Beckoned Through The Dark

31 // Lesego // Clipped Wings

“I thought you were dead.” I said to Clay, but he just gave me a brief look before turning his gaze towards the road.

I still couldn’t believe that he was alive, when the detective told me he was dead; it felt as if half of my heart died with him, I really believed he ‘d died. I wanted to hug him, just to hold him, but he was so cold; I didn’t know what to make of it.

He looked older, tired. I wanted to ask him about everything that’s happened in the past four months, but I figured he was still trying to make sense of the fact that I was still alive. I laid my head against the window and sighed, and in a few minutes, I was out; and for the first time in months, I could sleep with both eyes closed.

It felt like hours before the car came to a stop. By then I was tired of sitting, and my back hurt a lot. I was hungry and I hadn’t taken a proper bath in a while, I smelled so bad. “Clay, I’m hungry, we have been travelling for over 3 hours. I need a shower and a proper bed,” I spoke up after the unbearable silence.

Clay sighed tiredly and pulled up at a first stop garage. He refilled the petrol and then bought me some burger and chips from the Steers that was next to the garage; he dropped the food in the car and went back inside the shop. While he was still away, I took this chance and went to the bathroom to freshen up.

Have you ever been disappointed at your own reflection?

The moment my eyes landed on the mirror, all I saw was a weak girl, and she looked like me. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my own face, but I know it did not look like this.

I was once a caged bird, trapped and forced to fly in the same spaces, and yet hopeful. And now, I was a bird set free, spat out into the world like a used gum; I should be happy, but I felt like the world is too big for my little wings.