Be Brave

Tears and An Empty Promise Part 2

The Present.

Amara sat quietly upstairs in her bedroom, in an old creaky chair next to the huge window that overlooked the front lawn with a novel laying wide open on her lap; unread, untouched. Outside, girls varying in age were scattered about in the shaded front lawn, playing games, lounging around and enjoying the warm, sunny weather outside.

Miss Kylie, their guardian and the owner of the home, sat in her usual seat, perched so formally in her old rocking chair under the giant oak tree with its long, leafy limbs that covered most of the yard. She too had a book neatly seated in her lap and was reading from its worn yellowed pages and Amara could tell without seeing the cover clearly, it was a story Kylie has already read numerous times. There was only so many books they kept inside the house library.

While all the other girls were outside, running amok, Amara had chosen to sit inside where it was cooler and watched them sweat out in the heat. She looked away from the window to an old beat up suitcase that sat lying open and empty on her bed. Nada. Zip. Nothing. What should I pack? There's not a whole lot that I own... She thought to herself in her own inner monologue as she so often does.

The closet doors were wide open, showing off her under-whelmingly short supply of wardrobe. She owns just a bare minimum of clothing; a few shorts, shirts, a couple summer dresses, some underthings and two pairs of shoes; a pair of strappy sandals and a pair of unworn, thick leather boots. There were some books and old photographs from memories past stacked neatly on a little three shelved case sitting on the floor in the back of the small closeted space. 

She has no money, no formal plans, no ideas, and nowhere else she can go. But, I have to go somewhere. I can't stay here forever, she thought again to herself bitterly.

Screams from the yard shook Amara from her thoughts, directing her attention to a cat fight that broke out on the front lawn. Two of the girls, ten years old, were pulling each other's hair, slapping, spitting and kicking each other. Amara could hear the foul names they hurled at each other and that should never come from a young lady's mouth.

Amara wasn't fazed by the language personally, having read several books that broadened her vocabulary and taught her a thing or two that Kylie had voluntarily neglected to teach in her studies. Things -adult things- that everyone should, at some point, know about, but when Amara had asked her caretaker to explain them in further detail, Kylie simply said that 'some things just weren't suitable for young girls', and left it at that. But she knew the old lady wouldn't appreciate this kind of language or behavior from those girls outside. And sure enough, Amara glanced over and saw that Miss Kylie was still sitting in her chair, but she was glaring at the girls, as if she was able to use some sort of mind trick to get them to behave.

"Like that's going to do any good, you old ding bat." Amara stood up and walked out the door and ran down the stairs and outside onto the massive front yard.

The girls were still savagely attacking each other like wild animals and no one was doing anything but watch. "Do I have to do everything around here?" she hollered to everyone standing around. She grabbed one of the girls by the waist and pulled her off the other, while at the same time, she pressed her other hand firmly on the second girls' forehead and pushed her down with very little effort. The girls fell apart and collapsed in a heap on the ground at Amara's feet; red, sweaty and breathless with scratches and dirt covering their faces.

"Now, both of you, grow up and stop being so childish!" like a mother hen scolding her chicks, Amara crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the girls with disapproval usually reserved only for older siblings to use. She waited till they were breathing calmly before she walked away, back into the house.