mother’s favorite laundry detergent. The only problem is
I’m not in my mother’s home because she’s
dead
. My eyes fly open, and I
look at the corpse of my mother lying next to me in bed.
She looks just like she did when she died, about eight
months ago. Her mouth is slightly agape, her gray eyes wide and unseeing, and
her skin is so pale a sheet of white paper could not compare. I hold my breath
as I stare at the corpse, wondering if this is a nightmare or reality. Then her
head slowly begins to turn, her eyes still unseeing and her mouth still wide
open.
My lips part and I thrash in the covers, trying to find my
way out as her stiff arm begins to move towards me. It’s making a horrifying
creaking noise as it moves and for some reason I cannot find my way out of the
sheets. Just as her hand is about to touch my shoulder, I feel as if I’m
falling.
I wake up on my bedroom floor with my sheets tangled around
me, and my butt aching. As reality hits and I realize that it was just another
nightmare, my hand dangles between my knees as I fight not to dry heave. Eight
months of nightmares and not one therapist has been able to help me. The last
one told me that I had to be willing to help myself before I went back.
I assured her I was definitely up for helping myself, as
long as it didn’t involve seeing my mother’s grave. And she insisted that I do
just that. “Closure,” she told me.
The dry laugh that comes out of my raw throat echoes through
my cheery, light blue room. Just as I’m trying to untangle myself from the
white sheets, someone knocks on my bedroom door. It must be Laura, my ward for
the time being. “Come in!” I call out to her, straightening the tank top I wore
to bed.
She’s a homely woman in her mid-thirties with mousy brown
hair and brown eyes to match. There’s a dusting of freckles across her round
face. I’m comforted by her presence, mostly because she looks nothing like my
blonde haired, gray eyed mother with a tall, modelesque stature.
“I heard a thump, another nightmare?” Laura knows all about
the nightmares. It’s one of the requirements that a foster parent know about
the child’s mental status when they agree to foster a child.
“Yeah, the same one.” I’ve never told her what the nightmare
is, but about five days a week I end up on the floor of my bedroom rather than
waking up in bed. Laura’s been there every morning since the first one seven
and a half months ago. I had spent two weeks in the facilities before she found
me.
“Come down and have some breakfast before you start school,
I’ll make you some coffee.” The smile that blooms across my face must tell her
just how much I appreciate the gesture of coffee. She bustles out of my room,
leaving behind the scent of lilacs.
Just as a precaution, I sniff the sheets. They smell like
the organic laundry detergent Laura switched to after I explained the dangers
of non-organic detergents. I also told her about the cruelty imposed upon
animals to test those non-organic detergents. She was appalled at the
informative essay I had showed her before I presented it to my online English
class.
I begged Laura to let me finish my senior year online, not
wanting the stares from other students and the classic ‘poor girl lost her
mother’ sympathy from teachers. Laura agreed after about three days of
pleading, only relenting when I suggested that I could volunteer at a local
animal shelter after I finished my work.
After I’m sure that nothing in the room smells like Gain, I
change into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. There’s no need to dress for
class when you’re just sitting down at a computer. I’ve finished the entire
curriculum for my classes already, months ago. It’s the last four months of my
senior year.
There’s a cup of steaming coffee waiting on the desk by the
computer.
“Thanks, Laura!” I call out the kitchen, settling down at my
simple desk with the laptop on it. I flip the screen open and take a sip of the
steaming liquid, smiling at the sweet taste of six tablespoons of sugar and
about two of cream. It’s a wonder the coffee can fit in the cup after all those
additives.
Unlike my mother, I never worried about my weight and still
don’t. I’m a clean one hundred and ten pounds and five foot three. If I lose
just five pounds, I’ll probably be considered underweight. My height and my
metabolism did not come from my mother’s side, and I’m not entirely sure if it
came from my father’s or not. I never knew the man.
