A/N: M rated language in this chapter.
For a person that's borderline poor, I sure do have a lot of clothes. I'm not saying that all poor people don't have clothes because that's a horrible generalization to make, I'm just saying that I'm pretty poor but for a poor person, I have the wardrobe variety of someone that has fifty closets in their room. Granted I'm stick skinny and haven't gained any weight since senior year of high school so all my clothes are the same clothes I've had since I was a seventeen year old kid, but still. I file through my basket of clothes in search of something to wear. I'm not even going to attempt to try and go back to sleep because I know my efforts would be fruitless. I was lucky enough to have fallen asleep last night in the first place, I don't really need to chance it and push it by trying to go back to sleep. Instead, I'm just going to put on some clothes and walk down to the Subway so I can get a five dollar foot long. Maybe I'll come back home and clean up my house. I'm always pining for a day off but the thing is; when I actually get my days off, I never know what to do with them. I don't have friends that I can call up and spend some time with. I don't have anything else I could possibly be doing. I have work and that's it.
I grab a pair of blue jean shorts and a black t-shirt with Princeton's football team logo on it. I stand up and walk to my bathroom so I can brush my teeth and do something with the rat's nest I call hair. Before I do any of that though, I pull down my sweatpants and my underwear and sit on the toilet so I can pee. I'm still pretty shocked at how nice he was to me today. I mean seriously, I was so embarrassed that he came to the door and saw me like that. I had just woken up so my hair was all over the place, I never sleep in pants so I was in nothing but my undies, I had sleep in my eyes and I was just a little bit cranky. I think I'd be a little less embarrassed if somebody that I didn't know came to the door and saw me in rare form like that but to make matters worse, I knew him and he's my LANDLORD and my BOSS. And as if him seeing me like that wasn't horrible enough, my house is a mess. I have dirty clothes strung from one end of the place to the other and he had my thong in his hands. Geez. I reach over and unroll some toilet paper. I wad up the toilet paper and shove my hand between my legs to wipe.
On the up side, he was nice. I still saw a hint of a douchebag in him somewhere; like when he was looking around my house and very clearly judging the way I live. Or when he felt the need to twirl my panties around on his fingertip and make fun of me for how small they were. I'm beginning to think that he'll never change. He'll probably always be a selfish, arrogant jerk. But positively, I found some good in him today. He offered to buy me lunch and if that's not good, I don't know what is. After I wipe myself, I glance down at the toilet paper before I toss it into the bowl and bang my head back against the wall when I see the pink-colored tinge on the toilet paper. I just woke up a little while ago and this day already sucks. I take the moment to feel sorry for myself but end up leaning over to grab the box of tampons I keep under my bathroom sink. I think my body is nice to me in some aspects. I don't get my period every month like I should and I'm usually too broke to afford buying tampons every month so it works out pretty well. I can usually go, on average, about four months before I have to buy a new box. I don't get my period often enough to go through a box. So imagine my surprise when I reach in the box I have under my bathroom sink and only pull out one. The box is empty now and I only have just this one tampon. Fantastic. Looks like I'm walking to the drugstore as well. I stuck my teeth and pop open the wrapper anyway.
My period isn't irregular because I'm on birth control, by the way. I'm actually not on birth control. I just really don't ever feel the need to get on birth control because I don't have sex enough to need it. I'm not a virgin. I lost my virginity when I was seventeen to one of my friends. His name was Kyle and he was really nice and I was over his house working on my senior exit packet with him. We started kissing and one thing led to another and it just happened. It was awkward after that because we tried to date and it didn't work. We were better off as friends. So anyway, the first time I had sex was when I was seventeen and really, I didn't like it. It wasn't all that it cracked up to be. Anyway, I'm not really a sex-crazed maniac and I don't have enough sex to need to be on birth control. Every time I had sex with a guy he was nice enough to provide the condom and it worked out. Come to think of it, I haven't had sex in like…seven months. It's been a while and I don't know, maybe I'm a freak of nature because I don't ever crave it. You know some girls get horny and they're like "oh my god I need sex" but that's not me. Don't get me wrong, though. I enjoy good sex and I like it and when I get in the mood for it, I want to have it. But I don't need it.
