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M O N D A Y april, 2020
It's 7:53am and Thomas Edison is late to school.
It's most definitely his fault. He woke up more or so on time, but stayed lazy and rolled around in his duvet until he couldn't actually listen to his alarm sizzling his eardrums any longer.
Besides, it isn't cold anymore. Winter mornings and frosted icicles on his windowpane have long since faded into dewy grass and springs wildflowers, a host of daisies freckling across his front lawn.
Spring is pretty, he's decided. He likes the golden disc of sun and the snowy white bells, a fraction of light in any dark sky. He likes the fluorescent petal flakes that blossom beside the cherry bush.
He likes when it rains, too. The gentle thrums lull him to sleep at night when his own thoughts rattle him awake. He likes cloudy days, the airy anvils drifting like dream-catchers. He likes a plasma-blue sky and he likes a dusty one.
He likes when it snows and hailstorms and when it's so foggy you can't see anything, when there's a yellow sun next to a black cloud, when there's a double rainbow because that's double the magic.
He likes when the dogs greet him on walks and the street lamps flicker beneath his gaze. He likes watching the woodpeckers peck at the oak tree outside his window.
He likes when he wakes up and his coffee tastes like dirty magic on his tongue, and his fingertips dance and his eyes smile at his reflection like a fresh tulips kiss. He likes when he remembers good things and happy things and all things of things that are worth remembering.
He likes falling in love with being alive, again.
And it's been some time. Only a few months, and then some, but they count. They count because if he hadn't grown then, he has now.
And he's had some help. He knows who's been helping him, along the way. They did before and they still are now.
He didn't burrow the memories on a sheet of paper to scrunch it up and throw away — or wrap it up inside a parcel to lock inside a treasure box and bury it six feet under. He just came to peace with what he knew then and what he knows now, and nobody said it would be easy — and it wasn't.
But he rejoices, because he loves them and they loved him — and they wanted him to be happy.
He's changed. He knows he has. His mom sighs less and the wrinkles in her forehead aren't as prominent. She smiles at him now more than frowns, and he relishes in it. Amy doesn't side step out of his way and he walks her to school. His grades have improved — he's still clueless on where he wants to go and what he wants to do, but he has time.
