I all, but screamed to myself when I got back to my room, biting the edge of my hood to stifle my voice as my entire body flexed. Nothing…not a single thing I have ever done in my life has ever been enough for my parents. It was always, “why don’t you have a job yet? Why haven’t you moved out? Why aren’t we grandparents yet? No dating till you’re married?” along with all sorts of other questions that just made living in this house beyond the idea of a “living hell”.
I just sat at my desk as I pulled my headphones up and let my music blare as I just flipped open to a new page of my sketchbook and just kind of started doodling, but even over the blaring music that was probably damaging my hearing, I could hear my parents start screaming at each other almost right after Father got home, the heavy thud of the front door being slammed shut almost more felt than heard even from the distance I was at from the front door. I just pulled my hood up trying to block out more and more noise as I kept my head down and tried to get my room…as quiet as possible around me. I sighed a little as I looked up to the dormer window in front of me, looking out over the darkening evening street, my pulse thundering so strongly in my chest that it was nearly blocking out the sound of my music and my parents screaming at each other.
Ironic if you remember my last name is quite literally, Smile. Yeah, I know how apropos it is that the kid with the last name of Smile is super depressed, has anger issues and has parents that would much rather murder each other and get arrested than see each other one more time. The only time they were happy was when I was a kid and they could still like…control what I looked like, how I talked, where I went, who I was around and I couldn’t do anything on my own. I’d still get my parents called into school because of my disturbing drawings that made the other kids in my classes cry when we all had to show each other what we drew, my parents would act like they were none the wiser, but the moment we left the school, I would be all, but thrown into the car as they both started screaming at me that I can’t do things like that, I had to be perfect, I had to be pristine and nobody could know if there was anything weird or different about me. They had to fit that image of the picture perfect family and I did everything I could growing up to shatter that image and they did everything they could to keep me from doing that. I rested my head on my desk as I wrapped my arms around my head as I blocked out everything happening around me, just wanting to be back in my dorm room, be back at school and…be away from the monsters that exist here in this town. My “dorm” was really a fairly big apartment that had the bedrooms rented out to students, so I had my own room, but…it was different living with people that actually wanted me to be part of things they did, I wouldn’t say most of them cared about me, but I could recall getting sick and one of my roommates telling me that if I needed anything I could text them and they’d grab whatever I wanted or needed on the way home from class.
I pulled my boots back on as I rifled through my dresser as I looked for what I needed, I did find it eventually, a long length of rope that for…other reasons, I purchased, but eventually went about using it to sneak out of the house with one of the dormer windows. I retied it around a thick pillar at the edge of the little inlet which was one of the struts of the house as I opened the window and threw the rope out, it was fraying in areas and had shown quite a bit of use as it coiled down to the ground as I wrapped my hands with a random scarf as I climbed out of the window, my boots finding purchase on the tar shingles as I wrapped my hands around the rope and used the trellis along the wall to help myself down to the ground as I was squatted down to hide under one of the windows as I ducked off into the forest that butted up against the backyard. I used the darkening sky stretching the shadows out to sneak alongside the fence before I used the trash-can to throw myself over the top. I am quite petite so it is a little difficult for me to get over the fence and all, but…luckily my life and sneaking out has made me quite the gymnast despite the fact that I have never once been in a gymnastics class or anything of that sort.
I luckily also had my bike right on the other side of the gate, so I was able to unlatch it as I peddled off along the sidewalk, luckily it is a dirt bike so I could go off to one of my favorite hide away areas, so I quickly turned off the sidewalk as the thickly tread covered tires bounced on the dirt pathways. The small light on the front reflecting on the softly misted over plant-life and the softly misted over stones lining the pathway. The frame softly rattled as the bike rumbled down a downwards pathway, I used the angled pathway as I twisted the frame in my legs as I turned down and off the path onto a much smaller and less walked upon one. I biked for probably upwards of an hour or so along the extremely rough, bumpy and twisting trails before I pushed backwards sharply on the pedals causing the tires to skid as I turned sideways causing some pebbles to kick up as I leaned my bike against a tree as I rested my hands back in my jacket’s pockets as I walked onto the bank of a kind of hidden, I’m not sure if it would be a pond or lake, I’m not sure what the difference between a pond and lake are, but it’s probably more a lagoon or something: the large oblong shaped body of water with smoothly worn stones along the banks and sides, the bank facing me slowly morphing into the lagoon as the area I was standing was worn smooth and small tiny pebbles like giant sand, the far side with a smoothly swept up hill that was shorn sharply towards the lagoon where the spring that fed it poured over the dark stones of grays and browns, the softly gurgling water lapping at the banks as thick reeds grew along the far side around where the spring fell to the water, thick washes of duckweed around the reeds and various other aquatic plants. Fireflies in dozens upon dozens flocking about the cattails and other reeded and watery plants as I sat on the pebble beach, softly twisting and tossing a few small stones in my hand as I tossed them out to bounce and skip along the surface before dropping into the water. The sunset light tinting the surface bronze and gold as the soft winds made everything shift and bend to the breeze.
“Whatever am I to do” I whispered quietly as I wrapped my arms around my legs, looking out across the surface of the water as the glimmering, glistening sunlight dancing across the barely there moving surface of the pitch colored water.
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