Underneath

Underneath-Chapter 12

I was doing a concert tonight for the Trevor Project, but I needed to take some time out for myself.

I always wanted to be in the right mindset for concerts because my Glamberts deserved nothing less.

After having coffee and a bagel this morning, I found myself at a porcelain fountain, looking into its turquoise waters.

I saw my soul in the blue eyes that were staring back at me and I reflected on the journey that had lead me here.

I closed my eyes.

I saw me as a red-headed toddler and how I was just starting life.

There were so many things I wanted to know.

I wanted to touch and feel things that were abstract and too complex for a small mind to understand.

The world was huge to me and I wanted to go as far as my chubby legs would take me.

The desire I had  to learn and understand only continued to grow stronger as I got older.

I could remember being in those brightly lit and colored elementary rooms where each letter had a matching image with it, like a bumblebee or an apple.

I could remember seeing very detailed and specific rules written in the teacher's hand and how a reward was always waiting for those who stayed true.

I could remember going to different sections, like reading and writing, and how everyone seemed to have a friend at each station.

I could remember how I came home everyday after school and how I watched the children that were around my age play underneath the very sun that warmed my fair skin and my heart soon after.

As I moved up, though, things started to change.

The world that I once was so anxious to learn about became another thing that was controlled by darkness and shadow.

The rooms that had once been brightly lit and colored had turned into a bleak gray, void of any emotion and each letter had formed into something that pulled me down, leaving me in a gradual spiriling.

The sense of order and security had fallen away from me because of malevolent thoughts and insecurities that wrecked my self-esteem even further from where it was already.

Friends who I once held dear had become enemies behind closed doors and I no longer shared a section with them, only a black wall.

I left from school and watched as the ice cold rain poured down on the sidewalks that screamed about the blood that had been shed on their solid concrete slabs and the stories of betrayal that had been kept hidden underneath its aged planes.

My strawberry blonde hair and clothes had gotten soaked inside and out and as the bitter rain rolled off my fair skin, it solidified over my heart.

I opened my eyes at that moment.

Yet, I could look into the still, turquoise water before me and see a new beginning, a renewal of a strength I once thought I had lost so long ago.

And even though the sky still turned black, light shined through it, even during the darkest hours.