The Curiosity Shop
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							<h1 class="p-title-value"><span class="label label--rpnpurple" dir="auto">Realistic or Modern</span><span class="label-append">&nbsp;</span>The Curiosity Shop
	
	

	

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			<a href="/threads/the-curiosity-shop.378033/" class="u-concealed"><time class="u-dt" dir="auto" datetime="2017-11-27T17:07:20-0500" data-time="1511820440" data-date-string="Nov 27, 2017" data-time-string="5:07 PM" title="Nov 27, 2017 at 5:07 PM">Nov 27, 2017</time></a>
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					<div class="bbWrapper">Ruby Winscome was what many people would describe as being a ‘girl-next-door’ type. That is, if they didn’t know her at all. People tended to make presumptions because she had certain friends, kissed ‘no way!’ at ‘guess who?’s party, and kept a flask of who-knows-what tucked inside her purse. Not to mention, she literally was a girl next door. At least, she was the girl next door to me. A next door neighbour that ended up being like no other.<br>
<br>
I didn’t really know her that well at first. Though, to be fair, there was no reason for the two of us to be friends. I was a lonely junior in high school, who preferred to keep my head down and my mouth shut, and spent a lot of my time at home taking care of my mom. She’d been sick ever since I was a kid, ever since my dad left, so it was my responsibility to look after her. On the other hand, Ruby was a college student that lived at home to save on rent and though she seemed to also be the only child of a single mom, we didn’t seem to have anything in common beside that. If we ever spoke, even in passing, I couldn’t remember it happening.<br>
<br>
It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other; we just didn’t notice each other. Even if we existed in the same solar system, we were two planets caught in our own orbits. Until the day we collided.<br>
<br>
The day that changed everything started just like any other day, on planet Soren at least. Wake up, check on Mom, coax her into eating and drinking, and then be disturbed by the hammering on the door. Open the door and find a sophomore with severe glasses and a senior with a cigarette caught between his teeth. In case you’ve already forgotten, neither of these people are Ruby. They’re my ride.<br>
<br>
“Did you sleep in your clothes?” Lydia, the one with the severe glasses, raised an eyebrow.<br>
<br>
“And, suddenly, you care about these things.” I stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind me, “Did you hit your head and wake up with the ability to give a shit?”<br>
<br>
“Witty. Spend all morning thinking of that one?” She replied, dryly.<br>
<br>
“Longer than you spent picking out those hideous glasses.”<br>
<br>
She cackled, amused, “My bitch of a stepmom chose them. They’re ‘avante garde’.”<br>
<br>
Kiane lets out a quiet chuckle, before opening the door of his beat-up car so that I can clamber into the back. In September, Lydia had called shotgun for the rest of the year and that was that. I was doomed to the backseat for all eternity. But you’re probably wondering who these losers- a term I used affectionately, of course- that I hang around with are. And that’s just it. They’re losers, outcasts. So am I. We stuck together on the basis that we were people that nobody else wanted to stick with. My friends and I also had very little in common aside from our loserdom. A loner, a smoker, and a rich kid. It sounds like the start of a joke.<br>
<br>
As soon as Lydia shuts the passenger door, Kiane starts to drive. He’s been driving since he was eleven or something and has been driving me places since I kicked the ass of the guy that was picking on him in middle school. Usually, he made sure that Lydia got to school on time and that I got to school at all but that day he turned left at the end of the street. Away from the school. While this wasn't entirely unheard of for Kiane, it was unusual and it meant we were ditching. Lydia turned back to exchange looks with me because Kiane only ditched when something bad had happened. I shrugged at her.<br>
<br>
Although, we didn't know it at the time, this one turn pretty much cemented our futures.<br>
<br>
"Did something happen?" Lydia asked Kiane but he was quiet as ever.<br>
<br>
I was barely paying attention, watching out of the window and feeling my heart pound in my chest. No matter how often I skipped school, it always gave me a thrill just like it had the first time I'd done it. A feeling of rebellion, I guessed, that made my stomach do a backflip and my heart beat a little faster. It didn't matter how often I skipped school, it was always exciting. Fuck authority, right?<br>
<br>
But there was a melancholy mood in the car that I couldn't ignore. <br>
<br>
"Kiane? You good?" I interjected, leaning forward in my seat.<br>
<br>
He mumbled something under his breath that I couldn't catch. <br>
<br>
"If somebody did something, just give me the name and I'll beat the shit out of them." My hands clenched into tight fists involuntarily.<br>
<br>
Lydia gave me a dirty look,  "Don't be a twat, Soren."<br>
<br>
My hands unclenched and I sulked in the back seat, put out.<br>
<br>
