A Golden Life: An Outsiders Story

Chapter 4: Rosey Thorne: Thorne Merrell's story

"Flick, Flick," my small black switchblade called out through the darkness of the cargo train car I was crammed in for the night. It knew it was probably around 4 in the morning because I had only been traveling for about half an hour and I left Windrixville at 3:30. As I stared into the utter darkness that surrounded me I thought of my destination. Tulsa, Oklahoma the place I had idolized since the night my idol left me for that stupid town. I was eight when my big brother left and he was twenty. His name is Buck Merrell and he was my everything when I was a kid. He was the only one who would stick up for me, but he left.

"Buckaroo what are you doing," I remember asking as I walked into his bedroom and saw him packing a bag full of his belongings.

"I am leaving Rosey Thorne, and you are staying here," he replied bluntly, us Merrells have a knack for being harsh and blunt.

"Where are you going? Why are you leaving me?" I stifled a cry softly.

"I am going to Tulsa, Rose. I am going to start a life for myself, somewhere far enough that I can't hear Pa screaming at me for being a disappointment. I will come back for you when I have that life set up right ok?" Buck kneeled down and put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Don't let Pa hurt you no more ok, I know he gets rough when he is drunk. Matter of fact don't let anyone touch you Rosey. Don't let em get to ya. Take this," he passed me a cloth wrapped around something thin and seemingly delicate when you first hold it, when you don't know its true potential. "Use it, and make yourself an untouchable reputation because I can't protect you anymore. I need you to truly protect yourself ok?" Buck didn't purposefully want to make me cold hearted by that speech but in this world you never can tell what it will take for someone to survive. Getting cold was what had to happen even if Buck didn't realize he was causing me to become cold hearted.

I nodded as he stood up and walked out of my life. I layed down the gift from Buck and refused to touch it. I just cried like the broken little girl I was at that moment and the result of those stupid tears are the reason I haven't cried since that night. I don't think I am even capable of crying at this point, because my sobs awoke my partially drunk partially hungover father. He screamed at me for not being enough to make his favorite child stay. He always loved Buck more because he was a boy so he could work harder on the farm. He slammed a broken beer bottle across my left eye. Lucky for me my eye was shut in fear so it works fine but I now have a scar stretching from my eyebrow to my chin. Most people would be ashamed of such a scar because it doesn't fit beauty standards but it reminds me of who I am today. That was the last time I let someone hurt me with out leaving them in worse shape than I was. After he left my limp body bleeding out on the floor I used the cloth that once wrapped Buck's farewell gift to stop the bleeding. Thus unravelling the small black switch blade with hand painted roses all over it and my middle name carved into the handle."Thorne" was carved in fancy lettering.

I stared down at those letters on the knife while I sat on the floor of the train car. It had been eight years since that night. I am now 16 and Buck is about 28 I haven't seen him since that night. He never came for me but I knew him returning was about as real as a fairytale ending. I never dreamed he would come home and after that night I lost all hopes of anything like that. I only hoped to become the tough person who Buck wanted to me. I stopped going by my first name, Rose, and went by Thorne. I got arrested for the first time that year around a month after Buck left. That was the true genesis of who I am today and I have the jail record after my first arrest to prove it.

The only thing about living with a reputation of being an untouchable cold hearted gal is that it gets lonesome when you only have a jail record to keep you company. So I thought I would follow in Buck's foot steps and head to the place that was supposedly big enough for Buck Merrell. The only question is will it be big enough for both of the Merrells.