After I do my business with my tampon and stuff, I pull my pants up, flush the toilet and wash my hands at the sink. My body is nice to me because my periods are never really all that heavy either. After I wash my hands, I grab my brush and start doing something with my hair. My hair is so thick and long that I actually hate it. It comes to the middle of my back and it's so thick that one ponytail holder doesn't pin it back, I need two. I always wanted to cut my hair short, you know? I always wanted to get it cut into like a super cute bob cut or something but first of all, I don't really think that I'd look right with short hair because my face my kind of chubby. Second of all, I could never cut it back when I was younger because my mom really loved my hair. She would always do it up real pretty for me before school. I could never cut it when I was younger so I don't think I can bring myself to cut it now that I'm older either. I just throw my hair up in a random ponytail and start brushing my teeth. I spit out my mouthful of toothpaste and shut off the faucet.
I've been really thinking about Matt lately. Not in the way that makes me all googly-eyed and crazy and I feel like my heart's going to skip a beat, but in the "I kind of regret not giving you a chance" kind of way. I take off my pants and my shirt and grab the clothes I set out for myself to wear. I'm a strong believer in fate. I believe that there is such a thing as fate but it only takes you so far. I want to get married and have children someday and I can't help but think that I might be making a mistake. What if Matt's the one for me and I won't even give him the time of day? There has to be a reason why fate would make me work with him. Why fate would bring me to him and make him have a crush on me and make him ask me out. There has to be a reason, right? What if I'm missing my potential husband and father of my children? I don't know, maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic but I swear to it, I've been thinking about him a lot lately. I button up my shorts and zip them up as well. I throw my t-shirt on over my bra and pull my ponytail through the head hole. I'm not in love with Matt or anything. But I can't help but think that I'm not even giving him a chance and he could potentially be my husband someday.
I slide my feet into my flip flops and lift up my mattress. I take my wallet from under the mattress and grab my cell phone and turn off the lights in my apartment. I imagine the people to fix my ceiling will be here in about an hour or so. I'll leave my door open just in case they come before I get back. I shut my door behind myself and lightly jog down the steps that lead up to my apartment. A white truck is parked outside the store. Must be the maintenance men. I turn the corner and start walking back towards the Subway. I'll go to Subway first then I'll go to the drugstore. …Or should I go to the drugstore first? I should probably go to the drugstore first. I'll go to the drugstore first so I can sit down and eat at Subway. As I walk down the street to the nearest drugstore, I just look around.
It's a beautiful day outside, actually. It's hot out here but there's a slight breeze in the air which makes it bearable. It's really so nice out today. You know, Iowa's beautiful. It's not like Florida or California where there's ocean side beaches and stuff like that but Iowa isn't so bad. The buildings are old but they're so beautiful when you really look at them. There are bright green trees everywhere and people are so friendly, especially in Sioux City. I think it's nice how everybody knows everybody here in Sioux City. It's like one big family. It's a lot different from back in Princeton, New Jersey. Like back in Princeton, everything is part of the city. Everything is part of a big, giant city. No matter where you walk, you have some kind of store. Sioux City is one big metropolitan area but there are cleared out spaces and people actually have yards and farms here. Children can actually run down the streets here in Sioux City and play around on the sidewalks with sidewalk chalk. In Princeton, children couldn't go anywhere without their parents because they'd risk getting hit by a car or something. Princeton is for single people that love the city life. Sioux City is more family-oriented and I like it. I grab ahold of the handle and pull the door open. I also like how everything is family owned too. Small businesses line the streets of Sioux City and I really like that as well.
