Burning Through My Walls

Burning Cells

The drive took forever. Not that I minded, I didn’t seem to mind at all these days. Outside you could see nothing but trees. They stood silent, swaying slightly with the wind, like giant green and brown soldiers. Beth was going on and on about how I would love the town I was going to.

I saw through it though. I saw the dark bags under her blood shot brown eyes. I saw how her half white half blond hair was sticking up in all directions, not in its usual tight ponytail. I saw how she slipped up now and then her smile falling only to be replaced by a sickeningly sweet one. I saw how she kept on asking me questions and when I didn’t respond she would brush it off and keep on talking. It was as though if she stopped talking, stopped distracting herself, she would burst into tears, remembering the painful fact that her daughter was dead, gone, never coming back.

I didn’t mind though, I didn’t care. I just looked out the windows again, watching as the forest line slowly disappeared to reveal a small town. We were entering what seemed to be the center of town, full of shops and other things you found in town centers. People were walking on the sidewalk happily chatting with friends, and family, seemingly oblivious to the dark ways of life.

No they weren’t oblivious, I thought, a small surge of anger went through me, they just chose to ignore it. The fact that at any moment they could be dead or worse left to live without the ones they loved. I sighed. It didn’t matter, who was I to judge? It wasn’t my life.

Abruptly the shops and stores stopped to be replaced by houses. At first the houses were tall and packed together, but as we went further into the neighborhood the houses were more spread out and smaller. After a good twenty minutes Beth turned and stopped.

“This is your new home.” She said, her soft voice registering in my head. I looked at the baby blue house that was now my ‘home’. It wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small. The wooden porch that wrapped around the front part of the house had furnisher on it that screamed country and the man on the rocking chair didn’t help the image. I opened the car door and got out.

Harold stood up at that same moment from his rocking chair and slowly approached me, like I was some kind of wounded puppy, too scared to know between friend or foe and would snap at any second. The old man still, somehow, managed to look twenty years less than his age, seventy-five. His fair blond hair had few white strands in it and his baby blue eyes were still full of life. He barely had any wrinkles compared to most men his age.

He surprised me by giving me one of his famous bone breaking hugs. He was trying to comfort me. It wasn’t working. Before that happened I might have hugged him back, might have giggled like a school girl while scolding him for try to kill me, but it did happen and I…changed.

“Don’t touch me, Harold.” I said sharply, pulling back from his arms. He dropped his arms, only to put his them on his hips and give me a warning look.

“Lavender Grace Acquanette, you will not call me by my name.” It was just a name, why did he have to over react?

“What should I call you then?” I asked completely serious to Harold’s disbelief. He got red in the face but then shook his head back and forth, sighing.

“The name you’ve be calling me by since you were born…” I didn’t respond. His looked at me again hurt flashing through his eyes. He sighed, again.

“Grandpa.” For a second there was silence, like he was waiting for my answer, so I gave him one.

“No.” And then I walked into my new ‘home’

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