"Potential"
Chapter 2
Dawn glanced out the window, seeing the drab brick wall of another building. Okay, so it wasn't the most stimulating view, but she guessed that it had been set up that way to demote daydreaming. Pity, seeing that was what she longed to do at the moment. Looking back down at her paper, she realized that she really didn't want to work on her advanced calculus paper. She had lived through enough of it in high school. So, she decided to instead write down the properties of a simple truth revealing potion in the margins. Simple, but effective, like most of her spells and concoctions. Just because she wasn't working on her paper like she should didn't make her a bad student; from the moment she had stepped on campus at LeMoyne College she had worked harder than she ever had. After the little incident of her hometown being swallowed into hell, she had decided to move to New York, and found herself living in a little town called DeWitt. It was just a little quieter than a city, but not quite as lazy as the suburbs of Sunnydale; the perfect combination. Her apartment complex was a few blocks away from campus, but not an unmanageable distance to walk. And she would rather be doing that than sitting in the cold and sterile classroom.
As soon as she thought that, a bell rang through the halls and into the room. The young woman packed up her things into her rather large bag hurriedly and made her way for the door. Before she knew it, she was out of the building and breathing in the fresh spring air. Well, sort if. She learned while residing in Central New York that winter usually lasted well into what ought to be spring. After all, it was the second week of April and it had just snowed the day before. The winter had been nearly unbearable if merely for the fact that she was unaccustomed to temperatures lower than 50˚Fareinheit. One morning she had woken up with what she would have sworn were blue fingertips, and upon turning on the television she was greeted by the news that it was, in fact, 30˚ below zero. She thought that she must have been dreaming, but quickly realized she wasn't as soon as she stepped outside. She wore her coat and gloves for the rest of the day, but was forced to remove her hat.
Ever since then she had learned to dress for whatever this insane place had in store, and that meant that her new style could be summed up in one word: layers. And with most of her clothes currently residing in the underworld, she relied heavily upon the dear old Salvation Army, which she quickly learned was a common place for broke college students to go. Her entire wardrobe was either used or something she had gotten on clearance at the mall, but she had figured out that trivial things like that really didn't matter too much to her anymore. Her long hair has turned out to be more trouble than it was actually worth, so she cut and dyed it several times until she found a desired look; a cute, choppy, ear length do that was her natural chestnut. With her newfound lack of money, she found the need for a job. So she worked at store called Baby Alpaca in her local mall. The store was home to many exotic clothes, decorations, jewelry, and perfumes; she loved it. She often bought tapestries, beads, candles, and incense there. If she was lucky, she could sometimes afford some jewelry as well. The only reason that she could afford these items was because of her employee's discount, one of the perks of working at a cool store.
Even with her job, she barely scraped enough money to pay for her apartment, let alone food and clothing. And furniture. She had gone to a flea market one day, however, and found some cushions to sit on which now decorated the floor of her dining room/living room/kitchen space, it being one open area. She didn't own a TV, and couldn't have afforded cable even if she did. Numerous books lined the walls in stacks, and a single table sat in the center of the room. It was an unwanted tabletop, in actuality, that was propped up with a few castoff bricks. It was at the perfect height to eat at when sitting on the cushions. Her dishes, mainly bowls, came from her pottery class when she had extra time on her hands. She had gone to a 99 cent store and bought a single set of silverware. The room lit by candles she had gotten from work that offered her light. She couldn't pay the electricity bill, let alone afford lamps. But Dawn actually liked her apartment; she liked to think of it as bohemian, not primitive.
Stepping into her more-than-humble abode, she quickly plunked her backpack, shoes and keys next to the door after making use of the three locks; she may not live in Sunnydale anymore, but that didn't mean the end of demons and your run of the mill psychos. Falling rather ungracefully onto her pillowed floor, she picked up Wuthering Heights for probably the millionth time and settled herself in for some one-on-one timewith Brontë.
