new story's prologue

I sat on the couch, my legs tucked under my body, my head resting on the soft pillow. The whole world was raining. Clear drops of water plunged from the stormy gray sky, mixing with the dust as they hit the ground. Waterfalls streamed from my eyes. My mother always said that my eyes were a gray, but my father disagreed. He said they looked like smoke reaching up towards a murky sky. I liked my father’s explanation better. It always comforted me, to think that I was smoke, dancing in the clouds as a fire flickered below me. When I thought of myself like that, I was invincible. I could do anything I wanted to, go where I wanted to go. And then I am pulled back to earth, where I am just another silly little girl waiting to grow up.  Waiting to stand alone like a great oak on the top of a grassy hill, unbending to the roaring winds that cause its vibrant leaves to blow up and down, up and down. Once upon a time I was that strong. At least I thought I was. But blow by blow, I have become weak. I have become the girl curled up on her couch just crying.

The whole thing started 2 years ago. I was 13 years old and all I wanted was my fourteenth birthday. And my fifteenth. And my sixteenth. Then I wanted to jump in a car and zoom off into the distance, and never see my town again.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Anytown, USA.” My town is as close as you can get to being this phrase. Personally, I think the founders originally meant it to be called anytown and just had some really strong accents, and said Amytown. My history teacher begs to differ. 

Anyway, I pretty much live in the middle of nowhere. Well, I live in the middle of Ohio, but it’s the same thing, in a way. 

It’s funny, here in Amytown, we make a big deal about ourselves. Apparently, a famous person got lost and rode through here a hundred years ago, so now we all think we are amazing. As it turns out, most towns have been passed through by at least one famous person. We usually try to sidestep that fact, and think we’re special, that someday we’ll be big Hollywood stars, striding along a red carpet. There are a lot of liars in Amytown.

So there I was, thirteen years old, living in a tiny town, going to school every day and coming home, and most people in the world not even knowing or caring who I was.