Catching Violet

chapter 5

Everything is covered with a fog. Images of ghosts and haunting memory's barly touch my mind. I am in pain. Not the violent pain. More like an ache. There is an ache in my chest and it won't go away. Some how I know I am fine. I know that i am safe, yet i feel as if I am going to die. I wonder why. Distantly I catch little snippets of things. Like a kind woman's voice and a very familiar male voice. Hum.....  That voice sounds so familiar.

Before i can press myself with the question more, the fog starts to give way to a memory. I see me. I am Small, a child with unruly brown hair and bright violet eyes. My knees are scraped and the gray shorts I am wearing are ragged and have holes in them while my white shirt have mud and grass stains covering it. Little leopard print converse that had seen better days hung off my feet and a dirty cardinals hat covered the top of my head.

The biggest smile a 7 year old could have came over my face as I peered at my best friend Jamie. Jamie was 8 and really tall for his age but we went to school together. He stood yards away, his blond hair poking out of a gray cap and the summer sun beating off of his dirty face. My younger version throw a baseball at Jamie, which he caught. I smile, remembering that time, but something nags at me. Something important.

As we stood there, laughing and throwing the baseball back and forth, the scene began to change. Slowly at first, then the whole thing shifted rapidly. There i was again. Still my younger self in the same dirty cloths, but this time, my parents were there. My mother looked so gorgeous. Brown curls casaded down her back and her smooth skinned face held a bright warm smile. I missed her so much.... The real me smiled sadly as I looked over the whole scene. Oh how I wish I could go back to that time.

We were sitting outside of Timothy's ice cream shop.  The biggest triple fudge delight with strawberry's occupied my hands while my mother held a smaller vanilla double dash. She was scolding me for using my fingers to eat, but a smile made her face not look as severe.  I remember how everything was perfect. The ice cream chased off the relentless summer sun and the weird looks we got from passer bys were chased of by the funny faces me and mom gave out. Mommy had always said that if someone thought you were weird to embrace it and prove them right. So we did.

We were laughing at the looks we received from a older couple walking by. Then it happened...

As we walked back to mommy's red coupe, a feeling began to nag me. I could feel it in my belly. But the little me didn't look worried at all and my mom looked relaxed. I continued to watch. Just before they got in the coupe, a black sedan screeched to a halt in-front of the coupe, effectively stopping mom and tiny me from going anywhere. Then a angry man storms out of the truck and dread fills my belly as i watch. i begin  to remember a little of what is to come and I really wanted to run, but I can't. I am trapped like my mother is trapped.

The man has the same hair color as little me and the same paler skin. They were obviously related. I remember mommy saying that my dad was a mean man and we left him when I was little. Now he had found us....

Tears started leaking out of my eyes as i watched, for I knew what was up to come. I can't hear them but I know they are speaking. The man is furious and my mommy looks terrified. The smaller me is hiding behind my mothers legs while she tries to reason with him. Bystanders stop and stare at us, but no one makes a move to help my mother. At that moment, the man lunges at my mother. He drags her away from the younger me, all while the people do nothing. They all stand there, silently watching as he drags her away.

My mother slaps him across the face and he freezes, shocked and angry. Well, angry in an understatement. He looks like an angry bull that someone just poked. Then something that haunts my nightmares happens. He retaliates with a fist. Her nose bleeds and she begins to cry, begging him to stop as he rains blow after blow upon her face. The tiny me is sobbing and in a blind rage I ran up and jumped on his back, begging him to stop.  Without turning to look at me he thrusts an elbow backwards and jabs me in the face, flinging me off of him where I land in a heap on the pavement.