We went into the city center, past where we usually hung around and bummed smokes off stoners, until Kiane pulled to a stop outside a convenience store. It was the same one he usually bought his cigarettes from so I wasn't exactly surprised. He opened the door with more force than needed and I opened the backdoor too, sliding out of the car and slamming the door behind me. Kiane didn't wait for either of us, just storming into the store and leaving us to hurry after him. He was so rarely moody that it was almost funny to watch.<br>
<br>
Any hint of a snicker disappears when I see the look on Lydia's face.<br>
<br>
"You think this is about what happened last week?" She stuck her hands in the pockets of her worn-out hoodie as we walked after him.<br>
<br>
"Probably." Some kid had set up a website to make fun of people in senior year, sort of like a mock yearbook but with offensive bullshit written under everybody's pictures. Kiane had been particularly pissed about the 'dickhead comments' under his picture. Justifiably so, Lydia and I had agreed. <br>
<br>
Kiane was a quiet, thoughtful guy but I watched him slam down two packets of cigarettes on the counter with a kind of force I had no idea he possessed. It ignited something in me, seeing him like that. Somebody had done this to him. And a familiar feeling came over me, replacing the euphoria of ditching; a feeling of anger that poured into me and filled me up from my toes to my head. It burned under my skin like acid and it made my blood boil and turn to steam. It was a feeling that had gotten me hundreds of detentions and a thousand warnings about expulsions. An angry, violent feeling that I needed to get out of me. Kiane skulked out of the store and I followed, head full of static.<br>
<br>
One look at me and Kiane recognised my anger. And the stern, cold look that had been on his face evaporated quickly as the three of us sat down on the curb by the car. It was replaced by a look of what almost seemed to be pity. That just pissed me off more. <br>
<br>
"Soren, don't." His hand touched my shoulder but I threw it off.<br>
<br>
Lydia snapped me a look, "This isn't about you. Don't make it about you."<br>
<br>
She was right and I looked at the ground, ashamed. The anger began to seep out of me, gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving me drained.<br>
<br>
The two of them started talking about the stupid website but I kept my gaze fixed on the ground, feeling frustrated but exhausted. I had always had an incredibly quick and hot temper, ever since I was little. When my dad left, it felt like my temper stopped being something I could control and started feeling a lot more like a monster that lived inside me. When it reared its head, it no longer felt like I was in control of it. Which sounds like a shitty excuse to make but its true. It felt like my anger was the one that lashed out, not me, and sometimes I couldn't reign my temper in quickly enough to stop things becoming violent. Even now, as I sat silently, I felt so angry at whoever had hurt my friend. I wanted to kick their ass for what they had done. But as I sat between my two friends, I knew now wasn't the time. Today wasn't the day. <br>
<br>
And it was as I lifted my head, as I glanced across the street, that I saw her for the first time that day.<br>
<br>
Ruby Winscome, my next door neighbour, was walking down the street. It sounds like a trivial thing to notice but Ruby was never somebody to go anywhere on foot and certainly not alone. She always seemed to be with a gaggle of girls, climbing in or out of the back of somebody's car. And if she wasn't with a group, she would be with whoever she was dating that particular week. I stared at her as she walked down the street and wondered where she was going at this time of day, alone. She was never alone. She was always with somebody else.<br>
<br>
"Isn't that the Winscome girl?" Lydia had followed my gaze, "Your neighbour?"<br>
<br>
I shrugged, "Who cares?"<br>
<br>
Wordlessly, Kiane dropped one cigarette and ground it under the heel of his boot and immediately replaced it with another one. He was also staring across the street at Ruby, nodding in agreement with one of us. <br>
<br>
As we watched, Ruby glanced back over her shoulder as if she was worried that somebody was following her. She even checked twice, sweeping her hair back behind her ear so that the morning breeze didn't blow it into her line of sight. For a second, as her gaze drifted, I wondered if she had somehow heard us talking about her. Or sensed us talking about her. Lydia, at least, always had suspicions that Ruby was a practicing witch or sorceress. But Ruby didn't seem to notice the three of us sitting on the curb across the street or didn't care. She just folded her arms across her chest and kept walking down the street.<br>
<br>
"She must be cold without a jacket at this time of year." Kiane noted.<br>
<br>
Lydia shook her head, a wicked look on her face, "She's totally up to something. Did you see how she checked nobody was following her? Twice? Where the hell could she be going that she wants to keep so secret?"<br>
<br>
Kiane shrugged at her and I scuffed one of my sneakers against the ground.<br>
<br>
"We have to follow her!" Lydia announced, abruptly. <br>
<br>
[END OF PART ONE. VOTE ON WHAT HAPPENS NEXT <a href="https://www.rpnation.com/threads/the-curiosity-shop-ooc.377734/" class="link link--internal" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rpnation.com%2Fthreads%2Fthe-curiosity-shop-ooc.377734%2F&amp;hash=e61c743e033aa29a0615a818835372f0">HERE</a>!]</div>
				
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