Rory's Gone

I didn’t really know Rory but I remembered her being a quiet person, kept to herself, and seemed to want to keep it that way. But what I gathered about her from Baker was that she was kind, and often misunderstood by her shyness as being standoffish. But what I’ve learned in life is that the quiet ones tend to hold the most secrets. They go unnoticed in a crowd or group, and with this they hear everyone else’s business. So maybe she heard something she wasn’t supposed to hear. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that was that…  

However, I still find it strange how she mysterious fell into the lake. When I talked to Baker yesterday he told me she was walking funny, stumbling actually, and had to go to the hospital. I don't know but I have this strange feeling her death wasn't an accident. Maybe someone was out to get her. But who? I don't know, and I have a feeling no one ever would. I guess Rory's secrets would be buried with her.

Ferris Wheels and Moonlight Kisses

While picking up broken tree branches and parts of splintered wood, I hear about the festival, and my mind immediately goes to Hal. Maybe I should invite him to watch the Little Mermaid with me, and then explain myself? Of course, I don’t know what I would need to explain per se. We all make mistakes and surely he knows I didn’t ruin the flower on purpose. Right? UGH. I don’t know. I tend to overanalyze everything, and I think that’s part of my problem. So I decide to go to the festival alone, and if I see him I’ll say something.

Walking into the festival there are a lot more people here than I thought. The sun’s setting over the city casting a shadows of pink, orange, purple, and red hues. it’s beautiful. My eyes go straight to the ferris wheel. I’ve never ridden one and it’s on my bucket list, as dumb as that may sound. As I walk toward it I see Hal, and he’s sitting by himself, but there’s a really long line. I decide to cut in front of everyone and jump on the ride to sit next to him. Somehow no one notices and I slip past the crowd.

My heart is racing as I realized I didn’t think at all about what I would say to him before cutting the line. Now I’m sitting next to him and he looks confused, but then he flashes his white smile and my heart melts. I’m such a sucker for a beautiful smile. I realize I’ve just been staring at him dumbfounded and my mind is searching for words, anything to say, but it’s like my mouth is glued shut. We're both staring at each other and I can’t seem to speak.

I manage to blurt out, “sorry” and kiss him. It’s the only thing I could think of, but he didn’t seem to mind. Then I apologize for being so rude, and he responds, “there’s no need to apologize I realized you were stressed, and didn’t mean to use the flower as a napkin. But I wanted to tell you when I saw you the last time that when I’m with you a feel like I’m on a cloud. My mind gets fuzzy when I see you, and I can’t seem to say anything intelligent, but I promise I’m smarter than I seem.” I laughed and said that I felt the same way.

We spent the rest of the festival together, walking around and watched the Little Mermaid. When the song ‘kiss the girl’ came on he kissed me, which was pretty cheesy, but I didn’t mind. After the movie I told him about the severed rat heads I found in my freezer, and he said I might want to find another place to live, and I told him I already was looking. He then said to me that I have the worst luck out of anyone he had ever met, and I agreed.

I was craving a pork sandwich so we went to get one and then watched the lunar eclipse while lying in the grass. Hal offered to walk him home since it was past 2 am, but I told him he better get home, and that I’d be okay. He then made a joke that I might have someone waiting for me in my apartment to chop my head up like the rats in my freezer. I laughed it off, but honestly the thought hadn't crossed my mind, but now terrified me.

Serial Killers, Rats, and Food

I was woken up to the violent streak of lightning that broke across the sky lighting up my entire room, and the extremely loud crack of thunder that followed shortly after. My eyes were crusted over, bloodshot, and puffy from the hours of crying about how I’ll never be able to get my life together. I scorned the only man who's ever shown affection for me, Hal, on accident, and now I’m all alone again (naturally), wonderful. I mean who mistakes a flower for a napkin? 

A low bellow came from my stomach followed by a growl that sounded like a cat who doesn’t want you to touch it, or it’ll scratch your eyes out. I haven’t eaten in almost 24 hours now, so I guess that’s only a natural reaction. I can’t even take care of basic needs for survival, like eating, but am I surprised? Not really. I get up to walk to the kitchen and stub my toe on the coffee table. Wonderful, I’m a clust too just add that to my list of reasons not to love, or date me. The light of the fridge washes over dark the kitchen illuminating my face and I’m greeted by an empty fridge, so I check the freezer. A rat falls out of the door of the freezer and scurries over my feet. SHIT. I leap back and fall onto my back screaming bloody murder. It runs into a hole in the wall and I’m surrounded in darkness again. How the hell did a rat survive in the freezer? How long had it been in there? How did it get in there to begin with?

