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CHAPTER TWO PHONE CALL
Dawn came quickly with a mixture of pink and orange, and along with the sun, arose Alex Harrington. She supposed she was what some would call a morning person. She had always enjoyed the hours before the rest of the town would awaken, where she could still hear the sounds of the birds in the woods behind the house before they were drowned out by the engines of cars. Alex would sit out on the porch steps with a mug of tea and a blanket around her shoulders, her breath puffing in clouds from between chapped lips as she watched the rest of the town rise from their deep slumber. Steam, warm and billowing, rose from the star-decorated mug held securely in her hands. The heat of the mug scorched her rough and calloused fingertips, turning them a gentle, rosy red, but despite the small sting of the heat, Alex continued, to clutch the mug as if it were her lifeline. After all, red fingertips were nothing compared to the myriad of scars that decorated her body. The tea, when the mug was still filled almost to the brim, just enough so the liquid would not overspill, had scorched the tip of her tongue, still too warm, but Alex paid no mind.
The mug was halfway finished, the sides marked where the tea once sat when the front door opened and Steve, hair pointing in all directions, still in his pajamas, emerged from the warmth of the house. The house stood tall — two stories high — on the outskirts of town, just beyond the forest where Alex spent the majority of her childhood. Both Steve and Alex had been raised within the sturdy walls of the Harrington house — never home, as Alex had always made sure to clarify. No, the Harrington house would never be a home to Alex, not when the halls were often dim and the atmosphere silent; not when it always seemed to be cold, no matter how many blankets she nestled under; not when the house was almost always inexplicably, inevitably empty despite the two bright souls who occupied the bedrooms. Alex tried to think back to a time before the empty feeling she carried around in her whenever she traipsed through the halls before her parents' bedroom was more often than not empty.
"Morning, jerk," Alex hummed.
"Morning, bitch," comes Steve's response. "Move over."
Alex complied and shifted to her right, careful to keep the soft blanket around her shoulders and mug clasped in her hands. He took a seat on the stairs beside her, staring out into the vast driveway before them, thoughtfully chewing a piece of bacon. "Hey, thanks for the bacon. And the eggs."
"Yeah, of course," Alex answered with a soft smile, leaning on Steve slightly. The events of the previous night were seemingly behind them, almost as if an unspoken agreement had formed between them. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss them — mom and dad."
