Boy Meets Girl

Girl is...Gone

When I was little I used to wish on 11:11. My mom told me that if I wished hard enough it would come true.

I wished that I would get bitten by a spider so I could have super powers like Spiderman. The next day I found a spider hanging on a web under the stairs in our apartment complex. He bit me. I ended up in the emergency room no more than an hour later.

I wished that my dad, who left to buy a pack of cigarettes eight years ago, would come home. The next day my mom found him outside of our house, dead. He died of cocaine over dose.

I wished that we could move because the apartment that we lived in was making my mom unhappy. The next day we got evicted.

I wished that my mom would find someone that would love her. The next day she found a boyfriend who soon turned into her fiancé, who turned into her husband, who then turned into her abuser.

I wished that my mom's husband would stop hitting her. The next day she shot him.

I wished that someone would find the body of my mom's dead husband under the floor board in my room; the smell was making me nauseous. The next day the police arrived, they found the body. They sent my mom to jail and put me into foster care.

I stopped making wishes after I was put into foster care. My first foster mom, who was a Roman Catholic, told me that wishing was the work of the devil and every time she even thought that I was wishing on 11:11, she would make me write Bible verses. I eventually stopped making the wishes after I realized that I might develop carpel tunnel syndrome from all the writing she was making me do.

The clock above the stove read 11:11. I stared at it. I couldn't tell if it was a.m. or p.m. I blinked. I only had a minute to come up with a wish. I couldn't think of anything that I wanted, other than to have Julia stay.

I closed my eyes. Thirty seconds. I had thirty seconds to make a wish.

"Maybe you should wish for world peace." Julia's voice said. It wasn't Julia; Julia was sitting on the couch reading.

I opened my eyes and rolled them so I could look at the purple elephant. She was standing next to me, her head down so her trunk hovered above the tile floor. I couldn't tell if she was frowning or smiling under her trunk. I decided that she was frowning; I would feel guilty if she was smiling.

"I wish that I didn't have hallucinations," I told the clock seconds before it hit 11:12. I was tired of dealing with purple elephants, pink crickets, or anything else that might pop up.

"Why would you ask that?" the pink elephant asked in her Julia voice.

I ignored her as I walked past her to talk to Julia on the couch. Her feet were curled under her and she was reading the book on her lap. I sat next to her. She lifted her head and smiled.

"What are you reading?" I asked. I was desperate for a conversation.

She shrugged. "Just a book." She closed it and put it on the coffee table. She moved so she was facing me. Her fingers laced together and rested in her lap. "How's your hand?" she asked.

I held it out for her. She grabbed it and held it between her hands. She traced the bandages. I couldn't feel finger tips that were following the pattern that the bandages were in, but I could feel her hands wrapped around mine. She started to hum. I recognized the song. It was a song that my mom used to sing to me when I was little. I didn't think anyone else knew it.

"I can sing," the pink elephant said. I ignored her. "I can dance to." This made me look at her. My eyes widened as she moved her feet and made movement to stomp it on the floor.