// linda’s heavy footsteps take her up the pitted concrete of the family’s sidewalk, and the dim, flickering streetlights behind her struggle to fight a blackness of night not unlike the inside of her velvet lined pocketbook. the stray streaks of yellowed, useless light drift across her face and seep into her hair, but it doesn’t make it past the surface.
her eyes cast over the path ahead of her, taking in her typical but still somehow below average home. she’s always lived here; she’s always thought of this as the place of her family. she doesn’t know if she likes to think about her family having a place any more. home is only her bedroom door closed against realities she can procrastinate away if she tries hard enough.
she pauses on the front stoop, hand reluctantly peeled from its place in her jacket pocket, hovering over the door knob when her vision is sucked in by a new sight. there’s a glow coming from a front window covered by a heavy, but not totally opaque curtain. that means someone is awake- or someone left the light on her for her. no one would ever think about her enough to do that, she thinks dryly. she knows that mom and dad aren’t home, so it’s one of her brothers. this somehow makes her internal landscape of feelings and thoughts worse, and not better.
the door swings open into the void of her childhood, and her backpack is slung onto the floor nearby with even less care than she would typically take. she moves quietly into the living space, toeing off her shoes as soon as she hits carpet that won’t freeze her bare feet.
she had hoped to escape to her room and talk to no one at all for a long time, but as she enters the hallway, she sees a smaller outline walking through it in shadowy gloom, and recognizes the shape as that of her younger brother. shit, she thinks glumly- so much for not seeing or talking to anybody. she swallows, quickly climbing the ladder to reach for her typical, careless, aloof ease. ❛hey, kid,❜ she greets him, smirking his way in half-darkness. ❛what’re ya doing up so late? don’tcha have a curfew or something to keep?❜