I saunter into the small store and go immediately back to the personals section. I look around at the cheapest box of tampons I can find. I grab a box of no brands for $2.00. I also need some soap. So I walk down the aisle a little bit and grab a cheap box of bar soap. I don't need anything else but tampons and soap so I'm done in here. I walk over to the checkout lady and she's not waiting on any people ahead of me. I put my tampons and my soap down on the counter and look around while she starts ringing my stuff up. She's kind of slow because she's sort of old so I just look around and don't even rush it. She's fumbling around with a bag to bag my things for me. I just take a look at the newspaper. I squint my eyes to read the headline. Local Author to Draw Inspiration From Ten Year Old Murder Case. I pick up the newspaper and put it on the counter along with my stuff. I wonder…
"You got lucky… newspaper's been selling like crazy today. Just got a fresh batch in about ten minutes ago." She hands me my bag and I hand her a ten dollar bill from my wallet.
"...What's the story here?" I ask her, referring to the headline story in the newspaper. It can't be a coincidence, can it? The subject of this newspaper article has to be him, right? I mean how many authors can there be? Please tell me this isn't a coincidence. "Do you know?"
"Hot shot author decided to make a book about this molestation case. The thing is…the guy writes romance books." She's making me change for my ten dollars. This definitely isn't a coincidence. It has to be him. How many authors in Sioux City write romance books? It's him! "Pissed a lot of people off around here. I'd say they're gonna find out who the guy is within the next week and it's not gonna be good for him." She hands me my change.
"Thanks." I gather up my bag and my newspaper and leave out of the store. This definitely isn't a coincidence. This is definitely him. I can't wait to read this. Maybe they'll have some insight as to what his pseudonym is. Outside the store, I find a bench and sit down on it. I open up the newspaper and start reading the extended version of the front page article. I wonder why everybody's so mad at him if this is really the case. I wonder if that's true. What she said about them finding out who he is and it not being good for him. I think I might've just found a piece of the puzzle…
X X X
I walk along down the aisle, tracing the metal lining of the shelf with my finger. This is probably taking longer than it should take because I'm not too keen on searching things with computers and card catalogs. I don't know how to look something up by its Dewey number and I don't know what all the numbers mean when you punch it in the computer. So it's taking a while but at least I'm going to get it. It might take a while longer but at least I'm going to end up with it in the end, as long as I look. E…Et…Eu…Ev. Bingo. I stop walking when I get to the right section and stand there to look around. Did you know it costs $4.50 for a library card? I might be stupid to have not had known that, but I swear I didn't know. I thought library cards were free. I've been to the library many of times before and nobody ever told me that library cards cost any amount of money. Really, they make you pay to read a book? I don't know, maybe I'm just surprised because all the times I've been to the library, things were free. I used to spend time in my high school's library and it was free to check books out there. Then I'd spend time in Princeton's library and that was free also, as long as you were a student there. Apparently I've been misled because I was a little bit shocked when I walked in here and asked the librarian to point me in the direction of the fiction section and she asked me if I was interested in purchasing a library card.
I have five bucks to spare but I'm not willing to waste five bucks on a library card when I could be spending it on other things, so looks like I'm going to have to revert to my old ways of snatching the book. I'm good at stealing things. I realize that being a good thief isn't exactly one of the best qualities a person could have, but I'm serious. I'm freakishly good at snatching things from stores. It's all about deflecting the attention from yourself. Most people make the mistake of looking around when they swipe something, to make sure that nobody of authority is around to see. But that's the biggest mistake because when you look around like that, you just draw attention to yourself. You just have to take it off the shelf and walk away like it was nothing, because then anybody that is watching you that could get you in trouble just ends up thinking that you're taking whatever you just snatched back to the shopping cart. You have to make it look like your mom sent you to pick it up. And when you get around the corner or something, then you hide it under your coat or whatever.
I promised myself when I got out of high school that I'd stop stealing things and so I did. I told myself I wouldn't steal again but here I am, about to steal a book from a library. I rationalize with myself though. It's not so bad that I'm about to steal it because I'm going to bring it back when I'm done with it, I promise. I'm a thief but at least I'm an honest thief. I never really got caught stealing by anyone like the cops but my mom did catch me once. She made me go back into the store and feed the cashier a bullcrap lie about how I "accidentally" put it in my pocket. I was no more than eleven years old, scared out of my wits that the cashier would still be mad even though I said it was an accident. My mom was standing right behind me and she made sure nothing was going to happen but I was still scared out of my mind. It was only a dollar candy bar that I snatched. Anyway, my mom made me give it back but she turned around and bought me one anyway. She told me that if I wanted something, all I had to do was ask. I told her I was sorry and reveled in the fact that she bought me the candy bar that I went through all the trouble of stealing.
