The Summer Solstice

Chapter 4: Kassia

    🌿  Kassia 🌿

Normally, I don't dream during my narcoleptic episodes. I'm not typically in a deep enough sleep to do so.

    But this time, when I come to, I can remember the strangest thing—a middle aged man with pointy ears, opening and closing his mouth as if trying to speak with me.

    "Ugh." I spit gravel from my mouth and sit up. It's pitch black out save for the occasional headlights of passing cars.

    After getting shakily to my feet, I snatch my bike from the ground. The left pedal is severely scratched. This is not the first time I've had an episode while riding my bike and I doubt it will be my last.

    I don't drive a car for various reasons, one being that falling asleep behind the wheel could lead to a lot worse than it would while riding a bike. Also, mom claims that if I'm childish enough to play outside in the dirt and the bushes then there's no way she's letting me drive her baby.

    While her logic is sound enough, I don't play outside. She and dad both think I do god-knows-what in the woods behind our house; they've never seen me actually sink into the earth. They've never seen the way plants wrap around my limbs or the way butterflies gather on my head.

    Only Ty and Gwen. And it took a long time for me to trust them enough to show them.

    Instead of pedaling back home, I just walk my bike beside me. My hip screams with each step, no doubt deeply bruised from my fall.

    When I enter my house, I can tell mom is already in bed. There's an empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter and another bottle half-full. So much for wanting to yell at her.

    "I wasn't even gone that long," I mumble.

    I shower, brush my teeth and change into cotton shorts and a fresh t-shirt. I'm not tired quite yet; most days I don't even sleep through the night because of my constant need for napping, so I dance across my tiny room, ignoring my sore hip. Even though I basically got kicked out of ballet, I still practice whenever I can.

    It comes so easily that I don't need music for rhythm. I don't need choreography or an instructor. I just flow, gliding across the floor until I feel like I'm flying. When dancing, I don't have to think about my dad. I don't think about my massive birthmark that draws attention everywhere I go. Most importantly, I don't think about the fact this massive birthmark is what makes my parents hate me so much. Or rather that they know I'm not the baby they left the hospitable with.

    It's something unexplainable, so they let it be. But over the years, they've dropped hints about how they feel. They've made comments about how different I look. Throughout my childhood they've always kept their distance, never being quite as loving or proud as parents ought to be.

    At some point I get tired and collapse into bed. I lay there for a few hours, the moonlight pouring into my room from the window, until finally descending into sleep.

🌿

    Beauville High School is as unwelcoming as I remember it when Gwen and I roll into the parking lot. Students flow in a steady stream toward the double doors entrance of the brown-brick building. With a sigh, I grab my backpack from the backseat of Gwen's old Honda Accord.

    "Shit, hide me," Gwen says, trying to sink behind the steering wheel.

    I spot who it is. "Oh, give it a rest. She's not even looking at you."

    Ximena, our class president, sips from her Starbucks coffee before disappearing into the school. She also happens to be Gwen's crush since the eight grade.