C a p t u r e d

14: Aberrant Dreams

Chapter Fourteen- Aberrant Dreams

Laurie's Chapter

(A Small Consensus)

The instability of everything is beautiful. It whispers to me. It's like voices in my head, talking to me on their own.

Of course I don't jump out my window. I never do. I wrench my slender hands up to my window, the attic window, pulling up and hoisting myself on top. The air smells like ash; which figures.

My parents love living in places near factories. They say it makes us more human. Something about technology belonging to man and nature being the enemy... God knows with my parents. It seems like they join a new cult every weekend.

I look up at the bright sky marred with clouds, and it's pretty tonight, which is really rare. My smile is impossible to destroy.

My parents like moving every other year. I don't know why. We've been dancing around unsafe districts near their office for years. I've been to six or seven schools, which pisses me off, but they say it builds character.

Outside, the sunlight is fading in tendrils of pink and orange. I close my eyes. When I open them, dim snow is falling against me, like frozen freckles. Each snowflake seems to slam its way down my spine. My body is so cold, it's dully numb.

I wish my real life could just go away. I know it's terrible and lazy. But in truth, I'm as scared of things changing as I am of my grip slipping on everything I'm supposed to care about. Because I don't care about anything.

(Carelessness)

My mother runs these fancy, rich-person auctions in her free time. She expects me to stand up there and present each article of jewelry, like I really care about it.

"I hate the auctions, and I hate having ties to the real world." That's what I wrote in my diary.

Well, the other day, she walked into my room when I was gone, which I wasn't expecting. Only the nannies clean. But anyways, she saw my diary and read it all. Every fucking bit of it.

When I got back from school, she wanted to kill me. She said that I was immature and that life would never be better than it was right now. She thought that I was talking total bullshit but she saw my inner soul and she was mortified by it.

"We've got a reputation to uphold! Both our families have multiple generations of doctors. You've been going in the same path ever since you stepped out of my vagina."

I know she doesn't care. Everyone only cares as much as I help them.

And here's a problem with my parents. They're obsessed with each other.

Of course it's better than parents who fight all day and smash walls and cheat and divorce. But they run their own surgeon company, so they're allowed to take breaks all the time. They prefer constant tropical honeymoons to anything else, and I've always felt like they love each other so much, I'm a ghost around them.

When I was little, I used to think I was invisible, because only the maids would say hi to me in our hallways.

When I was little, I would study the long scars on my dad's wrists when he made breakfast. Whenever he saw me studying them, he would say nothing and touch his rosary on the counter, and say nothing.

(Later)

Our parents both convinced me to go to college in the South. They claimed that it was the new West Coast.