Look After You {Completed}

iii. March

~March~

            The flowers were beginning to bloom.

            There was still a slight chill that remained in the air; however, small buds of candy colored flowers have begun to blossom, the sun’s ray beginning to stretch across my skin as I lie on the grass.

            The park is quiet today, only a few kids with kites and Frisbees running about and shouting. I fold my arms behind my head and rest against the big oak tree, the thick leaves layering into shade above my head.

            Closing my eyes, I dwell in the perfect weather, the sound of rustling leaves and laughter ringing in my ears.

            Feeling myself begin to drift to sleep, I sigh in content, I haven’t been able to sleep in days.

            I was insomniatic.

            No matter how tired I was, as soon as my weary body hit my bed, I would lie awake for hours, listening to the tick of the clock and watching the shadows on my wall turn to early morning rays.

            It was during those tortuous hours, alone and weary, that my inner thoughts came out. Often times, I thought about my parents, what my life would have been like if I had actually grown up with them. Instead of the constant packing and shuffling to different foster families, I would have been able to have a room of my own, maybe I would have played baseball or some American sport like that….

            By sixteen, I had been brought into the Odair family. They were a middle age suburban couple who had a six year old girl named Jane.

            My foster parents were kind people, always asking if I needed anything and always giving me money for clothes and school but I couldn’t look at them and smile, pretending that we were one happy family when that dream was ripped from me the moment my parents left me.

            But recently, my thoughts have wandered from my parents to Mina and how small bruises would appear on her arms after hanging out with Tyler or how she was always so quick to smile and laugh when I asked her about it.

            Every night, when these haunting memories of the past, the worry of the present and the doubt of the future came together, I would throw off my covers, lace up my sneakers and run around the block until I collapsed.

            Today, I just so happened to collapse here at the park.

            “Yo, loser,” a voice suddenly calls out as I feel something heavy land on my stomach making all my air rush out in one exhale.

            I grunt hard, my eyes snapping open to see a grinning Mina with her hands on her knees.

            I narrow my eyes at her. “Jerk.”

            Mina fakes hurt, clutching her heart dramatically. “I think I am so hurt by your words, I am going to faint.”

            I snort at her theatrics, tugging her to sit beside me on the grass, her bright eyes glinting.

            We sit there quietly, watching the Frisbee get thrown around. A question I was yearning to ask perched insistently on my tongue and I pulled at the grass nervously.

            “Can I ask a question?”

            Mina tilts her head to me, her eyes questioning.

            “When we went to that part a couple months ago and you said that you just had your first kiss….isn’t that weird considering you are going out with Tyler” I ask.