Now nothing could remain as it once had been. How was she supposed to react? Was there a handbook for this sort of situation? Did they expect her to be ok?
Annelise was lounging next to the opaque window, under the rough stone archway, when her austere parents waltzed in. She set her cup of matcha down that she'd been sipping gingerly and glanced sideways at them, a question in her eyes. They looked at each other like they'd rehearsed what they were going to say three times too many.
"Should we ask her to sit down?" her incompetent mother asked.
"I am sitting," she said gesturing to the couch. Annelise saw that her mother's eyes flashed, changing from odd anxiety to a sudden determination. It was the first time Annelise had seen her look completely certain about something, and that unnerved her.
The wooden chairs that her father dragged up to the window made the hairs on Annelise's forearms stand to attention. Sitting down put about six years on him because he was always slightly slouched. Her mother, on the other hand, with her perfected posture, looked closer to her daughter's age than to her own.
"So."
"So..." This was how they started each of their interactions with Annelise; more like a business meeting than a friendly chat.
"We're moving back home." Time froze.
Annelise's thoughts burst into flames in the midst of a decrescendo of voices. In her mind, all the photos of her memories started to bleed and become ablaze, sending smoke signs of sorrow...
Back when the top of her head just reached her mother's hip, they would go on road trips together and have picnics along the way. These were full-day events and conjured up a ginormous jumble of excitement on Annelise's part, sending her running around the house the night before and bouncing ever so slightly as her mother prepared the baskets. From where Annelise usually sat on these particularly perfect days, the golden beams of light from outside made her mother's curly baby hairs look like an angel's halo.
Only then did Annelise realise she had pushed past her guardians, stormed into the attic and dropped to the floor. The flakes of dust scattered when she scrambled to find what she was looking for. Albums, pictures of her past.
Bluebirds and cotton-candy clouds were a few of her favourite things about her home; home, now being 8064 kilometres away, hadn't tried to reach her or find her since she left seventeen months ago. So far as they knew, she didn't have black hair and piercings, and she definitely wasn't named Annelise.
The word "no" echoed against the attic's walls, making her shiver. She couldn't go back; they might recognise her and do what they did last time. "No no no no no..."
