Butterflies on my tongue

002 - U

It was mostly dark out by the time Maeve arrived home. It had been eerily quiet on her way there, one of the rare benefits of winter. Besides that, nothing could make up for the harsh cold that bit into her skin, causing her teeth to clatter violently. It wasn't the longest of walks from school to Forest Hills trailer park, but it felt like hours when it was the end of January. Even though she sat outside the entire afternoon, at least then there was the sun that radiated the tiniest bit of warmth. So when she finally arrived at the rundown camper, she lived in, although you couldn't call it living at this point, she was freezing to the bone, exhausted and absolutely famished.

Lately, she found she didn't do much except sit on the bleachers all day. Everything except the small habits that had been branded deep into her nervous system the last couple of months, was forgotten or simply ignored. Only those habits, things that were automated, like she was some kind of machine, were executed. They didn't require any thinking, therefore no energy was wasted on them.

And so, her daily rituals began.

She kicked her shoes off, threw her jacket somewhere, locked the door, put the keys in the mug on the floor somewhere near the door, lowered her bag from her shoulders and tossed it onto the table, stared at the small kitchen while contemplating if she should warm up one of the cans of soup she bought earlier that day, but finding she had no energy to actually do so and wander towards her bedroom instead.

She crashed down onto her old mattress, her cheek resting on one of the pillows that were in a terrible need of washing. Her gaze fell upon the notebook on her bedside table, the one with the little doodlings in thick, black, ink all over the cover.

They mainly consisted of little dragons, music notes or the occasional dagger. The only things she actually drew quite often, so she had gotten better at them eventually.

Maeve stared at it for a long time, chewing her lip as memories of sunny days outside in the garden with Nana, writing texts she came up with down onto the paper, swarmed her.

She used to write a lot, as she had a lot of ideas and motivation to work on them. When her relationship with Billy became more serious, she found she didn't have that often to settle down and let the words consume her mind.

Nowadays, she had plenty of time, simply no ideas or inspiration.

It wasn't long before sleep weighed down on her, causing her limbs to go numb and her thoughts to quiet down.

The chilly, spring breeze entered the car through rolled-down windows, pushing my hair around. His was tied back in a low ponytail, so he could focus on the road ahead of us. Billy always drove me home after school before heading home with Max. Today however, she wasn't in the car with us. Billy had told me he had something to show me, so he didn't want Max around.

He never really wanted her around, but was forced by his father to behave like a 'good' brother. Even if he took his stepsister everywhere, she wanted to go, he would never be a good brother. To be good, you have to want to be good. That is something Billy had never wanted, to be good to Max.

We drove through downtown, passing a few kids on their bikes. I recognised one of them as Nancy Wheeler's little brother, therefore the rest of them probably were the other boys Max hung out with often, even though Billy had told her numerous times to stay away from them.

It was when we crossed the old train rails that I started growing confused as to where we were headed. When I asked about it, a tiny smile appeared onto Billy's face as he responded with,"You'll see. I'm not spoiling the surprise."

A surprise it was, when he steered us through the entrance of Forest Hills trailer park. Passing by numerous permanently parked homes, he finally stopped right beside one of the smaller ones. Wooden paneling hugged the walls, the remains of what once was a beige tinted paint barely visible. A few small windows with gray shutters behind them broke what would otherwise strongly resemble a beige box. With a new lick of color and a few plants or flowers, it could almost shift into a home.