My clear coated nails hit the keyboard at a phenomenal rate,
entering in the assignments for each one of my classes today. After I’m
finished entering them into the designated area, I sit back and read the
discussion board questions and answers, quickly answering a few. It takes me
about an hour total to get my work done, at which time it’s around eight in the
morning. I can’t show up at the shelter for another two hours.
“Done already?” Laura asks me when I mosey into the kitchen
with an empty coffee mug.
“Yeah, nothing extravagant today. What’re you up to?” She
may be my foster parent, but Laura’s more like a friend than an actual mother
figure. Sure, she’s reprimanded me for missing an assignment here and there or
forgetting to clean up a mess in the kitchen after one of my famous
‘experiments’ with cooking. But most of the time she treats me like an adult. In
two months, I technically will be.
“The usual, work at eleven until seven tonight at the ER,
some fussing over what to make for dinner, and then arriving home to find out
that either you or Jim cooked for me.” She smiles at me as she dries one of the
plates from the dishwasher. She uses it because it uses less water than washing
dishes herself, but she’s explained to me over and over again that the drying
cycle is unnecessary.
“Don’t look at me for dinner tonight; I’ve got stuff to do.”
Laura rolls her eyes at me and puts the plate in the cupboard. It’s a high one
that she has to stand on her tiptoes to reach.
“Right, a hot date with the computer?” She teases, giving me
a small smile over her shoulder. I can see the melancholy swimming in her eyes
but choose to ignore it today. Instead, I give her a cocky smile back and elbow
her aside so I can rinse out my coffee cup and wash it. There’s no need to put
it into the already empty dishwasher.
“Yeah, a hot date with a computer is all a girl ever needs!
It’s intelligent and a really great listener.” The comment has the desired effect
and Laura giggles, putting her delicate hand over her mouth to cover her open
mouthed smile. She’s always been discontent with her smile.
I put my coffee mug away and give Laura a kiss on the cheek
before I head up the stairs to my other computer, the one that’s for personal
use only. Lately, I’ve been working on some web design projects for a few
people on gig websites. The money I’ve been collecting has gone towards my
college fund. For me, college used to be a given.
When my mother committed suicide and left me with absolutely
nothing, that dream faded away along with every other dream I ever had. Dreams
of having kids that my mother would meet and traveling the world with her when
I was out of high school. I had planned on going to college online, but now I’m
thinking about an actual brick and mortar college.
I log onto the computer and tap my forefinger on my lip as I
wait for the machine to bring me up my desktop. It takes about thirty seconds,
but it’s thirty seconds too long for me. When it comes to technology, I like to
have things at my fingertips. First I check my email for some new gigs and find
none. That’s alright, maybe tomorrow.
I open up the music application on my desktop and play some
hardcore metal, quietly. Laura doesn’t appreciate some of the lyrics and thinks
that this music makes me depressed. The truth is it keeps me alive inside. That
and the fact that Laura makes coffee for me every morning just like my mother
used to.
Mason
An incessant noise drowns out my dream of two brunettes from
school getting it on. My palm slamming down on the cheap, plastic alarm clock
has it shutting up for the time being, but the dream has faded. I groan as I
roll out of bed directly onto the floor, about a one foot drop. I don’t like
sleeping up high on an actual bed, not ever since I started falling out of bed
when I was about four.
My nose squashes against the floor as I lay there for about
five seconds, and then I begin the routine. I do thirty pushups to wake myself,
and then I peel off the clinging, dark blue sheet and toss it back onto my
mattress. The clatter of my little brother getting ready for school begins,
except he’s about an hour late. I’m going to have to drive the twerp to school
again.
My once precisely spiked hair is now sticking up at all
different angles, making me look like a porcupine. I catch sight of this phenomenon
in my bedroom mirror adorned with pictures of my rides. Bikes, not women. At
least, most of them are bikes. I smile at one in particular before I run my
fingers through my hair to get it into organized disarray.
It’s a picture of a blond I dated six months ago who ripped
out my heart and stomped all over it. I like to remind myself of women like her
every morning, that way I’m leery of them when they come along again. Drop dead
gorgeous and a man eater, that’s what she was.
