one ↠ contemptible

219 9 2
                                    

↠ (pic above of our beloved Nicolas)

-
↠ chap song // youth - daughter

Sadie's P.O.V:

When my mother was a little girl, she struggled with people. Finding friends especially. She told me that she'd walk to the playground alone almost everyday after school. There's a playground just five minutes away near Nana's house where she used to play all by herself in the afternoon, and also in the morning when it was weekend.

I could picture it easily, mum with her navy blue V-neck and pastel pink skirt with white polka-dots, the innocent smile of hers, emerald eyes that reflected the seas and strawberry blonde hair, now dirty blonde. I used to look at her old yellow-edged photographs.

Mum was lonely as a child. No one ever asked her to play, she was the clumsy one whom nobody sensible and fast wanted on their team. The timid one who was too chicken to climb on top of the monkey bars.

It was the same for me. While other children swirled over the brightly painted poles and slides of the playground, I would sit by the swings on my own, kicking at the dust. We were two of a kind when we were really young. I can tell, it wasn't really hard to say.

But that was before she'd met Mia.

That was long before she realized how to upmerge the steps to rise up the hills of confidence.

I don't know much about mum before Mia came in. All that was just a vague prologue. Meeting Mia and what happened after that was the real story. I grew up listening to my mother tell and re-tell, until I heard it many times that I had the dialogue memorised at the top of my scalp. Not only was it about my mother, it was about me too.

In a way, it was an unexpected beginning of the two of us. And I treasured that story so much that I let it own me so many times. Looking back now, two years gone by looking back at what had happened when I was sixteen, I think perhaps I could say it was my first mistake.

My mother's story happened on a Thursday, a week or so before her seventh birthday. She'd arrived at the playground and found her usual swing occupied by a girl wearing a bright pink tutu over her clothes. The girl had a pair of rhinestone-studded sunglasses perched on her head, and from her feet dangled her mother's shoes, maroon and high-heeled. She was casually swinging her legs back and forth until she looked up and my mother drew near her.

Her hair was wavy brown and reached down her waist. Her light brown eyes kept pondering off.

"What's your name?", the girl said.
"Julia", whispered my mother.

I used to move my mouth when this part of the story comes along, syncing her lines.

"Last name?", prompted the girl.
"Smith", my mother replied hesistantly.

"Julia Smith", repeated the girl. She looked up at the sky and back down on her pumps. "That sounds like a superhero's name, the name when they're not doing superhero stuff. I mean, like how Clark Kent is superman's regular name you know?", she murmured.

"Yeah... You can call me 'Jules' if you want", said my mother. "What's your name?", she stiffens.
"Mia Cassavant", answered the girl.

*ON HOLD* clutch me tighter ↠ chloë moretz & nick robinsonWhere stories live. Discover now