Bruised

Ch. 8: Birds of a Feather

|Aya|

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The alarm on my watch goes off and I lazily press one of the buttons to shut it up. Like a zombie I slowly rise from the mattress and groggily make my way for the bathroom. Washing my face with the leftover water from last night, and brushing my teeth in the tub since the sink doesn't work.

Once that's done, I head over to one of the boxes where I stashed some of my clothes in. Changing from my baggy T-shirt into a polka dotted tank top, jeans that are a little too long for me, and my old converse shoes. Bending over I roll up the excess fabric up to my ankles, and pull out a black hoodie from one of the other boxes to slip over my tank top.

I needed to hide the bruises on my arms, and the new ones around my wrist. Helen has one hell of a grip, and with those claws of hers I never get away unscathed.

Grabbing my brush I quickly untangle the knots in my hair, and twirl it up into a bun. Checking the time on my watch I see that it's eight o'clock in the morning. I have thirty minutes till the city bus arrives.

Opening up the window, I step out onto the roof carefully. Tip toeing my way to the vine covered trellis. When a bird decides to perch it's feathery butt onto my hair bun.

"Tweety bird I really do not have time for this." I whisper to it and proceed to shake the bird out of my hair. Chirping angrily, the bird retaliates by pecking me on the head before flying off into the distance. "Wow. My morning is going fan-fucking-tastic." Note the subtle sarcasm.

With a raging headache I climb down the trellis and reach the ground in no time flat. I look at my watch again. Seven minutes have passed and it'll take me a good twenty minutes to get to the bus stop. Now to deal with the Great Wall of Cement. Seriously, what's wrong with having a plain old picket fence?

Would make sneaking out a whole lot easier. I run over to the wall and only look over my shoulder once to check the windows of the house. All the blinds are down as usual which tells me everybody's asleep and that certainly puts a spring in my step.

Leaping up onto the wall, I barely managed to grab onto the ledge and hoist myself up and over to the other side. I should've held my breath because rotten garbage and an empty stomach does not mix. On the bright side, I didn't have anything worth throwing up at the moment.

So there I am dry heaving in the alley for a good minute before waltzing out of there like nothing happened. Since it's early, nobody is there to see me make my exit out of the neighborhood and into the city streets bustling with activity.

People are walking about to get to their jobs amidst the blaring morning traffic. A Bus or two driving about here and there.

......oh crap the bus!

The familiar greenish blue vehicle is pulling in front of the stop that's just up ahead, but the problem is the intersection that comes before it. I break out into a jog, zig zagging past person after person and zoom across the crosswalk right when it signals it's ok to walk.

But the bus had already left and I'm standing there on the sidewalk panting like an idiot. And for nothing!

"Damn it. How the hell am I late?" I look at my watch again that had told me it was seven minutes past eight awhile ago...and is now showing the exact same time. Now I know why—my watch is broken.