Broken Stars On Broken Hearts

Chapter 5

"So, what was your favorite class?"

Inebriated by the gaze of the sunlight pounding on the bus window, I slip my head drowsily back towards Lea Beth, who has been dressed by a gorgeous happiness in a smile of love. Love for life. Love for people. Love for all.

And, in spite of the buzzing whisper of the rumor spit about those held within the vines of this mind, I'm so happy for her. I don't like having anyone to relate to.

"I guess U.S. History. That seems interesting." My voice is a broken whisper, tumbling when it tries to stand tall, but Lea Beth doesn't seem to notice.

"Wow, that's so great," Her eyes hop to a house of salmon wood, and a sudden burst of excitement cradles her smile to the stars. "Anyway, this is my stop. See you tomorrow."

"Bye,"

As I see her hop up and down the aisle, I wonder where that spontaneous euphoria I once had flew away. Probably to sing to another little girl and carry her to the sky, before dropping her and breaking her heart. Making her wish to go and see the light of her soul again.

The wish to hide from the world is not a monster tearing down my mind, but a child just wanting their playmate back.

You broke my heart, I tell the sky. You did that on purpose.

Ten minutes later, my body is stepping down from the bus. She walks across the street, into a house, then upstairs into a pink room fit for a dead princess.

Mom is seeing patients at the cardiology treatment center next to the pizza place. Go figure. Dad's at the copier store. Kegan is being told lies about happiness and hope and everything that an imaginary monster feeds on.

I crawl beneath the blankets and listen to the choir of poisons screeching in my mind. I watch my ten-year-old self flail through pitch water, trying to grab onto anything to stay afloat. But her friends are gone. Her family is gone. Her love for life is gone.

She's pounding on a glass door. She's screaming. But no one hears her.

She breathes. She breathes. She breathes.

She can't breathe this.

She drowns.

The melodies of hopelessness are drowned out by a whimper settling next to me. As I open my eyes, I realize that the sound was produced beneath the grave of that drowned little girl.

I do not know whether she betrayed me or I failed her. I do not know what is filling this body anymore. All I feel is a cavity wrapped in veils of ribbon hurt, with humiliation glowing from within like that of a fire. It is a spell of ash that will burn those who touch it, so those who have not known its fury will throw giggles and dares towards its pit, while those who have been trapped are taken by its roar.

I clutch the near-bleeding nubs of my fingers into my bed sheets, looking for any feeling lost, thinking that maybe if I dig hard enough, I will be absorbed with the delicacy of the linens, guarded from the venomous kiss of emptiness and erupting pain.

Gathering up my last bit of motivation, I crawl to the night table, where the book I am reading, Eleanor & Park waits on its spine to warm my heart with its embrace, allowing me to feel nothing and every hope on Earth at the same time. When words whisper their silk hymns to me, I am blessed with a moment of air from the ocean I have been trapped in since the day my world tripped on a spark.

For a time that has skipped over my humming mind, I float on ink kisses and tears and I love you's before the creak of the door welcomes someone in, and the baritone greeting between floor and sneakers print images of my mother's brunette and gray threads and wrinkled grimace that wrap around my mind, searing it like newly deceased sparklers.