We weren't rich and we surely weren't wealthy, but in a sense, my foster parents really spoiled me. Until I was twelve, I got away with murder with Karen and Bill. They would always attribute my acting up to the fact that I was still adjusting. Every time I'd have a temper tantrum, they'd take me to my bedroom to cool down but it wasn't my fault because I was adjusting. If I'd say a swear word, they'd reprimand me for it but they wouldn't yell at me too horribly because I was adjusting. They gave me two years of the "adjusting" excuse before they started grounding me, yelling at me and taking my toys away. They spoiled the heck out of me though. I'd bring home a good report card and they'd take me out to eat. I'd do the dishes without them having to ask and I'd get ice cream. All my other foster homes, they didn't give a crap if I made straight As and they expected me to do the dishes after dinner. But with my mom and my dad, they just never expected anything from me and my good behavior got me an allowance and so much praise from them. They weren't the greatest, but I couldn't have picked a better couple to have adopted me. I really do thank the high heavens every day to have stumbled upon those people.
Evans…found it! I smile and silently congratulate myself with a brief little celebration dance. I've been trying to find his work for months now and I'm finally victorious! Still smiling like a child in a candy store, I look around at all the possibilities I have to pick up. Which one do I read first? Which one looks the most promising? I stand up on the balls of my feet and grab a book with a purple covering. The cover has a purple sunset on it with a house and a car. The Hour by Michael A. Evans. This looks like it might be good. I turn the book over to read the synopsis on the back. If someone you gave your heart to dies, did they take your heart with them when they passed? That is the question 17-year old Jacob Lancaster has been asking himself ever since his girlfriend of 2 years, Kara, was shot and killed in the wake of a crazed gunman when he open-fired in their school, killing a total of 49 victims. When Jacob meets Aunt Pete, a psychic known as the local witch, she grants him the power of time travel. Jacob then travels back in time to the fateful day of the gunman's deadly rampage, and what he finds when he tries to prevent it from happening is potentially more fatal than he could have ever imagined… This one looks and sounds good. I think I'll start with this one.
I look around to make sure the librarian isn't around to see me do this. When I see that she's not around, I put the book down on the table and gather up my bags of the things I bought at the drugstore before I came here. I still have to go buy myself something to eat. I read the newspaper article about how the citizens of Sioux City are publicly outraged over this new book that's coming out that's supposed to depict the murder and of a child that died within the community and at the very end of the article, they let me in on exactly who this author is. I got excited when they revealed his name and I almost ran here to the library so I didn't grab my food yet. I shove the book in the bag with my soap, newspaper and tampons and start walking towards the exit. The librarian is nowhere to be found and I'd be lying if I said that I cared. I'm just excited to go home and start reading. The synopsis for The Hour sounds really good, I'm beginning to wonder if he really is Michael Evans. Could I be wrong? The newspaper article could very well be about another undercover author that lives in Sioux City, right? But the pieces just add up way too perfectly for Michael Evans to not be him. He has to be Michael Evans…he has to be.
I push the door open and walk back outside into the heat of the day. I think this is all starting to click for me. I'm starting to put pieces of his puzzle together. Nobody knows that Michael Evans is actually a guy named Alex that owns a hardware store. Nobody in this world knows that Michael Evans' name isn't even close to being Michael. Somehow, he's managed to keep that a secret from the public. But with all these newspaper articles and all this media attention, the people of Sioux City are bound to figure out that he's Michael Evans right? Maybe he kept his identity a secret because of things like this. He doesn't want anybody to know and now people do know. I feel like he should be freaking out over the fact that his secret's out and he doesn't seem to be freaking out. He came over to my house and he was as cool as a cucumber. So maybe Michael Evans isn't him. But it has to be. It makes all too much sense…
Alex's Point of View.
