A Walk Down Ivy Laine

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Written in pain with shaky fingers before darkness descends.

Where there is pain, there is the devil. He lurks unforgiving, wandering and always present in your mind, body and soul. His bite is vicious.

I let them come this morning; the tears. They stream freely down my face, slipping past my chin. They pool beneath my pajama shirt, leaving wet marks on the fabric. My last friend. My real, honest, and faithful family member lay snoring peacefully next to me as I stare at the rising disk on the ledge behind my Guardian's house.

The sun rises slowly, filling my eyelids with spots before I remember to blink away.

There aren't any aliens. No flying saucers ready to beam me up and dissect me for whatever useless knowledge I possess. Anything odd would have been a dream come true. It would have prove something had happened, anything had happened that wasn't related to me in some way. That isn't related to that cursed inanimate, non-living thing called paper.

The feeling of loss continually seeps in to every vein, clotting all reasonable blood flow. My mother, my father, and my brother, without reasonable doubt, would have understood and cherished me for whatever bigger freak i'm suddenly becoming, mistakes and all. They would have loved me still. Stayed by me. 

But they're gone.

I look back at the rising disk in the sky, its half-moon spread out over the water; melting into yellow, orange, red and purple lava. The waves crash colorful crystals onto the sand, then drag them away moments later. I stare at the glittering waves, letting their simple lullaby surround me enough to drown out the misery.

"You know you could go blind staring at the sun like that," a familiar voice says to my left.

Without thinking, I turn to look.

Tucker smiles his full dimpled smile, walking up the steps toward the ledge in workout attire. Form fitting T-shirt, shorts, Nike's. His smile instantly falters just as I remember what I look like. It's too late to turn away. Immediately he's up the few steps and over the railing, ducking under the overhanging vines.

"Hey, what wrong?" Many fingers brush my face, searching for an answer like it's inked on my skin.

I react without thinking, flinching away at the softness that I feel like I don't deserve, "just a really bad night. I'm okay."

He doesn't press me harshly, "Are you sure?" My gloriously mattered bed-head of hair gets tucked behind my ear. His eyes laser focus in on the redness of my cheek and a muscle in his jaw twitches, "did someone hurt you?"

I swallow and lie, "just mentally."

"Okay," he says flatly, but approaches the next question anyway, "want to talk about it?"

His concern is too much for me to bear right now. It's too loving and foreign. Big fat tears slide down my cheeks and drip onto my neck. My voice is hoarse with wasted restraint, "this isn't fixable."

His strong arms pull me into  gentle embrace. The sun is thoroughly hot now, dousing over us. You can hear people below on the sand, kids shouting happily, dogs barking. Normalcy. I want that.

Tucker leans back gently, somehow in tune with my thoughts, "It's going to hurt a while then. The best thing you can do now is try to surround yourself with the people that make you happy until things blow over."

Suddenly I feel so pathetic for being this weak girl. Like a child being given advice. A fresh-out-of-high school kid full of drama. To Tucker I must seem like a kid who can't control my emotions. "I'm sorry," I choke, clearing my throat in an attempt to sound stronger, "I usually don't let things get to me. This was different."