Chapter One

When I was first writing this, I planned on making it another cliché boy saves girl, girl abuse victim, but I do way too much of that, so I thought I'd try out a normal story. Please review and tell me what y'all think.

~MadÉclair

Chapter One

"My Landlady, the Loony"

Hinamori Momo, age 21, is finally moving out. This scholarship was changing her life. She was getting closer to her dream, and farther away from the things that held her back.

Though she couldn't afford to stay in the dormitories the school had, she could still find a nice apartment close by to rent. She had decided on an old 17th century home that was two stories high, and at least two miles away from any neighbors that may disturb her concentration.

Today was the day she signed the lease. She was meeting her landlady there, and then the whole attic would be hers to live in. She had been told that there was one other tenant living just below her, Shiro-chan the landlady had told her, Momo hoped that they would get along, but she was just relived to have a female roommate.

As Momo pulled up to the property she peered over the dash at the land. It was a huge house, the yard was fair and the tall grass parted in a narrow path from the road to the front step. It was beautiful, perfect in fact.

"Ah! Hinamori-kun!" an elderly woman in her late sixties waved her over from the expansive front yard, her thin white hair tangled beneath the oversized sunhat she wore, and her pale and boney legs appearing shorter under her knee length sundress. "This lady sure does know how to dress for the summer heat," Momo mumbled to herself as she rolled down the window to her compact little Prius to shout a brief greeting.

This would be over soon, and then she could get right to business. Stumbling out of her car, she shaded her eyes from the sun reflecting off her metallic silver paint job. Momo hurried to cross the lawn in her converse and cursed her decision to where her long jeans today. Even with her soft pink tank top welcoming the wind to her skin, it was a million degrees out and the sun beat down white hot and mercilessly on her skin.

"Mrs.….. Um, I'm sorry?" she began, her voice soft, then realizing that they had never been introduced.

"Lee, dear, but please do call me Heaven." The older woman enthused as her scraggly voice alerted Momo to a history of smoking.

Momo's second thought was "Heaven…Lee…. Heavenly... What an odd name."

"Would you mind if I called you Haven?" she asked almost shyly.

"But of course, dear-y! Now come right inside and we can have a nice cup of Nanny Lee's herbal tea, it will sooth the muscles in your throat for sure," the elderly woman waved her in. Momo had her doubts about the tea.

As they approached the house, she realized just how tall it was. She desperately hoped that the top floor didn't sway in the harsh weather that winter was sure to bring.

Momo was ushered up the creaking steps to the house and pushed with frail hands through the door. "Now come and sit, I'll make that tea and we can have a nice long chat."

Momo sat at the dark wood table in the kitchen hesitantly, she wasn't exactly the chatty type and though Haven seemed nice enough, Momo was not going to brave the woman's tea. She looked for a way out, it came in the form of a large stack of papers.

She reached out and snatched them, she had already read and signed the whole twelve page packet by the time Haven had come back into the room with her "special tea."

"Oh, I've finished all the paper work; I really should start moving my things in if I want to be settled in by Monday."

Haven looked disappointed, but she still pushed the herbal tea towards her.

"Drink that, dear, it will mend that broken heart of yours for sure, it will," she said in a rush.

"And the next time you can tell Nanny Lee all about the boy that broke you, hmm?" before Momo could answer, Haven had already brought the tea pot in and scuttled out of the room like leaving faster would make her want the tea all the more.

"Wait…What?" Was all that came out of her mouth before she composed herself and stood from her seat at the table. Her chair scraped the wooden floors and screamed in protest.

Momo hurried to gather her things from her car, only needing to take three trips to get all her belongings safely to her attic room. She had two suitcases of cloths, and an arm full of painting supplies including brushes, pencils, and an easel.

The narrow stair case that wound up to her room was snug, and Momo wasn't looking foreward to the late night nightmares any more than usual with another obstical in her way to the kitchen.

The room came with a bed that was suspiciously tall, a closet, and a bathroom that connected her room to the hallway before the stairs. After prying open the dust coated windows and doing a quick inspection of the room, she found two bedside tables and an old looking mop and bucket stored in the closet.

She took the hint and pulled her long brown hair back into a pony tail that reached her shoulder blades. Rolling up her pants legs, she sighed and stretched. Momo took the bucket to the small bathroom and filled it, lugging it back and setting it down close to the mop.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, she moved all her belongings on top the bed to keep them dry, and then began her work.

Momo grabbed hold of the mop's splintered handle and dunked it into the bucket of tap water. The water turned brown with all the dirt, dusk and soot that coated the end of the mop, and she hauled it back to the bathroom, dumped it, the refilled it.

Instead of going through the long process of cleaning the mop, she swung the bucket back and the water spilled out, swamping her floors and creating a mote beneath her raised bed. After tossing the mop, Momo grabbed one of her old brushes she'd used to scrub down a canvas before painting on it.

She got down to her knees and put all her weight on it, scrubbing until her fingers were red and the floor sparkled. She took an old rag from her bag and rubbed the window clean until it was once again transparent.

When the floor had dries, Momo moved her cloths into the closet, her wardrobe consisting of several hoodies, a few button down shirts, some tank tops, and three pairs of shorts.

Momo was now soaked to the bone with the dirty water her cloths had absorbed from the floor and her hair was damp with her sweat, her face flushed from exhaustion. But she was far from done.

She pushed herself to finish arranging her new living space before she showered, she only had two days before the semester started, and she had to be ready.

She dragged the bed to the side closest the bathroom, leaving five feet between her bed and the door. After wiping them down, she arranged the bedside tables on either side of her bed. With at least ten more feet to the other side of the room, Momo decided she finally had enough space for her easel.

She coated the floors with news papers from decades ago and duct taped them to the floor to keep the steady. In the corner by the window, she had covered at least three feet across, and four feet back. Her easel was placed in the far corner with a blank canvas. She kept three coffee mugs filled with miscellaneous paint brushes and charcoal pencils on a stand nearby with a pallet crusted with dried paint next to them...

She was satisfied with her handy work after she'd finished assembling her desk just under the window, her laptop sitting on it with its comforting blue flashing light telling her it was time to charge it.

That night, Momo decided she would sleep peacefully, soundly, and for the first time in a long time, evade the nightmares that plagued her mind in the latest hours of the night. But her mind had a different plan.

She'd collapsed on her bed with every intention of sleeping straight through the night, but she knew somewhere inside her they would come for her again.

Sometime around 1am, Momo woke in a cold sweat, her bangs plastered to her forehead, and her jeans that she'd neglected to remove stuck to her legs that tangled in the sheets. Again.

Momo sat in her bed for a long while after that, hugging her knees close to her and inhaling the foul scent the dirty water had left on her jeans.

She sighed long and deep, as if to breath in every positive thought that once swirled around the room. Momo climbed out of bed, her nose crinkled as the cold floor stung her feet through her thin socks.

She stumbled slowly over to her closet and fished out a pair of pajama shorts that were just a little too short, not bothering to change out of her tank top, and she shuffled out her door and down the thin stairway and found her way to the kitchen in the dim glow of the night.

Momo usually retreated to the kitchen after a nightmare, sitting on the floor with a glass of water to calm her nerves. But being in a strange house and having no idea where the dishes were, she cupped her hands and sipped the running tap from the kitchen sink.

She slid to the floor, the frozen tile sending an unpleasant wave of chill up her thighs and up her torso and he cabinet's handle digging into her back. Her face scrunched at her uncomfortable arrangement, but stayed anyway, her head lolled off against the cabinet and sleep came mercifully fast.