Sweet Dreams

Chapter Two

The only reason I'd had my own room back at my moms was because she didn't want to see my face on the rare occasion we were all home at the same time.

My gaze keeps flickering over my room. My room. I have a room!

A smile stretches across my face and I giggle, throwing myself on to my bed.

"This is gorgeous!" A squeal catches me off guard and I jump, hugging the large pillow to my chest in fright.

Lisa is standing in the middle of my room. Just like yesterday, she's groomed to perfection. Shiny hair, perfect make up, glamorous outfit.

Her eyes grow wide, "I'm sorry Thea. I didn't mean to scare you."

I shake my head, relief coursing through me, "No. It's okay." As always, my voice is too quiet.

She smiles kindly, "This room is gorgeous. How did they come up with this?" She traces the embroiders on my bed comforter.

"They probably took a look at my journal." I say, thinking out loud.

"What journal?" Lisa's head tilts to the side in confusion.

Now that I think of it, where is my journal? I get up and begin to dig around.

Where is it?

"What are you looking for?" She asks as I continue to destroy my new room.

"My journal," I murmur, "Can you look over there please?" I wave my hand to the other side of my room. She stands and begins to rummage through my room with me.

"Is this is?" Her voice reaches me after ten minutes of searching. In her hands, she holds my tattered and severely damaged journal.

Tommy had given it to me when he was very young as a birthday present. He was the only one that ever acknowledged my birthday.

"That's it." I say, relief coursing through me for the second time that day.

"May I?" Her eyes smile with her lips. I nod and she begins to flip through it as I clean up my room. It doesn't take long. There isn't much to throw around. Nyla mewls loudly, wanting attention. I bend and pick her up.

"Thea, these are..." Her eyes meet mine, "These are amazing. I didn't peg you as the drawing type."

"I'm not, really. It's just, Tommy got me that for one of my birthdays. It was one of the only times any one had ever remembered my birthday."

"Who is Tommy?" She asks, appearing to be confused.

I smile, "You're a bad liar."

Lisa giggles, "Sorry. Jake and I just wanted to know your story. We had heard about you before yesterday, we just never knew what you looked like or what you were like. It turns out you're exactly like Dad, just quieter and a lot more..." She searches for the word. I see her facial expression change the minute the word hits her, "Broken. You're a lot more broken."

I don't now how to respond to that, so I take my journal from her and flip to the last page, "I drew this last night."

It was Lisa and Jake standing behind Amp and Dad as they all argued. Amp and Lisa both looked perfectly primped while they looked toward me while Jake and Dad looked aggressively forlorn as they looked toward me.

"Is this how you see us?" Lisa's voice is but a whisper.

I nod, "You and Amp are so perfect compared to me and Dad and Jake want to protect whatever they think is hurting me."

"You're perfect in your own way too." Lisa voice is soft, "Mom and I are what society sees as perfect because we have naturally good figures and our facial features are nice. The blonde hair, blue eyes thing is still in. But you're a different kind of perfect."