Taryn

Taryn is a love story i started writing and lost the begining. it's basically about this abused girl who goes to live with her sister, it's playoff off of a book i've recently read. here's the ch 1

I wasn’t wanted here. I could feel it when she picked me up. “so you and mom had a falling out eh?” she asked as I got in the car. I stared at her. “she abused me Caroline.” I said incredulously. How could she possibly of thought this was my fault? “She dropped a whole set of world books on my arm. ON PURPOSE.” She shook her head and nodded at the cast. “You’re a klutz.” I frowned and then snapped my head to look out the window to see dad’s truck disappearing in the side mirror. He would of believed me.

 

            When we arrived at Caroline’s house her husband Blake was sitting on the front porch with a huge dog at his feet. When he saw us he waved happily like we were his wife and child instead of wife and abused sister-in-law he was stuck with. I didn’t know weather to be happy somebody didn’t mind me in their family or disgusted by his fake kindness he very well might be displaying. As I walked up the driveway the dog came charging at me full speed. I stopped in my tracks and tried braced myself for anything. But I was too late for a split second later the dog collided with my legs and I fell backwards, my cast hitting the cement hard and then my head, leaving my vision starry. The dog was licking me and Caroline came rushing up actually looking concerned. Blake was coming too. But it was somebody else who was by my side before them. I looked up to see him kneel next to me, brushing the hair out of my face. “You okay there? That was a hard fall you took. Oreo here is a rough one.” The guy asked his voice soft and calm. He had on a deep purple sweater and his hair was dark with these crazy blue eyes that were scanning my face as he slowly helped me sit up. “I think so.” I said even as my head began to spin a little and I was beginning to fall back to the cement before he caught me. Where were Caroline and Blake? I saw them standing a few feet away watching the strange guy and me. I looked back at him. “You want to stand up now?” he asked softly, cupping my elbow with one hand and the other on my back and I nodded, letting him help me up. “Who are you?” I asked. “Shiloh. the pound guy.” He said simply. “The pound guy?” I asked not entirely sure what a pound guy was. “I hunt down the stray dogs and find em new homes. Like Oreo here.” He pats the dog who knocked me over. “That big rascal was a stray?” I asked rubbing my head where I hit it on the concrete. There was a bump forming. As if it wasn’t bad enough my wrist was in a cast. “Yup he sure was.” the guy answered. When I looked at him again I found him scanning me with those blue eyes, his hand still cupping my elbow. I looked away shyly and he dropped my elbow. “Try not to get knocked over again. Brace yourself when he starts running.” He says winking at me then starting back down the sidewalk. I watched him go. What an odd guy I thought. But then again I was an odd girl.

 