"Yeah man, thanks for your work." I reach in my back pocket and pull out my wallet. I don't usually carry cash on me but I went to the ATM specifically to get money out to pay the guy. I unzip the part of my wallet where I keep my bills and take out all the twenties I have in there. Just to be thorough, I count through the twenties again to make sure I have the right amount that I'm paying him. Five hundred, five twenty, five forty, five sixty, five eighty, six hundred. I wad up the money and hand it to him. "Three hundred for your labor in the store, three hundred for your labor in the apartment." The guy takes it from me and puts it in the breast pocket of his construction vest. He did a nice job on the store by the way. He replaced a couple tiles on the ceiling, scraped out some mold towards the back and replaced the tile on the floor, fixed up the shelves and took measurements to install carpet in the front of the store next week. He patched up the hole in what's-her-face's ceiling and even fixed the lights in the shop as well. He did really good work and he's cheap. I'd pay him however much he asked for but he only asked for $600.
"No problem." The guy puts his fist to his mouth and coughs. His cough is rough and hardened just like the way he looks. His voice is scratchy and phlegmy like he has something in his throat. After I put my wallet back in my pocket, I grab my phone as well. I'm trying not to sweat everything that's going around in the media about me, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not just a little bit worried. I've been on high alert ever since I heard those women talking in the grocery store today. I've been thinking about California more and more lately… I clear my thoughts and listen again to what the guy is saying. "I laid down a fresh layer of paint on the walls in the store. It gotta dry so I wouldn't go in there too tough. The tile up in the apartment should hold for another few years." He gives me the full information on what he did. "Thanks for hirin' me."
"Yeah, no problem." I mumble again. I slip my phone back in my pocket and walk past the guy while he starts picking up his stuff to pack up and leave. I open the door to the store and look around at his work. I've already looked at the stuff he repaired in the store and it's a nice job but I just didn't feel like standing outside anymore. I need a minute to gather my thoughts. I really told myself that I wasn't going to stress so much over this but I am. I'm stressing just a little bit. I take a seat on the counter of the register and get back on my phone again. The threats haven't ceased nor have they slowed up. On average, I'm getting about 2,000 emails in a half hour today. I already pulled the proposal and I'm just waiting for Jerry to finish up the statement to release it. Hopefully after the statement gets released, this will all slow down.
My mind's been two-tracked all day. Up until about two hours ago, it was one-tracked but a certain situation turned it into two-tracked. All morning, I was just thinking about this book and how I have to pull something I'm passionate about. How everything I worked for is getting flushed down the drain because whether I like it or not, these people are going to find out who I am. My mind's been so full of books, murders, molestation cases, deadlines, newspaper articles, hateful emails… my mind feels like it's on full overload. It's been relentless, too. No matter what I did, my mind kept going back to the fact that all my work is being shoved down the drain. …One thing, however, did take it away. For ten minutes, while I was talking to her, I forgot all about it. I don't remember her name again, but I do know that talking to her helped for a little bit. She's not really all that important to me because I seriously can't remember her name, I just think it was nice to have some human contact for a minute there. One of these days, I'm going to commit her name to memory. Someday I'll remember her name but I don't think it's that big of a deal that I don't know it. It's not like me and her are friends or anything, she just rents off me and she works for me.
I think the reason I don't remember her name even though she just told me what it was about two or so hours ago is because I really wasn't paying much attention to her while she spoke. She's naggy, annoying, a crybaby and slightly clueless but I will admit that she's hot. I don't look at her face much when I'm dealing with her so really, I don't know if I can say that she's beautiful or whatever but I do know that she has a nice body. She's small but her ass is amazing, even in the sweatpants she was wearing. I didn't get to see it in her underwear and I would've loved to but I didn't. I saw it in those sweatpants though and it was so nice. God, her body is just so… She wasn't wearing a bra either. I could tell by the way her boobs looked in her t-shirt that she was braless. Her boobs are nice as hell too, for her size. She's thin so I'd expect her to be flat-chested but she's not. They're nice and big and they're perky. And her legs…dear god, her legs. She's not very tall but for the little bit of height she does have, her legs are so long. She has the kind of legs that I would bend over my shoulders or hold up while I'm going to work with her. The things I would do to that girl are so dirty and impure it should be illegal. I'd….for lack of better word, I'd fuck her for hours in every position she'd take it.
