T.O.R.N.: There's Only Right Now

Chapter 1 Stella

Inhale. The sound of flowing water from the electric fountain tickled the hair on the back of Stella's neck.

Exhale. Tension from her spine released through her breath.

Stretch. Her muscles pulled the stress from the day before out of her body through the tips of her fingers.

Inhale. The soft Zen music playing from her bedroom stereo bounced off the tranquil pallet of muted corals that enriched the walls and enveloped her.

Let go. All of it disappeared into an expanse of weightlessness that blanketed her soul as she closed her eyes and opened her sight to peace. But in the calm, something was amiss.

Serene, Stella's morning ritual had become her constant in a reality that challenged her to the marrow of her bones. Her meditations and gentle affirmations brought her back from the despondent edge of a sea of melancholy to the peaks of rich connection in the eyes of her daughters. It helped her to establish an inward stability reflected in the home they shared. But now, in the space that imbued her life with security, she only experienced an overwhelming sense to leave, move, get out...now!

The urgency in which the sensation coursed through her body left her off-kilter as she stood up from the crossed-legged position of her meditation. Stella felt so dizzy that she collapsed back down on to the floor. She tried to gather herself by propping up on her hands and knees, but her strength failed her.

"Pack a bag, get the girls, and go," she whispered, as to give the plan confidence as well as her heart the courage to do what she feared most.

She needed to protect her family but as she rose, the weight of it all pushed her back down onto the ground once again.

"Where do I go? The girls aren't ready, I'm not ready." Her voice cracked from the fear building inside her. Then another overwhelming sense. This time she could actually hear the words on the edge of her consciousness call out to her. GO...NOW. Then again, GO, NOW. It became clear that the voice was familiar as it implored her to leave. She finally stood with the ground firmly under her feet and walked out of her bedroom.

The next thirty minutes flew by in seconds. Stella grabbed all that she could carry in two black duffle bags for herself and her girls. She then walked to a portrait on the wall of the three of them, pushed it aside to reveal a safe, entered in a code, and the door opened. Inside was a small five-by-eight leather-bound notebook and a 9mm handgun with bullets. She put them carefully into the bottom of one of the duffle bags and loaded them into her jeep.

When she re-entered her home her daughter's artwork framed a sign in the entry that read, "Family, No One is Left Behind." Asante's vibrant depictions of waves of varying sizes crashing on a shoreline captured Stella's breath. In the living room, signs of Aissa's budding curiosity and imagination were illustrated in the intricate block cities that she built. Her daughters were more than she ever hoped they would be and yet still so young. Her sense of protection became an armor around her frightened heart, informing her steps as she walked down the hall to the girls' bedroom.

"Asante, Aissa," she whispered in the glow of the dawn's early light streaming into the girls' room across their sleeping faces. Though they each had their own twin sized bed, Aissa would get up in the middle of the night to sleep with her sister. Her little body was wrapped around Asante when Stella sat at the edge of the bed.

"Momma," Asante answered as she opened her eyes, "Is it time for school already?"

She did not want to alarm the girls, so she lied. "No, but we are getting up early to go on a special field trip to the zoo. And guess what, sissy poo can come too!"