My name is Emily, or Em, whatever really. My story is really a strange one, and looking back I honestly don't know what insane coincidences led me to lead the life I have led. I was born Jennifer Smith in a small town in the midwest. I have light hair and eyes and I was on the tall side for a girl, but so were most people where I lived. My town was a logging town with very little going on, it was filled with tourist traps and old rundown houses. My family had some trouble early on, my mother ran off with another man, and my dad remarried the female incarnation of satan, and he himself soon turned to alcoholism. He had a job at the mill, and my stepmom didn't do shit, so we didn't live well, but we didn't live on the street so that was something. I was beat a lot growing up, but I didn't know an different so it didn't seem all that bad to me. The first experience I remember where someone tried to help me was when I was 10 or 11 and sitting in the town bookstore reading some magazine or pamphlet. When I took my winter jacket off, my sleeve got pushed up and revealed a patchwork of bruising around my wrist. The lady running the store saw and asked me but I yelled and ran away. As far as I was concerned, grownups only caused pain.
Skipping through many years of this, I was in high school. I was a smart kid but I never saw the point to anything, so I came off as lazy and stupid. My anxiety got worse or better with my home life and I frequently skipped school to just go walk wherever the fancy took me. It was on one of those walks I met Axl. He had the same wild, angry look I saw when I looked at myself in the mirror, or that I saw in the faces of other kids like me. We were both in a gas station, and I briefly noticed his face because of the look and because he wasn't too shabby-looking regardless of his unkempt clothes and hair. I grabbed a coke and a bag of chips to buy and snagged a box of Marlboros and a beer bottle. The Marlboros were to appease StepSatan, the beer was for me. I sat down on the ground out front, a little ways from the door. My leather jacket and jeans rubbed against the wall as I slid down. I groaned, my back was killing me, my dad had gotten drunk and slammed a doorknob into my lower back and there was a huge bruise. I finally sat down and popped open my bag of chips, my blonde wavy hair falling in my face. Then a pair of clunky boots with mud on the side strolled up to me. Great. Another creeper. I thought. But then my eyes travelled up to light colored worn out jeans and a loose fitting jacket with a T-Shirt. And then to a face, a face I would never forget. It was the boy from the store with shoulder length shaggy dirty blonde hair and the eyes like mine.
"Hey there, may I sit?" he said, gesturing with his head at the ground next to me.
"Its a free country." I said, barely glancing at him. I could not deal today if he tried to come onto me. He groaned as he slid down the concrete wall, settling a comfortable distance away from me. He looked over at me, squinting slightly.
"So you sneaked some shit too?" I looked over, surprised and he laughed, holding out a bottle of vodka and about 7 or 8 chip bags. I opened my mouth to ask 'How?' But he guessed my question and gestured to his coat. "I cut one of the seams, you can hide shit in em' and no one noticed because of the poof."
"Huh, smart." I smiled.
"So whats your name?" I was still surprised he was talking to me, I was used to people leaving me alone or putting me off as just another teenage train wreck.
"Emily. Although I'm still working the details out." I smiled, glancing up at him, his face was actually rather handsome. "What about you?"
"Axl. Axl Rose. Same here actually." He laughed.
"So are you from around here? Ive not seen you around." I said, I would have remembered if I did.
"Yeah, I live uptown a bit, I used to go to church at . The community aint in great shape but I figure Ill be gone soon so it can rot in hell."
"Ah, see what I'm worried about is that I'm never gonna get my ass out of here. Im just white trash, I don't function like other people in school, when I even show up. Its just my hell on earth." I said, chugging some of my coke to hide my embarrassment.
"I had to drop out a bit ago, Beaver high. What school are you at?" He said, A confused shadow passed over his face.
"Jensen High. Its a good school, I just don't belong, you know?" I said, finishing off the coke. He pulled out his vodka.
"Yeah, I have a friend who goes there, feels the same way. Do ya know a kid named Izzy, real artsy guy? Greasy fucker but a good kid." He asked enthusiastically.
"Yeah! He is in my painting class, always wears baggy clothes."
And so we talked, and drank, and talked until we were almost passed out in front of the store and the sun was fading from the sky. We ended up talking like old friends, about family trouble and life's biggies. Eventually the owner shooed us away and we walked down the street.
"So where are you headed now?" He asked, still a bit tipsy.
"I was thinking of going home, hence the cigarettes, haven't been back there in like 2 days." I sighed, putting my hands in the pockets of my jacket, you could feel the chill of the coming fall in the air. We walked past a bar, and a closed book store.
"You got anywhere to stay?" He said, looking genuinely concerned.
"If this is an invitation to 'stay the night' I think Ill have to decline." I said, my distrust of everyone acting up.
"I'm not gonna try and fuck you if thats what you mean. I don't do that, thats for fucked up cowards." He scrunched his eyebrows together. "Its just, if you've got nowhere to go…." He trailed off, and then was struck by a thought "Wait, where have you been sleeping?"
I snorted and said "You know Hemingway park?"
"Yeah, junkie heaven. Jeez you cant sleep there! Some of those dudes are fucking dangerous!" He said, throwing up his hands. Some people walking the other way on the sidewalk moved around us.
"Well, I wasn't exactly sleeping IN the park." I said.
"What..?" Axl said, raising an eyebrow.
"I slept on the roof of one of the buildings for the past few nights, the leaves work like a blanket." I said, trying to explain.
"You cant sleep there, its not safe and you are going to get sick."
"Well, if I cant sleep there I suppose you're suggesting I stay with you?"
"Yes."
"Oh.. Ok, where is it?"
"Trailer in the Rosemont park, Izzy rents it, he gets shit from welfare cuz his dad left when he was a kid and his moms in rehab, he refused to go with a family so they just give him money. Lucky Fuck."
"Alright, fine, Its better than a roof I guess." I said, at least there was going to be someone I'd known for more than a few hours there.
We talked all the way there, it was like a 30 minute walk and ended in a shitty trailer park, but not much better than where I lived. If anything it was a bit more vibrant. We walked up to a door with 'fuck off…' written across it and peeling paint adorning the metal walls. Axl pounded on the door and shouted for Izzy to "LET US IN."
"US? WHAT THE FUCK DID I SAY ABOUT CHi-" He flung open the door and stopped dead in his tracks. "Emily?!"