1.1 | Lost & Found

ix. friday

I N D I G O

Today is a Friday.

Fridays are good days.

Ezra said he enrolled me in Harlan high, the only high school in the town, so I had approximately one week before I could join mid-semester. I planned to make the most out of the weekly holiday before I had to start school.

I've never known why kids my age hate school. It's no secret that the workload increases. But school represents so much more. At least for lost kids like me, it does. When I was still living with mom in the apartment, I used to loathe weekends.

Because weekends meant drunken slurs, cleaning up cracked beer bottles, and waking up in the middle of the night only to find mom passed out on the structure. So when Monday came, I was elated. I could go to school and study some more, only solidifying the fact that there was some hope for my future, and that life always wasn't going to stay the same.

Either way, my world is silent. A deep, sweet sort of silence that sinks into your soul and makes you feel as heavy as lead on some days or as light and a cloud drifting away into an unknown eternity. And I loved it.

So for people like me, school is more than just a place for petty drama. It's a new beginning. A chance to get a life you've always envisioned. Just like tomorrows. I've always loved tomorrows, every day is a new chance.

Yesterday's breakdown was a particularly bad one. I've never had one of those for years. The last time I had it was when I first saw mom puking her guts out in the bathroom; the very first time she appeared home completely drunk, her golden hair frazzled out and her clothes wrinkled and dirty. She was holding a beer bottle and kept yelling slurred words at me, incoherent words, extremely blunt, yet sharp enough to pierce through the walls of my heart. Too scared to do anything or call anyone, I'd run to my room and cried myself to sleep.

Yesterday's breakdown was all the same: the same feeling of loneliness and darkness crept up into my mind, the only safe place I'd ever known. But yet everything was different. Mom was no longer there, and now I had a duty to my siblings who'd wanted to have me back ever since they lost me.

Surely finding one little girl in a world full of around eight billion people cannot be that easy.

Yesterday's breakdown has now been brushed under the carpet as desperately as a murderer hiding evidence of the victim's death. No bloodstains for anyone to detect the deep gash in my heart. Echoing cries of my soul muffled for no one else to hear.

A sharp knock pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Indigo, come down, Liv is calling for you."

It was Blake. His voice was tainted with subtle annoyance that he did not care to mask. Ever since my arrival into the Clarkson household, Blake seems to be perpetually mad at me. Either it's his eyes glaring daggers into the side of my head when he thinks I'm not looking or the way he watches my movements like I'm a puzzle too hard to be solved. To be fair, now that I think about it, I think I actually do present myself as mysterious.

And I know I've said this more than once but it's the mysterious fog around me that keeps me going.

Blake was rather mysterious himself. He had dark black hair, just like mine, with streaks of bluish-grey, it was rather smart and elegant in my opinion but I thought against telling him because something told me he was going for more 'punk' than anything. He had this intimidating demeanour going on around him with several tattoos. I didn't think there was space for any more on his arms.

I stood up from my place on the pinewood floor and dusted off my embroidered jeans. Blake's eyes followed every movement of mine. And then it got so awkward that he started walking, me following closely behind him. I could catch a better view of his tattoo on the back of his hands. They were small, intricate tattoos, some just small cursive words, others small minimalistic patterns.

Walking into the living room, I could see Ezra, Dakota, and Isaac sprawled across a single couch. That's talent right there. How they all managed to fit in there would be forever unknown. Olivia was sitting on a chair at the dining table, her glossy blonde hair couped up into a messy bun on her head. She was tapping the top of her pencil in smooth rhythmic taps in utter concentration. When I looked closer it was a coom book. And the page was open to a picture of lemon meringues. Mom used to love taking me to cafes. We would visit one every weekend.

Weekends during my summer holidays with Old Mom meant chasing sunsets, hunting for vintage thrift stores, and waltzing under the dimly lit midnight sky. During school days, weekends meant days of Mom and I fretting over math, and Saturdays nights for binge-watching the next best rom-com late into the night.

The truth is, that mom didn't pass away three days ago. She'd slipped out of my reach way before it.

And if I sound cruel when I say this, so be it.

This time as soon I stepped in, all eyes did not snap towards me. It was great. I liked the fact that my presence was something they had gotten used to...at least everybody except blake.

I took a seat next to Olivia at the dining table, while the others sat on the couch, munching on crackers quite noisily.

It took Olivia a while to realize I was sitting next to her.

"Oh! His sweets! What's up?"

"Nothing much."

"Well, that isn't something I can allow. It's your last week before school, honey, and I think I have just the right thing to do."

I was wary of the expression of mischief that overtook my older sister's face.

This is a world for the tough. Only the hardest survived. There is no room for anyone who cannot offer the jarring truths that it offer. So that's why I have created a paradoxical world of my own, a safe one, where I can take refuge.

But sometimes the only thing you have to run away from is yourself.

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