Chapter 1:

4:06am Norfolk, United Kingdom

Alexis

She lived in a small coastal town, that didn’t have a very good economy, its highlight was the summer season where people from all over the country would come down for cheap holidays and flock to the town’s very average quality beaches and the average amusement arcades. But that was life for her; jobs were sparse here and even harder to hold down when you’re more than a little crazy.

Even with all this, she still felt attached to the town, even when her father moved away after forcing her to move there in the first place, the thought still bitter in her mouth. If life was fair, no one would need to dream she thought to herself. With this thought, she decided she might as well get up, after all this was one of her favourite times of the day. She knew she was borderline nocturnal but she didn’t have a problem with that. It just meant there were less people in the way when she wanted to do something.

Shopping was a lot easier at 04:30 than it is during the day, with the crowds of people pushing and shoving everyone out of their way, to the long queues at the checkouts. She considered this as she walked to her bathroom and turned on the light.

Of course the light was fairly dim, she didn’t react well to bright lights when she first awoke and generally avoided bright lights full stop and even had colour changing glasses to combat intense light. But even with the light on low, she could still see everything in the room, from the pale pink paint on the walls to the transparent toilet seat.

However by the time she got to the mirror, she forced herself to fight back a laugh, her hair was in such complete disarray that she could almost imagine a nest of sparrows living in it. Now that’s what I call bed hair! She thought to herself.

She knew that she could look very pretty when she felt good enough about herself to make the effort, her dark chocolate brown hair, curled ever so slightly so that it had a wavy look and with the right amounts of makeup she knew that she could look breath-taking, however she first had to feel like making the effort.

After she had finished washing and brushing her teeth and had brushed her hair to get all the knots she had managed to create while she slept, she decided she might as well go downstairs and have something to eat.

As she caught sight of herself in the mirror again, she was almost amazed at the transformation that had happened to her, she had gone from a hideous monster fresh out of the sea, to a radiant beauty, whose hazel eyes twinkled, she felt her cheeks flush with colour as she admired herself in the mirror.

When she got into her front room she looked around to make sure everything was in its proper place, that nothing had been moved, she walked around the room repositioning everything that just didn’t seem exactly in the right place, she knew she was a bit odd at this time in the morning, but she also knew that unless she got everything just right, it would eat at her until she moved everything. It’s easier to just get it over and done with.

She hadn’t realised which photograph she was holding until she looked down and saw those deep blue eyes, eyes do perfect that you could lose yourself in them for hours at a time, and they held so much lustre that she was often mesmerized.

She reminisced about the day the picture was taken, and how it had been such a perfect day, and that at the time everything in her life had been going well. I miss him so much she thought to herself.
I miss everything about him, from his smile to his gorgeous eyes, and the way he could turn anything into something to laugh and smile about. Even the thought of this almost brought tears to her eyes.
What did I do wrong? Why did he leave without as much as a goodbye or a note? She couldn’t bear to think of his name.

She could feel her mood dropping already, which reminded her that she probably should eat and then have her morning anti-depressants, this thought prompted her to remember the reason for needing them and the effect that they would have on her, she thought about how her life would be if she refused to take the medication and how long it would take before she turned into a total fruit loop as she liked to call herself when she was suffering from the extremes of her illness.

Though she didn’t like to admit it, but she had been clinically diagnosed with bipolar disorder for many years and had spent most of her adolescent life going from one extreme mood to the next, without much control over it.