My stomach growls, and I forget about my hair. Just before I
waltz out the door in my boxers I grab a pair of jeans from the back of a
chair, I’m pretty sure they’re clean. I hop into them as I make my way down the
hall. Then the alarm clock goes off again, and I have to turn around and
actually shut it off instead of putting it into snooze.
The sound of the door slamming downstairs tells me that my
little brother chose to walk this morning rather than ride in my car. It’s not
a bad car; it’s just flashy and embarrasses his delicate sensibilities.
Personally, I like the painting of the alien chick on the hood. I got the car
that way, and I won’t change it. I’ve kicked around a few names like Lola for
the alien on the hood, but I haven’t decided yet.
The coffee pot is empty when I get downstairs, and there’s a
note on the fridge that states we’re completely out, so I’ll have to take my
sorry ass out to the grocery store to get some. My father tends to call me a
sorry ass every chance he gets, considering I now work at an animal shelter. I
just got the job yesterday as the resident vet technician.
Today will be my first day, starting at two this afternoon.
And I don’t even have a cup of coffee. The clock on the stove tells me it’s
nine fifteen in the morning. I try to stifle my yawn with a fist and end up
searching for anything with caffeine in the house. I find an old tea bag in one
of the cupboards, but it looks and smells weird, so that’s out of the question.
Frustrated, I stomp back up the wooden steps to the second
level and down the hall to my room. My father’s at work having left at seven
this morning as he does every morning. I grab another pair of pants from the
dresser and a clean t-shirt. My morning shower is cold and quick, considering I
need something to wake me up before I go driving around town.
By the time I’m finished, my flesh is covered in little
goose bumps, and my teeth are chattering, but I feel more alert. I manage to
brush my teeth without biting off my tongue and pull on my clothes. My hair is
an entirely different story. I was instructed that professional attire was
required, but my hair has always been put up into spikes before I go out.
I manage to get it to slick back with a few strands
escaping. The sides are buzzed short so that I can put the middle up into a
Mohawk when I’m feeling especially rowdy. But today it’ll just have to be
slicked back. Breathing a sigh of resignation, I finish dressing and grab my
socks and sneakers from my room. I pull them on before I get to the front door,
hopping all the way.
My keys are hanging by the door. I grab them off the hook
and shove the twenty tacked to the wall by the door, shoving it into my pocket.
The word coffee is written on the margin in big, black letters. Leave it to my
father to make it awkward for me even when he’s not around. The man can be a
nag sometimes.
The beautiful Camaro sits alongside the curb. It’s nicely
painted, except for that raucous hood. The green alien chick with a blue bikini
on and bright red lips smiles cheerily at me, and I rap the hood once as I pass
as a good morning. When I start the car, it purrs nicely. My college fund went
towards this vehicle.
I was never the type for college in the first place. It’s bad
enough I had to go to school for six months to obtain my tech license, an entire
year early. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
We live in a cul-de-sac. Dad’s worked his entire life to
provide for me and my brother as a trucker, delivering gasoline to gas
stations. My mother passed when I was two, leaving him to fumble around for
several years before he got himself together and managed to raise us proper. I
smile at the thought of the word proper, shoving the shifter into first gear
and roaring down the street.
I’m sure my mother wouldn’t have appreciated her son waking
up every other lazy neighbor who might still be sleeping. Or interrupting the
ones who are trying to get a piece behind their spouse’s backs. I’ve seen
plenty of that going around lately. I wave to one of the adulterers, Mr. Yesim.
He’s been pursuing Mrs. Hinkle for months now.
The drive to the store is pretty uneventful other than that.
Perhaps a few races here and there that amount to nothing when it’s crappy
little ricers trying to beat a pristine vehicle with some actual pep. I change
the oil in this car like clockwork and constantly check the tire pressure.
Routine maintenance is key in keeping a vehicle running.
