Moon Island

Chapter 2

I woke up crying. There were tears on my cheeks and stinging all over my body. I hesitantly opened my eyes faced with the white ceiling of my new room. I shut my eyes again wishing I would wake up somewhere else. Anywhere else! But I opened my eyes to unfortunately see the same ceiling again. I studied the rounded brush strokes that the painter my dad hired had done, making it look like mini white rainbows.

Once I got bored at watching a white ceiling, I turned my head faced with the rest of my new room. There were still a couple of boxes in the corner of the room on top of the shiny hardwood floors. My desk was empty and clean, other than the damned packet from yesterday.

Yesterday.  I shook my head hoping I could re-forget the scenes from last night that I had just remembered. Obviously it didn’t work and I decided I should just get out of bed.

I realized I was in my bed, tucked in and in my PJs. I sighed. My dad. I pushed myself off the bed using my arms and onto the floor. I stretched my arms out wincing at the soreness of my body. There was an aching pain to the right of my stomach and I raised my shirt to see a beautiful purple bruise forming. Great. Just what I needed.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. I sighed once again. Apology time, I guess. This was the worst part, in my opinion. I sat back down on my bed and stared at the door for a couple of seconds. The knocking continued “Come in,” I said loud enough so my dad could hear.

The door flung open and my dad walked in, a grin plastered on his face. I noticed he was dressed up, like we were going to somewhere. Then, I remembered. Our boat trip together. Right.

Before I could over think the terrible trip in my near future, my dad started talking. “Good Morning” he paused looking around then back at my face “You sleep well?”

Other than the fact that I was knocked out with bruises all over my body and tears streaming down my face, yes, I slept peacefully. Best night ever.

Even though, I did really want to blurt that out, I didn’t. Instead I gave a small smile, “I slept well.” I stared right at him not breaking my stare or the small smile that for reason had established itself on my lips. He nodded uncomfortably under my hard gaze.

“Well” he paused as I still kept my stare. He shifted around getting increasingly more uncomfortable than before “I was just making breakfast, so I’m going to go finish that” he started to turn around but stopped and spun back around catching my gaze once again “Oh and by the way, I laid out some clothes for you” he gestured towards my chair. I followed his gaze to find clothing hanging off the blue plastic chair in front of my desk. On it was denim cut-off Bermuda shorts, a striped tank top and a green jacket.

“Ok. Thanks” I gave him a cut off answer realizing I had broken our long stare down.

“We will talk later” he nodded turning towards the door and stepping out.

Before, I could breathe out, he was back at my door frame. “Oh and Becca, we are leaving after breakfast”

I gulped all my initial fears returning. Fuck. I was scared. And at the moment, I could not afford being scared.

***

I smiled as I finished off the braid. This time it finally looked right. That was the thing with braids; you had to redo them about a million times till it looked right. I swung the tight braid over my right shoulder and smiled at my reflection in the mirror. I looked pretty good. Even though, I really didn’t want to, I had worn the outfit my dad had picked for me and it looked great on me.

The striped tank hugged my torso tightly and the contrasting green jacket covered my shoulders giving me a sort of Katniss look. The Bermuda shorts that ended about half thigh frayed at the ends and I had picked my favorite black converse to finish the outfit.