When I got into their house I immediately noticed something. It smelled funny. It was a flowery smell, and I wasn’t used to it. At the house mom would always have old beers sitting around and cigarettes burning, leaving the house smelling like a bar. For a long time I thought that’s what houses were supposed to smell like. So as I walked into my sister’s foyer the smell infuriated my nostrils like crisp autumn air when you have a cold. I had to fight the urge to bring my hand to my face and plug them.  The next thing I noticed was the lack of decoration. There was a coat rack and umbrella stand next to the door, a small table with a vase of fake flowers on the side opposite of them, and a long brown rug the stretched the length of the hall. Before dad died my mom and him had been big on traveling so the walls and surfaces were all covered in souvenirs, art, and pictures in frames from their travels. I hadn’t seen one picture up in the foyer. Not one painting or piece of pottery except the vase with the fake flowers. For some reason, even though I hated the clutter at the old house, this made me very uncomfortable and had me searching for something to look at. Blake came in from outside and patted my shoulder. “Whatcha think?” he asked. In my head my answer was not much but out loud I said, “it’s nice. Very tidy.” Which was as honest as I could be. He smiled, pleased with the answer and then started to walk ahead of me to the door on the left of the stairs that ended the short foyer hall. “surely your hungry right?” he asked when I didn’t follow him. I shrugged. “I could eat.” I utter still slightly vexed with the plain hall. He smiled again, and it kind of bugged me. What was he so happy about? I was here by court order and surely couldn’t be wanted in his family by him, a man who hardly knew me.  After a second of pondering I walked down the hall and hung a left into the room that Blake had disappeared in. suddenly I was in a kitchen. A BIG kitchen. The stacked ovens, dishwasher, double door fridge like on the commercials and the huge island all these framed had me taken aback. Our kitchen was about the size of the island alone, and god help us it didn’t have but two of the appliances in here. Blake had his head stuck in the huge fridge, scanning the contents. “What do you like?” he asked looking over his shoulder. “Anything.” I stated simply and he looked at me funny. After a beat he looked back into the fridge. “we have some leftover hash from last night’s dinner if you want that, or some vegetable beef stew Caro made on Tuesday. If you really want to get crazy we could fire up the grill and broil this extra steak that’s in the freezer.” He said smiling at me again. I frowned on the inside but on the outside I gave him a fake smile. “Stew sounds fine to me.” I say and he nods taking out a neat little individual sized Tupperware of stew, popped the lid off and stuck it in the microwave. As the fridge door closed I spotted three more of these Tupperware’s of soup in there. I frowned internally again. What was wrong with one Tupperware or a cool whip container? At the old house that’s what we did. When the microwave beeped I snapped back into reality that this was my sisters world, not mine. I sat down on a bar stool at the island and he set the soup in front of me with a flourish of his hand. What a cheese ball.  Cautiously I dipped my spoon into the stew. Could stew be different here too? As I brought the spoon to my lips and sipped the stew off it I found it was the only thing just like home. There were abundance of corn kernels, carrots, green beans, and garden potatoes in it and the broth was tomato-like and flecked with strands of beef that probably was originally from a roast.  The seasoning was just right, lot of salt, little pepper. The part that really hit home was that now and then there was the pale greenness of a piece of chopped celery. It was Just how mom made it before dad died and how I made it for a quick weeklong meal. Caro must have kept the recipe. I gulped down the rest; still managing to savor the last bit of familiarity I had in this new place. After I took my last bite I brought the individual Tupperware to the sink and rinsed it out, then I stuck it in the empty dishwasher next to it. Blake watched me as I did and then said; “you know you didn’t have to do that. you could of just left it in the sink.” I shook my head no. “has to be sanitized. Kind of my rule.” He shrugged and smiled. “You’re an odd one Taryn.” I shrugged back. “It’s who I am.” With that we had an unspoken agreement. We didn’t know it yet, but that short discourse may have saved us in the long run.

Once we got out of the kitchen Blake gave me the tour. Every room astonished me and irked me more than the last. The living room had no coffee table. The coffee table to me was as important as the front door. Where else could the majority of beer bottles and ashtrays pile up without getting in my way? I had to remind myself that neither my sister nor her husband smoked and rarely drank so really there was no need for the table. But it still flustered me to no end. When we got upstairs my room was purple, which us my favorite color. It smelled of new paint and things from department stores. For some reason this new smell made me both want to cry and physically harm something. And the bathroom smelled of Lysol, a smell that I hated. I could of strangled Caro for using it in the bathroom I’d be using when she knew I hated it. There was a library/study in the house that doubled as Blake’s office. I loved to read, but I couldn’t possibly go into his office and scan his books on my own will by myself. This made me so sore I thought I could of just burned all those books I probably would never get the courage to take out of the study. I was starting to worry about my mom frequencies when I found one thing I liked. In my closet there was a small door on the left wall. “What’s that?” I asked as Blake was walking out of the room ready to move on. He came back to the closet and looked at what I was referring to. “Oh it’s like a crawl space but bigger. You can stand up in it. We haven’t used it for anything before, but I know it’s a pretty neat room, dry walled and everything.” He said shrugging which was what I was beginning to place as his signature action. I nodded studying the little door. A secret room hidden by two racks of clothes, something you had to crawl into. I liked it.

Later that night I crawled into the little room. Its walls were plain white and it had the same carpet as the closet. A single light bulb screwed into the ceiling without a fixture was the only light, and it was on a switch surprisingly. The little room had two outlets and enough room to house a card table and a couple chairs, maybe a few other things if you wanted. It seemed built to be a hideout, and that’s what I used it as from there on out. 

Reviews

[erica]

:) :P :D *_* ^_^ AMAZING!

[beautiful dreamer]

thank you this is my one finished peice. sorry my list is soooo long.

[erica]

it's ok...no problem

[Erinne S.]

Wow this just drew me in from beginning to end. Thank you for sharing this!

~Erinne

[beautiful dreamer]

Thanks! i needed some feedback :)

[InsanityWriter]

Thus is amazing! It's so interesting and well written. ^_^ Keep writing in this one!!

[beautiful dreamer]

oh thanks! i will!