The Importance

Sourness

I drop down as if I am fainting and let the tall sticks of hay bend to my tiny form. I finished my finals in school and shortly after that, I was awarded the satisfaction of being done with 7th grade. I lay all the way down and sense the cool wet dirt beneath me.

Jane and Peter decided to simply commit to their small hobby farm and make it bigger. They have been changing wheel lines to keep the triticale and other crops growing. They want to raise their child as a hard-working kid full of the joy of the outside world around them.

Now, I am relaxing in the triticale, my favorite because of its height. A text comes through my phone.

Alex:

"Are you okay? I was coming to see you and saw you.....collapse."

How caring.

I respond, telling him I'm fine but then hear the rustling of hay a few feet away. Jerking up, I am abdicated with the flashback of Devland dragging me out of my window and slitting my throat.

Concerned, I stand up, calmly, letting the pink and white flowered summer dress I am wearing fall down to my ankles.

"Boo!"

Alex jumps up at me from a few feet away and I would've punched him square in the face if he hadn't been ready to dodge my throw.

"Alex! You can't do that to me!" I sternly scold.

Alex just laughs as my mood amuses him more than the scare, "I'm sorry." He continues to crack up, "I'm so sorry. I...."

I whack his arm and he continues to find my anger entertaining.

"You are so dead," I say, even though I am beginning to laugh.

"Fight me," he challenges with more laughter.

"No! You are impossible." I swing to hit him again but he jumps back and acts as if he is in the wrong with a champion boxer.

"Betcha can't catch me!"

By now, we are both laughing plentifully and it feels nice to loosen up.

"Oh, you're on!"

I don't think Alex expected me to lunge at him and start chasing him but his reaction is quick. I chase him through the tall stalks before we both collapse and lay side by side in the field, giggling and breathing heavily from our run.

"You're terrible!"

"You're a slow chaser," Alex responds.

"No, don't even start."

The sun blazes down on both of us for a long soothing time before a text from Emma buzzes through to my device. She asks where we went and when we want to meet up to go swimming.

Without looking at me, Alex says, "So tell me....what's going on with you?"

I need to talk to someone. I quit talking to my therapist after Devland. I have mixed feelings about everything that comes up now. I have to lie multiple times a day. I dread my parents finding me and coming back to claim me. I don't want anyone to know about my strange ability to heal from wounds. I can't keep going if everyone and the thing I encounter is trying to hold me back.

"I just have a lot to deal with right now. Jane and Peter are going to have another child and I want to be here for them. I no longer....." Alex turns his head to look at me. "I know it sounds terrible but, I don't want my parents to come back and claim me. I have come to like this new place. I guess I have always thought of it as temporary but....I kind of want to stay now. I want to live a normal life but I can't because of my parents. They have confused my life and now I feel like....I can finally see. If that makes any sense." I turn my head to look at Alex and we watch each other for several calming minutes before Alex decides to answer.