I bet she has a boyfriend. No girl looks like THAT and is single. I know if it were me, I'd make her mine just so I could spend all day in a bed with her. She has to have a boyfriend. When she answered the door in her underwear, I got so hard so quick. But anyway, I was expecting her to be in there with her boyfriend, getting pounded. But she wasn't. She was sleeping and she was alone. So maybe she doesn't have a boyfriend. I don't really care if she does or if she doesn't because either way, whether she's taken or not, if I get the opportunity to fuck that girl, I'm taking it. I don't know her name and the only reason I don't is because I was too busy picturing her naked and screaming my name to listen to her when she told me. I even said her name and I still don't know it. I think she said it was Zoey but that's just a guess. She knows my name and that's all that matters. I don't care about anything she says. She could have the best personality in the world and I really wouldn't care because all I'm interested in is getting her alone for a couple hours.
Actually, if she does have a boyfriend, why doesn't he make sure his girl is eating? I had to offer to buy his girl lunch because her fridge was bare as a desert. Something about that girl is definitely different though because normally, if I saw someone's fridge as bare as hers was, I don't think I'd think twice about just leaving. But for some reason, I felt like I should've given her something to eat and I was a little bit upset when she declined. I sigh and look around the store again. I should probably head home, shouldn't I? I lock my phone up and stick it back in my pocket and get up from the counter I was sitting on. Anyway, that's been the deal with my mind for today. It's been fixated on the fact that everything is crumbling down around me and the only thing that took it away from those thoughts was that girl. There's definitely something about that girl. I can't put my finger on it, but there's definitely something about her. And I don't think it's her smoking hot body.
X X X
When I park my car in my garage, I get out and lock it. I'm getting tired of waiting for Jerry to call me and tell me he released this statement. He needs to get it done and over already. I open the door in my garage that leads inside my house and take my shoes off at the door. I've actually been thinking about getting a dog. I'd never freely admit that I'm a bit lonely, but it really wouldn't be nice to come home to someone every day. I come home to an empty house every day of my life and that's kind of depressing. I toss my keys on the kitchen counter and trudge through my house to get to the front door so I can check the mail. I don't think a dog would be so bad. I'd get a big one, like a German shepherd or a Labrador retriever. At least a dog would be happy to see me every day. I unlock my front door and pull it open. I step out onto my porch to check my mailbox and step on something hard, in my bare, sock-covered feet. I step back off the hard thing and look down at what it is. It's a small, cube-shaped, red brick. I bend down and scoop it up.
Now that I bend down and get a closer look at the ground, I find that there's shattered glass on my porch along with the brick. I turn my head just a bit and see that the source of the shattered glass is the little glass window next to my front door. It's just a small window, not very big and not uncommon that I didn't notice it right away. You've gotta be kidding me. I palm the brick in my hand, shaking my head and turning back around to go back in my house. But when I palm the brick, I hear the sound of paper crinkling. I stop walking immediately and look down. There's a paper attached to the brick. I pull the paper—which is attached to the brick by a rubber band—and unfold it to read it. MOLESTATION IS NOT ROMANCE! I can't explain the feeling I get when I read that. It's like somebody just poured ice water down the collar of my shirt. They know. They know…It was quick, but they found it out.
I have to call Jerry.
A/N: I know I said the drama wouldn't really pick up until about chapter 10, but I see that you guys are getting a bit antsy about the Jolex interaction and I'm actually ahead of where I thought I'd be in terms of establishing who they are as characters, so expect the drama to start happening towards the end of next chapter. Chapter 9 will be basically all drama and you'll understand by the end of chapter 9 exactly where I'm taking this story.
Something has to bring Alex and Jo together, right?
