28. A Horrible ScareA Chapter by Craig2591 Has Chrissy's life finally turned a corner? Chrissy looked impatiently out of the window as her bus crawled through the city traffic. There had been a heavy snowfall during the night and the roads were a mess. She had put her motorcycle away for the winter and now took the bus to work every morning. She smiled faintly to herself as she recalled Ian's reaction to finding the motorcycle parked in the spare room of their apartment. He'd had a conniption! She didn't understand what the big deal was. She had always stored it in her living room when she lived by herself. But he would have none of it. In the end he got permission for her to store it in a little used part of the factory where he worked and the problem was solved.
The traffic was slowing even more. As the bus inched along, Chrissy reflected on the many changes that had occurred in her life since meeting Ian. For the last several weeks there had been a subtle disquiet gnawing at her. She had tried to ignore it, but it had really begun haunting her after their trip to see Ian's daughter, Carrie, receive her civic award. After the ceremony and reception, and while Ian was getting the car, Carrie pulled Chrissy aside to speak privately with her.
“I'm really touched that you came with Dad to the award ceremony,” Carrie said, “Thanks, Chrissy.”
Chrissy looked down awkwardly. “No big deal,” she replied.
“And I'm glad you and Mom hit it off,” Carrie added.
Chrissy shrugged. “Hey, I figured any woman that can put up with your dad for eighteen years must be okay,” she smirked.
Carrie laughed. Then her smile faded and she looked a little awkward, as if she was at a loss for words, something Chrissy found a little remarkable. She finally spoke, “Chrissy, my father is an intelligent man, but sometimes he's not very smart. Does that make sense?”
“Actually, it does,” answered Chrissy.
Carrie smiled again. “Sometimes he does foolish things without thinking it through,” she continued, “and I've been worried about him ever since he and Mom split up and he moved away.”
Chrissy nodded.
Carrie looked down. “When he told me you guys were getting married, well... I'm afraid I thought he was doing something really foolish.”
Chrissy raised one eyebrow at her.
“But since I've gotten to know you, I don't feel that way anymore. You're a little... unique, to say the least, but you're also very grounded. You seem to have a lot of common sense. I feel like I don't have to worry about him as long as you're there to watch out for him.”
Chrissy was taken aback. She never expected Carrie to say anything like that. Carrie leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Take good care of him, will you?” she smiled.
The traffic was now stop-and-go. Chrissy leaned out into the aisle and looked out of the front of the bus to see what the problem was. About a block and a half ahead there were several blue, red and yellow flashing lights. An accident. Great! She would be late for work for sure. Luckily her boss, Derek, was understanding about such things. It was still annoying, though. She sighed and returned to her thoughts.
For Carrie to be so accepting of Chrissy as her father's wife was a surprise to her, especially since they were practically the same age. It had given Chrissy a lot to think about. Everything seemed to be going good in her life. And that's what caused the feeling of disquiet. It seemed that every time she had something nice, or things were going well for her, life would come along and stomp it all into the mud.
It had been that way as far back as her childhood. She remembered the time her mother had surprised her by taking her to the animal shelter and letting her pick out a puppy. Her mother had made her promise to feed it, train it and clean up after it -- a promise Chrissy eagerly made. Then, that worthless, drunken excuse of a boyfriend of her mother's let the puppy outside unsupervised. Chrissy found it lying by the side of the road as she walked home from school. Her mother offered to take her to the shelter to pick out another one, but Chrissy refused. She wasn't about to let it happen again.
She thought about how excited she had been to be going to Montreal to see her cousins for Christmas at the age of thirteen. The trip turned into the worst nightmare of her life after what her uncle did to her. She never saw her cousins again.
Then there was the expensive bicycle her mother gave her for her fourteenth Christmas that was immediately stolen.
The bus had come to a complete stop. She looked at the time on her phone. She was late alright. She wondered if Derek would let her stay late to make up the hours so that her paycheck wouldn't be short.
She reflected on her high school years when she had often been in trouble, mostly for fighting. Yet, she'd still managed to keep a good grade average. One day Ms. Hemple, her guidance counselor, called Chrissy into her office to talk to her. Chrissy figured she was in trouble again and was surprised when Ms. Hemple began talking to her about college. Chrissy had never even considered college before. She thought it was out of reach for someone like her. But Ms. Hemple told her about financial aid that was available and even the possibility of scholarships if she studied hard and stayed out of trouble. For the first time in her life Chrissy saw a possibility of a brighter future. She started dreaming of going to college and getting a good job, buying a nice house for her and her mother. Her mother could finally quit working those menial minimum-wage jobs that she had worked all her life.
Then one day as she was walking to class she came upon two boys, both of them on the football team, picking on a girl in the hallway. The girl's name was Suzee and she cried as they made fun of her weight and the purple streaks in her hair. They knocked her books to the floor and kicked them down the hall. A crowd of kids was standing around watching. Some of them were laughing, but most of them were uncomfortable with the whole scene. Yet, no one did anything about it. Chrissy seethed with rage as she watched. The two boys had already tried picking on Chrissy once, resulting in a nasty fight that got her a week of detention. As Suzee tearfully bent down to pick up a book one of the boys kicked it again and then laughed. Chrissy snapped! She grabbed a broom from a nearby janitor's cart and broke it over the nearest boy's head, sending him crashing to the floor senseless. Then she tore into the other boy like a Tasmanian devil. The much larger and stronger boy was taken completely by surprise and Chrissy got in a number of serious blows before he could put up a decent defense. By the time a teacher finally intervened both of their faces were a bloody mess.
