Chapter Two
An excerpt from my novel I’m working on:
This couch feels cold. Why in the world would Ayisha think of everything else but not about the moment where her life could end?
Ayisha turned the heat off before she left for work at 6 am. So while it was cooler than when she left in the morning, it wasn’t that cold.
But, all her thoughts went to how cold it presumably felt.
How the condo felt cold. How the bumps rose along her arms, even with her black leather jacket still on. Ayisha looked down at her jacket, green eyes glossing over the silver metal buttons on the sleeves and arms. She bought the jacket with her first big paycheck at her job. She felt grown-up. The feeling of plunking down a few hundred dollars at an upscale designer boutique was thrilling, exciting.
But she was cold at that moment.
The gunman noticed her looking at her jacket and he looked also.
“That jacket is tight. Maybe if I can have it, I’ll let you go.” he smirked at her and the jacket.
Boom.
Although this whole ordeal left Ayisha thinking of every single thought except her life, the thought of her losing the jacket was enough. It was her first big purchase. It was feeling like a grown-up and not the youngest child in the family. It was a sense of pride, of independence. The feeling that she can do what she wanted without any repercussions.
No. she needed this jacket. It was her lifeline.
“Um, no,” Ayisha said, looking up at the gunman.
“What?!”
Deep breath. “This is my jacket. I love it. You can have my debit card, all of my credit cards, my jewelry. But you can’t have this jacket.”
“Bitch! You gonna give me that jacket!”
The gunman was standing over her now, peering down at her.
Ayisha took a deep yet shallow breath.
“No. You’d have to kill me for it.”
Now the gun is cocked at pointing at her face. In between the eyes again.
“I’ll blow your brains out right now! Give me that fucking jacket!”
“No. Kill me. Do it and get it over with.”
Ayisha stared at him. She matched him in eye contact and sizing up. She wasn’t going to back down.
“So you want to die tonight?”
“I don’t care. Kill me. My life is meaningless. I have this huge condo, a great job, and fabulous clothes. But it doesn’t fill the void.”
“What?” the gunman looked perplexed, squinting his eyes. “Why you sound sad and shit?”
“Because I am. I’m fucked up. I don’t deserve to live. My life is chaos within these neat walls. It’s bullshit. If you see someone with wealth who looks happy, don’t believe that they are. They’re dead inside. They try to fill their hearts with something, anything, to feel again.”
