Through Adversity To The Stars

Chapter 10 - Yours Truly, Alex

Mon chéri, les gens sont cruels. La seule façon de s'en sortir dans ce monde est d'être intéressant. My mother would always remind me, either with pursed lips, loving eyes and a head tilt or her well-kept fingers brushing my hair out of my face. Whether Mother understood what I felt about trying to be interesting, she would give me no more - no tips to provide me with, tu découvres par toi même.
I was desperate to because having been constantly hurt by the same person who you trusted, seemed to tear away at who I was. I followed the simplicity of Mother and Father without a question because it was easier.

The sun had became unbearable, to a point I was sick of the happiness it was supposed to give me. The grass damp from the night before, the first rainy night since he left. I always knew it would come to this - wondering still if he would return with only half the film finished. Whatever I tried to do to those lingering thoughts of hope, it didn't cure the longing. Instead the only thing that comforted me was Father and his slight stress over the situation. Mother tried to calm him, reassure him that Alexander would return and go on to do greater stuff but just as I did, Father doubted that. After all, if you trusted someone who could smile just as much as the sun, you would be playing a dangerous game.
I let the small breeze brush against my face as the french music Mother had put on drowned out negativity from Father who sat across the room from me. The cream painted walls brung out the 'colours of intimacy', as Father called them, in the paintings painted by Mother years ago. I admired her for her free, but well kept inline, spirit. People referred to her as
a juxtaposition even if the differences weren't as bold as yellow. More like the walls; a cooled down version of something much greater. "Darling," she started, small heels clicking towards me from behind. Her hands played with my sun kissed hair, tying her fingers around random strands. "I'm going to head over to Caroline's," a first name basis I noticed without a word coming out of my mind to question the change in identification. "She said that there was something there for you," instant curiosity struck me more than what Madam Natalia had been preparing since noon. The idea of if being invited meant one had to attend wandered around my mind again. There was no barrier for my small, insignificant worries, each and every one passing through as if it would kill me.

I looked up at Mother, her fingers stopped lingering around my hair as if hopes that she didn't want to let go of just yet. Her eyes met mine for the first time that week perhaps because this time the subject matter involved Alexander somehow, forcing confusion to spread from my mind to my face. And I let it, letting her wonder why as so did I. "Do you have any idea of what it could be?" I question her so my curiosity could settle slightly.

However, Mother instead shrugged her shoulders so her dangling gold earrings nearly meet. "Perhaps a book?" Mother started off into the back garden, following the stepping stones and leaving me to follow, expecting me to. The sun shone on her long beige skirt, the curves of it as she walked and the wind hitting it ever so slightly. "A walking goddess," Father had written in one of his letters I had found a year before. An old letter to a friend, sent back.

I untucked myself from the light blanket that was once draped over my lap, the soft fabric brushing against my bare legs that I barely looked at, excusing myself from another worry.
I kissed Father's already troubled cheek as he didn't acknowledged it and kept writing.
The setting sky was somehow better, somehow easier and dreamlike, the sense that one didn't have to try as hard to fit in, that the world didn't care and neither did yourself. Only a sky; possessing no powers over the behaviours of others, let me lead on with following Mother, not catching up to her pace. A short few seconds is all you had when you weren't on either property, the sand and pebbled path separating us. Weeds and small flowers along the sides that made it seem less lonely. Being greeted by the same old house that you suspected to never have anyone love or cherish it, was surreal. The long doors of the front where wide open, welcoming any friendly face that showed kindness. Mother would give all the kindness, even if most did not come from her to begin with. It appeared that Mother preferred Caroline Saunders to Mrs Moreau and I didn't mind - Mrs Moreau having less personality than an inanimate object. Caroline seemed to be something Mother was willing to invest her time in other than the odd painting now and then.