The boys were given long after school detentions and suspended from the football team for a month. But for Chrissy, who already had a history of fighting, it was the last straw. She was expelled. So much for her dream of going to college.
Her life spiraled downhill after that, culminating in a year-long addiction to methamphetamine. The girl, Suzee, became a fast friend and stuck with her through those difficult times. It took a while, but eventually Chrissy cleaned herself up and straightened herself out. She got a decent job fixing computers, something she actually enjoyed doing. She discovered that she had an interest in photography and saved up for a nice digital SLR camera. She started feeling better about herself. Life wasn't looking quite so dark. She was even considering going back to school and getting her GED and then taking night classes at the college.
Then her mother died.
Unexpectedly. At the age of forty-two. Chrissy was devastated! The only person in her entire life that she had ever been able to truly rely on was suddenly gone. She withdrew from life after that, became a loner. Her life became nothing more than a day-to-day existence, which suited her just fine. What few friends she'd had abandoned the dour, sullen young woman she had become. Only Suzee stayed by her. Suzee could be an annoying airhead sometimes, but she was sweet and loyal.
Her bus was finally entering the intersection where the accident was. She looked out the window and saw that a snowplow had rammed into the side of a large panel-truck. A heavy-duty tow-truck was just hooking up to the snowplow to pull it away. A number of fire-fighters were standing nearby with various tools and seemed anxious for the snowplow to be pulled away. Chrissy wondered why. It didn't look bad enough for any injuries to the drivers of either vehicle. Maybe now the bus would start moving again. She sat back and returned to her thoughts.
For several years she had lived the life of a loner, building a wall around herself and not allowing anyone to come close. There was no joy in such a life, but more importantly, there was no pain. Just a welcome numbness.
Then she met Ian. From the first time she saw him she felt that he was special. In no time at all he had melted the wall of protective ice that she had carefully constructed around herself. In no time at all she found herself falling head-over-heals for him (the son-of-a-b***h!). Her life had been a whirlwind of change since he entered it. She had made new friends -- Chive, Meredith, and now Carrie. She had a good job with responsibilities. But most of all... she was in love for the first time in her life! Once again, her future was looking bright. She was not a superstitious person, but she just couldn't shake the feeling that it was all going to be taken away from her again, that she was somehow cursed.
As her bus finally left the intersection she took one more look back at the accident scene. Looking at it from a different angle she saw something that froze her blood. She jumped up and hurried to the front of the bus.
“Stop the bus!” she told the driver urgently, “Let me off!”
“Sorry, ma'am, you'll have to wait until the next --”
“NOW!!”
He pulled the bus over and opened the door. She hopped off and started jogging back toward the accident scene, taking care not to slip on the snow-covered sidewalk. “Oh, God! It can't be happening again!” she said aloud as she ran, “It can't!!”
She reached the accident scene just as the tow-truck was pulling the snowplow away from the panel-truck. She froze in her tracks and stared. What she had seen from the bus as it passed by the accident was that a third vehicle had been involved. A small, red car had managed to get caught between the snowplow and the panel-truck before they collided. It had been crushed beyond recognition between the two larger and heavier vehicles. As soon as the snowplow was pulled away several firefighters set upon the mangled car with crowbars and picks, trying to get inside. Another firefighter was bringing over a Jaws-of-Life machine. Chrissy's heart was in her throat. She started toward the car but a police officer blocked her way.
“Stay back, please,” he ordered sternly, “Give them room to work.” With shaking hands she pulled her phone out and punched in Ian's number.
She heard one of the firefighters say to another, “Is that your phone going off?”
To her horror the other one replied, “No, it's coming from inside the car.”
She nearly dropped her phone when she suddenly heard Ian's voice come on the line. “Make it quick, Babe. I'm real busy.”
“Ian!! Where the hell are you?!”
“I -- I'm at work. What's wrong?”
Her arms dropped to her sides and she closed her eyes and leaned against a nearby signpost, close to tears. She heard Ian's voice coming from her phone, “Chrissy? Are you there? Chrissy?”
She put the phone back up to her ear. “Yeah, I'm here,” she said, trying not to let him hear her voice waiver, “There's a bad accident... the car looked like yours... I was worried.”
“Oh. No, I'm at work. I was late because of the snow, but I'm fine.”
“Okay. I'll let you get back to work, then. See you tonight.”
“Yeah. See you.”
“Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm glad you're okay.”
“Thanks, Babe.”
Chrissy watched the firefighters for several moments as they worked to gain entry to the car. She shook her head. Someone was going to be getting a dreadful phone call that day. She was glad it wasn't her. She turned and walked to the nearest bus stop. As she waited for the next bus, she took out her phone and stared at it for a full thirty seconds before she punched Ian's number again.
“Yeah, Babe,” he answered.
“Ian... I... I...." Tell him, you fool! Tell him while you can!
“I'm really busy, Babe. Can it wait until --”
“IjustwantedtosaythatIloveyou!”
(Loooong pause) “I love you, too, Chrissy.”
“I'll see you tonight.”
“Yeah. Tonight.”
“Bye.”
She sighed heavily. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were moist. “C'mon, Chrissy! Get a grip on yourself!” she muttered under her breath. Then she glanced up at the sky. “I deserve this!” she whispered through gritted teeth, “Don't take it away from me, ya hear?!”
The next bus pulled up and she got on and continued her way to work.
© 2013 Craig2591Author's Note
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Craig2591OHAboutI am a visual artist with no formal training in creative writing. I get stories knocking around my head and sometimes I write them down. I decided to join this site to share them with other writers .. more..Writing
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