A/N: hey there guys, this is my first Chicago fic, so please bear with me, this might be pretty bad at first. But I hope you enjoy!
Chapter one: whirlwind
I met Bernie Reynolds years ago, at one of those sleazy jazz joints where you can hardly see the stage through the clouds of smoke. I was standing at the bar with drink in hand, my heeled foot tapping against the scummy floor, beating out my life in the collected grime. He had sidled up to me, his eyes had that soft, bright, tipsy look. His voice was husky and low "hey, baby." He had said. "what's say you and me get to know each other better, eh?" I had looked at him, with my foot still banging against the floor, and wondered what my life had come to. Working in a grungy restaurant all day as a waitress, and then coming home to an empty apartment every night. My life was full of disappointments and empty regrets.
I went home with Bernie that night. I guess you could call it desperation, you could call it a lot of things. It wasn't love, it wasn't even lust. Somehow I felt like my life was draining slowly away through a hole in the floor, and I couldn't do anything about it. Maybe I felt like Bernie was part of the answer. But it turns out that he wasn't part of the answer. He wasn't really much of anything, honestly. It had started out as a one night romance, now somehow he was now taking up space in my apartment.
The only remarkable thing about Bernie was his fixation for chewing gum. How anyone could like gum so much is beyond me. He went to work down at Caseley's furniture while I went to work at the restaurant. He was always home before me, sitting on the couch, with a beer, chewing away. Around this time, something in me just snapped; just snapped off and started rattling around. Bernie was like an ugly piece of furniture that I couldn't get rid of. Instead of answering my problems, he had become a part of them. We would sit in silence every night, with the television fuzzing and crackling away, and the only thing that I could seem to hear was the sickening sound of Bernie chewing his gum, popping it, popping, popping. POPPING. Until I thought I would explode, or implode, or both.
It was a drizzly Tuesday, with the rain crawling sluggishly through the gutters. The cobbled roads were wet, and I held my coat over my head as I hurried under the rain. I was crossing the street, trying not to splash myself, when my heel caught in between two cobbles and went skittering down the street. I hopped and hobbled over the rain-slicked street to get my shoe. And had to leap out of the way of a cab to avoid getting run over. By now, my grip on my coat had slipped, and my carefully permed hair was getting drenched. I swiped strands of hair out of my eyes and high tailed it the rest of the way to the restaurant.
When I had reached the restaurant and was serving drinks to a table of hairy middle-aged, men in suits, one of them reached behind me and grabbed my butt. I dropped the pot of coffee all over his lap. I should have been used to it by now, but he had caught me by surprise. As a result, I got fired, 'cause it turns out that the guy was pretty important—worked in a high position in the city.
So I tramp home, my right shoe still soggy from this morning, my hair frazzled, and my last paycheck in my hand. I'm just fuming. And I put my key in the lock, I jiggle it around in the stubborn door, my anger mounting in my chest, like an impending lava eruption. I dragged into the living room, and saw Bernie in residence on the couch, his jaw working on his gum, pop pop POP.
I just lost it. That part of me that had broken loose a few weeks ago, just got lodged in the wrong place. I screamed at Bernie, I just completely lost myself in the red heat of my anger. My head swiveled around the room, and they rested on the sleek shot-gun that was hanging on the wall. I strode over to the wall and cocked the gun at Bernie. I was screaming and screaming and screaming and Bernie was standing, his hands in the air, saying "no, no, Liz, oh please, no" and I was saying "...just a little sympathy, I don't ask for much." Screaming, screaming. Bernie was saying to calm down, but I couldn't calm down. All I could see was him, all of the targets on him, the rest of the room and house was blurry and unfocused. I pulled the trigger. Twice. Bernie crumpled to the carpet, and I followed, collapsing to the dirty floor, my cheek pressed against the gray fibers, the gun slipping from my icy fingers, my consciousness ebbing and flowing, my vision cloudy. I was sinking, falling into the dark. Falling down into myself. It was a long way down.
A/N: hey, how do you like it so far??? Read and review, and I will continue it.