Jupiter

CHAPTER||TWENTY

"Leave all your love and your longing behind, you can't carry it all if you want to survive."

Jupiter

I was sure that the walls themselves had started to speak to me in their harsh whispers of grief, grabbing and gnawing at my flesh with their blood scented sharp teeth. Some days— or nights, I wasn't sure— they would sing sweet lullaby's and shift my dirty hair away from my face, tenderly brushing their claws against the skin of my cheek.

But it wasn't the walls, it was Kali.

The blood on her breath was my own, the sting of those teeth were the countless needles shoved into my skin to draw that same blood that made her okay, that made her safe, and that made me a walking remedy for the woman who was slowly dying. I could hear her apologising profusely for her sins, the grief hanging onto every word she uttered, every tear she cried leaked into the crook of my neck. I was too weak to even lift my head off of the cold brick wall behind me. Too weak to care that if the excuse for each breath drawn into my lungs would be my last.

It would be an uneventful death, considering the world we lived in. It would be a harsh passing, dying by the hands of my own mother. Once, I thought I already had, when she left me with that bite on my leg, I thought blaming her would've been easier than the alternative. Considering I had once believed that it was her fighting so hard to keep me alive. Now I knew, it was her fighting so hard to keep her alive. After all these years, I still didn't know how she did it. Even so, I couldn't ask, I was too weak.

So I blamed them.

Silently, violently and wrongly, I knew. I blamed them for keeping me hidden. For making me forget how to keep myself alive for all of those years. The walls that surrounded me now seemed so minuscule compared to the walls of the community I called home. Maybe after all, it wasn't truly my home. It was a lie. It all had been a lie. They were there to keep me safe, that's what Maria, Tommy and even Joel had told me once before. Stay safe in the walls and nothing can hurt you. How was I to believe them when my Mother, my own flesh and blood, promised me the same.

Safety meant weakness. So I let it in all at once, and didn't let that breath go.

"So you take this end...." Brown eyes shone deeply into hers, his smile was wide and unwavering as he looked down at the small girl. I couldn't make out who they were at first, almost as if there was a sheet of fog covering my eyes, keeping me from seeing them completely. I watched the little girl study the man before her intently. She took the rope anyway, watching closely as it swallowed her tiny hands, the man continued,"Good job baby, now, you wanna loop it through this hole."

I smiled at them, noting how calm and patient the man was being with her. The little girls back was to me, allowing me to see only the long brown hair that sparkled down her back in the sunlight. I could feel the suns warmth radiating onto my skin. It felt nice, to be in the sun again after so long. I had stopped counting the hours in that damp and dark room Kali had thrown me in, but here, it felt almost timeless.

The little girl giggled, and I hated that I had missed the small interaction that happened beforehand to expel such a sound from her. I wasn't sure if I had ever experienced the pure joy I felt rattle her bones so hard that her shoulders hunched forward, convulsing under the pressure of each laugh.

The man was also laughing, no doubt whatever stupid joke he had told her causing the same effect on him. Eyes crinkled, teeth glowing in the sunlight. I too, started to laugh at the both of them from where I stood. The sound itself echoed off of the trees, and I realised just how long it had been since I had merely spoken, let alone laugh. The sound was unfamiliar and completely not my own, but it felt better than any other feeling in the world.

Then they both looked at me.

I forced myself to stop laughing as I took them in for a second time, and the fog somehow lifted. The wind physically knocked itself from my burning lungs when my eyes landed on the girls face. My face. Her blue eyes were wide and bright and so alive, her freckled skin almost fluorescent as she beamed at me. The man, too, though his teeth were not showing like they once where, but instead his lips were pursed in a straight line, eyes sullen and void of any and all emotion.

"Kali." He called me, and even the sun seemed to dim in the distance.

"I told you not to take her too far, Richard."

The voice that spoke came from behind my shoulder, and it was then that I realised they couldn't see me. That they were both looking at her. At my mother.

"We were just playing mummy!" The girl, me, still had a smile on her pudgy face as she watched my mother, our mother, walk forward. I could feel Kali's arm graze mine as she did, as she stalked towards the both of them like her prey.

Kali looked younger, healthier, even beautiful as she came to stand just a yard in front of me. Just like me, her hair was a lighter shade of brown. I could only just remember it, before she had started to get really sick. The flesh surrounding her bones was fuller, and didn't stick to every muscle like glue. My heart slowed as I allowed myself to study her, to really take her in.

Maybe this was death, and maybe this was the peace that I needed to finally allow myself rest.

Kali was my mother after all.

"I know my darling, but you're father isn't playing very fair."

My head lurched forward as someone blew that fire like air back into my lungs. I was laying on my back, this time, I was no longer in that dark room, but on a fluffy white bed. My skin no longer caked in mud and grime, but I felt cleaner than I had ever been in my whole existence.

Beatrice stood over me, her eyes wide and alarmed,"You scared the fucking shit out of me."

Not knowing what to say, and not trusting my voice enough to speak, I just frowned at the girl, moving my eyes side to side to take in more of my surroundings. The dull ache behind my ears still pounding from the lack of, anything, really. I didn't know how long I was out for, or how I had gotten into this room, or how I was somehow so clean and polished, but my biggest question was one that I knew I wouldn't be able to let go of.

Who was that man, and where is he now?

***

I am sorry.
It's late, and short but ily.