I open the freezer again to find it’s filled with severed rat heads. What the hell. It’s the first night of sleeping in my apartment and I realize the person before me was a serial rat killer. I’m so deeply disturbed that I throw up. The thought of the rats heads, and the awful smell of death filling the kitchen I throw up again, but I decide to clean it up later. I’m still hungry somehow. So I get ready to go to Olive Garden because who wouldn’t want to eat at a restaurant that has your name? Maybe they’ll give me free bread sticks. Searching for my umbrellas I can only find the one with a hole in it, and my rain jacket follows suit with a giant hole that looks like it was chewed in the back. That damn rat. 

I walk to Olive Garden and arrive soaking wet, order a basket of breadsticks and some cream cheese ravioli pasta. They didn’t give me the bread sticks for free, and oddly enough cooked cream cheese with ravioli is super gross. The quintessential stalker song from the 80's comes on the radio in the Olive Garden, "Every step you take. Every move you make. I'll be watching you." and my mind immediately goes to the rat heads in my freezer. While choking down my food I think about finding a new place to live, because who knows what else might be hiding in that apartment. The thought of other severed heads, of animals, or humans, who knows, makes me shudder and the song really isn't helping much. I’m exhausted from the past week, which has been a complete disaster. So, I lay my head down on the table, and before I know it I'm fast asleep. 

It's raining bird shit (though I wish it were men)

As if it wasn't established already, but I'm complete and total mess, and now this city seems to be mirroring that. Why the hell is the river rainbow colored? I mean, I get the name but whoever did this is seriously twisted. It's like as soon as I get my life together I've thrown the universe out of whack, and something else has to take my place. Apparently the toxic sludge has been oozing out of the river and contaminating the plants. So I guess it won't be long until we're all crazy, at least I'll finally fit in. For some reason I'm still thinking about Hal, we've only met once and my thoughts are already consumed by him, which I can't let happen. I refuse to let him into my head and go psycho, so I'm going to forget him, or at least that's what I'll tell myself for now. My thoughts of Hal were halted by the giant glob of bird crap that fell from the sky splattering onto my freshly washed hair and dry cleaned shirt. "You've got to be kidding me?" But then another drop falls onto my face, and another... I look up to see the dark cloud approaching, a swarm of brightly colored Parakeets. Oh holy hell, all the sudden it starts pouring bird crap everywhere. For some reason I just stand there in the midst of chaos. Everyone is screaming around me and running for cover, and yet my feet remain firmly planted on the ground. I start hysterically laughing, which quickly turns into tears as I realize I'm destined for shit luck, which must mirror my dating life, and spirals into me thinking I'll be forever alone. I snap myself out of the dark, sad, and pitiful state I'm in and process that I'm still standing in the middle of a hailstorm of bird shit, and I need to take cover. This stuff could make me horrendously sick, which would be just my luck...

I take cover in Connie’s Coffee Shop, however, I realize I'm still covered in bird crap so I go to the bathroom to clean myself up, and then decide to order a coffee. The store is packed because so many people had the same idea to take shelter in the tiny coffee shop. I can barely move. I get lost in thought again thinking about Hal as I search for somewhere to sit. I see a tiny little chair in the very front of the shop. I figure I could watch chaos continue while drinking my coffee, and start to walk over to the chair. My mind wanders back to Hal, and as I'm walking I trip over a woman's bag. My body crashes onto the floor, and coffee spills everywhere. I lay there face down. I feel the embarrassment rise onto my cheeks. I'm profusely sweating as I do in uncomfortable situations and frantically look for a napkin, anything to clean this mess up. I'm so embarrassed I can't even think straight and reach for what I thought to be someone handing me a napkin, but I'm confused when I realize I'm scrubbing the floor with a white flower. I look up to see Hal's face, his charming white smile is no longer there as a look of confusion and sadness appear. I don't know what to say, the words are stuck in my throat, as I try to form an apology. My face resembles the color of a tomato now, as I look at him. He runs out of the store crying, and I realize that I have just made a big mistake.