Early the next morning Delia finally decided to explore the little woods at the back of the house, she had been planning on exploring it since she found it, but things had been busy. Breakfast wouldn't be for a couple hours, so Delia had plenty of time to check it out. Strolling through the first row of trees she couldn't help, but breath in deeply. It smelled like green, mist, mystery, security, wildness and sunshine all at once. Delia's gaze halted on one particular pine tree, it's bottom branches had been trimmed and the first branch would be slightly out of reach even if she jumped. Lonely she looked at the tree, things barely out of reach are always more tempting— and more frustrating.
A dent in the bark a third of the distance from the ground to the branch caught Delia's attention. Smirking at the finding of a solution Delia backed away a few feet, before dashing forward and placing her sneakered foot in the dent successfully launching herself upwards towards the branch. Unfortunately she didn't quite make it, growling in determination, Delia tried again.
Eventually Delia reached the branch and hauled herself up into the tree. Climbing slightly higher she found writing on a curved branch, "Daniel's seat" beneath the curved branch was a straight branch, which allowed someone to seat on it and lean into the curved branch as if it were a chair. Delia made herself comfortable, settling in she felt as if the tree was hugging her. Continuing to absorb her presence in this place Delia, began to evaluate her feelings. Some part of Delia knew that she should be mad at Daniel, that she should resent him and her mom that she should want revenge. That's how most people would react. But that isn't really how Delia's mind worked. Ever since Delia was little she had learned how to evaluate people, but she always felt she had no right to judge for what they became. Delia had witnessed countless injustices by many different people, so she understood more than anyone that you can't pin the blame of anything on one person alone, not that the person wasn't to blame, but their was always another side. Another perspective. Ignoring those facts would only make her the kind of people she hated the most, the ones who always thought they were the main character and everybody else was the attacker and any other opinion than their own was a plot to attack them. To put it simply there is no end to revenge or anger so why bother.
Delia's biological's mother was one messed up person, but maybe she wasn't always like that. The first thought Delia had when she found out that Daniel was 27 was that it made her mom only 14 when she had him. No matter what sort of support system her mother had it couldn't have been easy. This fact never justified any of her mother's actions at all, but Delia wasn't narcissistic enough to believe that she was only one this world had treated as a priority level target for destruction.
Swaying slightly Delia began to swing her legs and for the first time in years Delia's body allowed some of her voice escape as she hummed. There was no particular song in mind just a sort of tune that the morning had embedded in her. Delia realized that it was probably almost time for breakfast so with a quick descent and brush of the bark as a good bye and thank you, Delia headed toward the house. Walking through the house she realized that there was still about half an hour before breakfast would begin to be prepared. Delia decided to change her clothes, her leggings were slightly wet from the dew in the grass and her sweatshirt had some sap stuck to it. Delia looked in her closet for a sweatshirt but the limitless supply she felt she had ordered with Gracen was gone and the rest of the shirts were short sleeves or mid-arm Gracen had insisted on ordering them to "balance out" her choices in her closet. Delia had forgotten that she offered to take over laundry to help the twins out with all the extra chores that had been added as part of their punishment. Hesitantly, Delia chose one of the graphic tees, she had tried on the mid sleeved ones earlier and found them particular itching near her elbow, luckily over sized t-shirts seemed to be "in" so it wasn't much shorter than the mid sleeved shirt anyway. It was black and she paired the grey and black athletic leggings. Yells could be heard as her brothers hurdled themselves down the hallway, from what Delia could her, it was a race and the loser had to do the clean the bathroom chore.
Worried that they would get in trouble she dashed out after them, clapping her hands with a loud boom brought her twins to halt and slightly flinch before slowly turning to face her with guilty looks on their faces.
'Sweet baby brothers of mine, were just headed towards breakfast or were you impersonating a rogue spaceship while shouting like someone just stole your life-savings?'
"Del we were just racing to help us decide who was going to clean the toilets, it's ok—" Drew tried to explain before stopping as Delia interrupted him.
'It's ok, because I stopped you before you could cause damage to possessions or cause our older brothers a heart attack from anger and fright.'
Both twins lowered their heads, their older sister rarely reprimanded them, but when she did it was best to just listen, and from experience it was ably to protect them and keep them out of trouble. And considering that now their punishments were solely falling on them and she wasn't allowed to interfere, her worry was well-founded.
"Why are you all standing around out her it's time for breakfast. Is something the matter?" Gracen asked, he had just been about to tell his other siblings that breakfast was ready, but found more than half of them just standing outside the doorway.
"We're coming, nothing's wrong." Artie responded. Delia signed one more time to her twins before walking into the dining room. Bothe of the twins slumped their shoulders in defeat as the got Delia's message.
'You both are going to clean the toilets, don't worry there are plenty you guys should be able to split them evenly.'
YOU ARE READING
I Am Here (UNEDITED)
General Fiction*Completed, but unedited* Delia, a 13-year-old girl lives with her abusive parents and her eight-year-old twin brothers. She shields them from the cruelties of their parents as much as she can. The twins try to provide her with support but they are...
