Diary of a Detectress - 25th Jan 18 - A life inside out

victoria-kelly (51)in #fiction • 7 years ago (edited)

This is the fictional diary of Sophie Dayton. Until today, she was an 18-year-old university student in England. But this afternoon brought a nasty shock and now her world has been turned upside-down.

Dear Diary,

My last foster mother was a rather indifferent parent, but one of the few nice things she did for me was to give me this leather-bound journal before I left her house forever. When she presented it to me, she said (apparently not realising the ubiquitous, all-purpose nature of laptops these days) that I could use it to write down the things that I learned at university. Well I have to admit that it’s taken me nearly a whole semester to make use of it. Not because I didn’t learn anything, but rather, because, well… laptops.

Now I finally have the golden opportunity to use this beautiful book for the purpose it was intended, and here is what I have learned:

Laptops don’t work with a flat battery.
Starbucks don't let you use their power outlets after closing time.
Even a medium-sized student dorm room can be cleared of a semester’s worth of junk within an hour when you have three burly security guards helping you.
Pavements are cold.

So far I’m quite proud of myself for not having freaked out.

Not even a tiny bit.

Ok, I can feel it coming on.

Here it comes.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

Ok, breathe.

No, here it comes again….

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIDONTEVENUNDERSTANDWHATHAPPENEDANDNOWIMCOMPLETELYFUCKINGHOMELESSANDWHATAMIGOINGTODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…

Ok. It’s ok. I’m ok. Everything is going to be ok.

A few deep breaths and I manage to regain something of my equilibrium. I have no idea why I was suddenly expelled from the university. I had no warning until that vindictive admin witch showed up at my door with an expulsion notice in her hand and three security guards behind her.

I mean, if I had been one of those drug-dealing types that are always hanging around behind the union, I could have understood, but even then, they should surely have been forced to issue a warning first? It seems I was a special case…

I’ll admit that I’m special in certain ways. My background hasn’t entirely been a bed of roses with my parents dying when I was 8 years old, but that was hardly my fault. I’ve learned many skills over the years, but the most useful of them has been the ability to keep my head down and stay under the radar. It’s gotten me through the past decade; through the clashes with school bullies; the drunken foster fathers; the gangs that haunted my way home. “Just be as small and unremarkable as you can and they’ll leave you alone…”

Not this time apparently.

I need to find out what happened and why. Do I have an enemy? Am I the secret daughter of Russian aristocracy and Nottingham Uni is trying to avoid political entanglement? I could speculate for hours. In fact I have speculated for hours. It hasn't helped.

It could be worse. I have somewhere to stay for tonight at least. I have friends. Make that friend. But the best kind of friend. A Friend With Couch. I’m not going to die of exposure on the streets of Nottingham.

Unless Shane takes much longer to get back that is. What the hell is taking him so long?!

No actually, I take back what I said before. There’s a decided possibility that I could die of exposure on the streets of Nottingham. Let it be known that I, Sophie Dayton, leave my collected belongings (what few of them are currently in the student union storage facility) to Shane. Because he’s my only friend, even though he’s probably forgotten that he said I could sleep on his couch tonight. Admittedly haven’t heard from him in the last two hours. All kinds of alcoholic-induced amnesia could have kicked in. Maybe I should pick the lock on his door? It seems slightly rude not to wait until your host gets home, but I’m sure he will thank me in the end for making sure that his one and only female friend doesn’t succumb to hypothermia.

I have to stop writing now because I can’t pick locks and write a novel at the same time.

One last message to myself: Sophie? Everything is going to be ok.

Breathe…

This is an original piece, written for Steemit by @Victoria-Kelly. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the first installment of Diary of a Detectress, please let me know by commenting, and watch out for the next installment coming soon

Images from Pixabay

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