Vivian didn’t like the new shoes. They squeaked when she stopped. They squeaked when she turned. They squeaked when she was running after Jody’s van. But as she was doubled over gasping for air she thought of one brief time they loped up on Spencer Ridge past where the new high school sits. Up there they both sat and quite pleased with herself for remembering this; she stood up and walking again started.
SQUEAK.
Not towards the bluff. Not anywhere today in particular. Today the only place she wouldn’t want to be was with Jody. Of course, chasing the woman in a van down on foot was not purely representative of this. “Ugggghhh! Get her out of my head!” Vivian said gripping the side of her temples. She felt like these waves of emotion wreckage were never going to end.
Even the time that all of her friends lured her into the Krenkindale’s giant rundown RV. Once Vivian got inside the mildewy vehicle they blocked the doors. They started screaming how they did not like her anymore. That she wasn’t part of the group. This expression of expulsion and imprisonment in the same moment broke her young spirit for the day. Wheezing she thought, “Fuckers never let me grow up.” So Vivian is not one to let go of things easily. “But I forgave every one of those people,” she said to herself. She unclenched her jaw and loosed her fists.
Her powerful legs moved her up to the top of the stairs. Blue paint chips littered the doorway. The industrial floor mat’s corner was rolled under itself. Vivian righted it with her toe, and she threw open the gate to elevator shaft.