Page 1 of Semblance

Prologue:

Now.

“You’ve got some fight in you girl,” he laughed, his vulture eyes narrowing on me as if I were a heap of bloody meat. “I’ll tell you what, because I enjoy a woman with brass, I’ll let you choose your own poison. What will it be sweetheart? A hollow-point bullet exploding through your little, broken heart or a thirty-two story plunge onto cold, hard cement below?”

I was standing at the edge of the world, my back against the abyss that threatened to swallow me whole. The chill of the early spring wind bit into my heels, sending shivers up my spine. I stared into the barrel of the rifle and resolved to myself that I was going to die. Despite being terrified, I still had enough spite coursing through my veins to curse at the bastard holding the gun, the same bastard that murdered a man I cared deeply for.

“You motherfucker,” I cried.

He smiled as he allowed my profanity to bounce off him like old rubber bands.

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. I felt like cussing out the universe for having it end this way, but let’s be honest; every single decision I had made over the past month paved the yellow brick road that eventually led me to this not-so-wonderful land of loss and pain.

Aria Valencia, you naïve girl, you’ve made too many mistakes. If I could change the past, I would have done a dozen things differently. The only question was where to start my story?

#

Chapter One:

Three months ago.

There were some days I seriously considered stripping at the Skin Bar a couple of blocks away from the university, just so I could make enough money for a nice hot meal and to save myself from another month of eviction threats from my red-faced Serbian landlord. However, the thought of my dad’s spirit, God rest his soul, scowling at me while I shoved my breasts into some pervert’s face was enough of a deterrent for me to think anymore into it. This was the life of a struggling music student, constantly fantasizing of ways to make ends meet.

Whoever said, “Money can’t buy happiness” clearly never starved a day in their lives.

I picked up the local campus paper and flipped through the classifieds. They were littered with jobs for servers, which I had tried my hand at before, and loathed with a passion. Consider it a character flaw, but I was far too blunt and headstrong to put up with anyone’s bullshit. Blame my dad for instilling in me a strong sense of pride and confidence from the day I was born up until the day he left this world.

Though people considered me a cheerful person, there were three sure-fire things that transformed this sweet, happy-go-lucky girl into a snarling beast that was best left imprisoned inside seven-foot thick steel walls.

The first was having my body inappropriately touched by drooling perverts. Unless you were my boyfriend, which no one was at the moment, then your hands were not allowed anywhere near my rear. Any attempts were met with an unholy wave of verbal profanities in addition to having all five of my fingers rake your eyes like they were dead leaves on a lawn.

The second was being judged unfairly, which was a constant occurrence for a classical performance music student. Every time I went on stage and performed one of Chopin’s preludes on the campus’s Steinway pianos—the most beautiful sounding instrument in existence—I was at the mercy of all the critics and their biased opinions. Granted, most of them left me with constructive criticism, there were the handful of critiques that infuriated me with their snooty perfectionism that made me want to give up this dream of mine altogether. But dad taught me never to quit and I always ended up picturing his Jedi spirit (yes I was a fan girl) and the look of joy on his face as I played. This carried me through the worst criticisms and those difficult times when I believed myself to be a failure.

Finally, the last item on my list of not-so-awesome things was hunger, which I endured a lot of lately. It was turning me into a Frankenstein-like-bitch.

I contemplated the serving job once again, almost giving into the temptation of having some pocket money, but decided that I wasn’t in the correct mindset to deal with people. Also the threat of having my ass grabbed by drunken frat boys was not worth it for minimum wage.

I felt my stomach rumble and cursed at it.

“Stop complaining,” I said to my belly. “I fed you a chocolate bar four hours ago.”

Great, I was standing in the middle of the street talking to my stomach like only psychos or pregnant women did.

Hunger had struck at my sanity once again.

“Oh Aria,” I wondered out loud to myself, “How are you going to survive another semester?”

#

I plopped down on my bed, exhausted and utterly defeated. My pride had given way to my hunger and for the first time in a long while, I had succumbed to the charity of others.

Justin had bought me lunch at the pub, which I refused at first. However, watching him eat his delectable burger while working on our musical counterpoint theory assignment was excruciating.

I lied to him at first and told him I wasn’t hungry at all, but my stomach betrayed me and moaned like the chained ghost of Christmas Past.

“Oooooh, Cheeseburger,” it howled. “French fries with gravy, oooooh.”

It became such a distraction that finally Justin smiled and said. “Hey Aria, remember when you finished my music history assignment a couple of weeks ago? I still owe you for that one. Let me buy you a burger platter.”

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