Until We Break (Formerly Wicked, Wild, Wonderful)

Original Edition: Chapter Twenty-Three

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR IN RIVERSIDE WAS SOMETHING NAOMI MORGAN HAD ADMITTEDLY NEVER SEEN. When she used to balanced ballet and school, there simply wasn't an opportunity for her to see the moon come second to the Californian street lights, or the groups of stumbling girls huddling down a sidewalk, heels in their hands. She always knew that California strung happiness in nearby palm trees and strummed music from all directions when the line between goodnight and good morning blurred, but it was more spectacular in person. Like the thirty-two fouettes in Swan Lake. Legendary. Until you were the one doing it— extending and retracting your leg as everyone's smiles blurred around you and, in that moment, you became legendary.

Naomi supposed she felt a little legendary. She snuck out of the Morgan home, the building that always seemed to cave in and trap her and she took the subliminal advice of a group of illicit teenagers. She thought it over again in the exposed space on the empty sidewalk and hesitantly came to the conclusion that it was a little less legendary and more crazy. Naomi took a breath.

Naomi Morgan was not quite sure of where she should go now. The pavement felt like it would simply stretch as far as she willed it to and, perhaps if she really wanted, she could walk forever until she made it to the edge of the world where space would take her up off of the face of the earth and carry her away into its vacuum. But she knew— really knew— that she would never make it out of Riverside tonight. She had to find somewhere to stay before the sun decided to start another day and her parents realized their house was a little more soundless than usual. But there was nowhere to turn. Gripping her backpack, Naomi Morgan walked a little faster.

Stepping past the obviously drunk and the apparently busy, she couldn't help but think about the fact that no one seemed perturbed by the lonely girl walking at this time of night with a backpack on her back. Everyone was so engulfed in their own worlds that they never came out of character enough to acknowledge what was around them. Then she remembered she was once like that. Constantly swamped by her own problems so much that she knew nothing about what existed outside of them. She wondered if she had ever walked past a statistic like everyone was doing to her now.

Soon, Naomi also came to realize was that The Guise seemed to be causing a lot more trouble in Riverside's streets than she initially expected. She constantly passed buildings tagged with different suggestions, some with answer-less questions, some with quotes that glared you up and down. It really looked as if they were only here to upset everyone, to have everyone so uncomfortable with reminders of how shitty California was. She had never seen this many vandalised buildings and walls and she supposed the Guise were putting them up faster than landowners could afford to take them down. But as she passed 'So long as we have support we will not be silenced. A pack is only as strong as its wolves' the paint bleeding from the wounds on the wall dripping to the floor, she hoped that they would never stop.

When Naomi saw yellow begin to peek out from tall buildings she expelled another breath. She decided to turn into a mostly abandoned alley and dropped her belongings there. As her back slipped down the cold wall, she hoped she was far enough from her house and the Academy that no one would ever find her. She hoped her new life would be happier. She hoped she could do whatever she wanted. She hoped and hoped until her eyes lulled closed and her head took refuge against her poorly stuffed backpack.

*

When Naomi woke, she immediately knew she hadn't thought any of this through. She couldn't rest peacefully against the hard, cold floor of the Riverside streets and her bag haphazardly filled with clothes and toiletries made a poor excuse for a pillow. Her stomach was growling in her ears too, cursing her for abandoning a place where she would always be fed. But Naomi did not care. She could not return to the Morgan home. She preferred the streets of Riverside. At least they felt real and noisy.