She'd lost the scholarship.
It wasn't a terrible surprise. She'd never gotten the hang of high school after ten years of "home schooling" by her great-grandparents, whose idea of education had quickly been smashed by the fact she knew more about any subject than they did within the first few years. It had mostly consisted of them going to the library every three days and having a used-book budget in the hundreds.
They had never taken her to the library. Or any of the bookstores. She hadn't been allowed a laptop or a phone, because she might be tempted to take pictures of herself.
It wasn't that they were bad parents. They just had... priorities. And her safety had been at the top of them, far above her happiness.
She was free of them now, but only so free. Their shadows were still over her, in the form of her complete and utter inability to function in human society. And she'd lost most of her books. She'd only been able to take one backpack with her when she ran away to show up on her mother's doorstep three years ago. But three years was a very, very long time at her age, and she'd acquired a whole new collection.
She was sour at the concept of parting with them, because the ones she had left were all ones she had at least some attachment to. But not that much, and some of them were pretty rare. If she could get enough from selling them, and land a part time job over the summer, then maybe... maybe, just maybe, there'd be hope for her to go to college yet. Not just end up a waitress for the rest of her life, like her mother. She was better than her mother; she was 18 and she'd managed not to get knocked up at all. Or anything even tangentially close to behavior that might eventually lead to a situation that could knock one up. College would just be one more insurance that she'd never be... that.
Bridget stared blankly at the very old-looking townhouse in front of her. She checked the address she'd been given, then looked at the numbers on the door. They matched.
Well... they had said he was a bit of a shut in. And his name was "LeStrange" which meant he was probably a vampire, and she was here during the day, because she had to be. He might not even answer. She almost didn't want him to; she felt out-of-place on this side of town. It was the middle of the day, but she still felt like she was being watched. The water smelled funny. Her ears were twitching under the hat that hid them.
She hated that hat, a thick, wooly thing despite the fact it was late spring. It made her head sweat and her dirty blonde hair itch. But it had to stay on. Always. Forever. She spent more on hats than any other kind of clothing, and it showed in her ratty jeans with holes in the knee, and over sized white men's undershirt she was wearing as a T. It was vaguely see-through. She didn't care, because anyone who made a pass at her only made that mistake once.
She shifted the heavy box of books in her arms and sighed. She had an engraved Dante's Inferno here. It was worth a few hundred by itself. She'd done Jason Thomas' homework for three months for it. There were other books of similar value... if this guy really was a book collector, like she'd been told...
Well. Hope sprung eternal, despite how weird and old and frankly already stinky this house was. She climbed the steps to the door and knocked, loudly. She could get louder. She could raise the dead. She might have to. His name was LeStrange for fuck's sake.
It wasn't a terrible surprise. She'd never gotten the hang of high school after ten years of "home schooling" by her great-grandparents, whose idea of education had quickly been smashed by the fact she knew more about any subject than they did within the first few years. It had mostly consisted of them going to the library every three days and having a used-book budget in the hundreds.
They had never taken her to the library. Or any of the bookstores. She hadn't been allowed a laptop or a phone, because she might be tempted to take pictures of herself.
It wasn't that they were bad parents. They just had... priorities. And her safety had been at the top of them, far above her happiness.
She was free of them now, but only so free. Their shadows were still over her, in the form of her complete and utter inability to function in human society. And she'd lost most of her books. She'd only been able to take one backpack with her when she ran away to show up on her mother's doorstep three years ago. But three years was a very, very long time at her age, and she'd acquired a whole new collection.
She was sour at the concept of parting with them, because the ones she had left were all ones she had at least some attachment to. But not that much, and some of them were pretty rare. If she could get enough from selling them, and land a part time job over the summer, then maybe... maybe, just maybe, there'd be hope for her to go to college yet. Not just end up a waitress for the rest of her life, like her mother. She was better than her mother; she was 18 and she'd managed not to get knocked up at all. Or anything even tangentially close to behavior that might eventually lead to a situation that could knock one up. College would just be one more insurance that she'd never be... that.
Bridget stared blankly at the very old-looking townhouse in front of her. She checked the address she'd been given, then looked at the numbers on the door. They matched.
Well... they had said he was a bit of a shut in. And his name was "LeStrange" which meant he was probably a vampire, and she was here during the day, because she had to be. He might not even answer. She almost didn't want him to; she felt out-of-place on this side of town. It was the middle of the day, but she still felt like she was being watched. The water smelled funny. Her ears were twitching under the hat that hid them.
She hated that hat, a thick, wooly thing despite the fact it was late spring. It made her head sweat and her dirty blonde hair itch. But it had to stay on. Always. Forever. She spent more on hats than any other kind of clothing, and it showed in her ratty jeans with holes in the knee, and over sized white men's undershirt she was wearing as a T. It was vaguely see-through. She didn't care, because anyone who made a pass at her only made that mistake once.
She shifted the heavy box of books in her arms and sighed. She had an engraved Dante's Inferno here. It was worth a few hundred by itself. She'd done Jason Thomas' homework for three months for it. There were other books of similar value... if this guy really was a book collector, like she'd been told...
Well. Hope sprung eternal, despite how weird and old and frankly already stinky this house was. She climbed the steps to the door and knocked, loudly. She could get louder. She could raise the dead. She might have to. His name was LeStrange for fuck's sake.
The following 1 user Likes SolitareLee's post: Tindome
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »
All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 06:28 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 06:29 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-23-2017, 06:53 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 07:35 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-23-2017, 07:52 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 08:25 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-23-2017, 08:33 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 09:01 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-23-2017, 09:14 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-23-2017, 09:50 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-23-2017, 10:07 PM
RE: All That Glitters - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 07:35 AM
RE: All That Glitters - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 08:11 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 08:28 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 09:02 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 09:33 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 10:02 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 10:54 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 11:04 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 11:34 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 11:47 AM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 12:50 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 01:10 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 02:25 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 02:39 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 03:28 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 03:47 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 04:25 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 04:39 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 05:03 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 05:17 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 06:18 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 06:42 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 07:07 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 07:24 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by Tindome - 03-24-2017, 08:56 PM
RE: All That Glitters [Closed] - by SolitareLee - 03-24-2017, 09:14 PM