Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
The candy stops rolling when it hits the edge of the counter and bounces off, only to stop in front of a small pair of shoes. They’re white but scuffed up and I slowly lift my gaze to the owner of the shoes. To the short girl who’s bending down to pick up my candy.
She can’t have it!
My jaw’s hard, and I clench my teeth even though the bruise there makes it hurt. My hands turn to fists. All I have left of my grandmom are these two pieces.
She can’t have it!
She picks it up so delicately and carefully, then smooths out her dress. It’s then that I notice how dirty it is like she’s been sitting on the ground all day. It’s wrinkled too. When she stands up her big doe eyes are filled with worry and she turns to look at a woman by the fridge doors. The woman’s skinny, skinny like my mom. That’s what I think as the bottles she’s picking up clink together.
The girl looks like she wants to say something, but she’s scared, so she says nothing. Her gaze drops to the ground, then she lifts her head back up to look around.
She’s looking for me; I know she is.
The instant she sees me, the worry goes away and she smiles. A genuine smile that’s just for me.
“Is this yours?” she offers in a soft voice that makes the anger go away. Only for a second though, because the moment she asks me, she peeks over at the woman and looks nervous to even be talking to me.
Because I’m a bad kid. That’s why. Everyone knows it. Even her.
Her knees nearly buckle as she stands there, holding the candy out to me even though I’m feet away from her.
She’s afraid to move. “My mom told me to stay here,” she explains.
I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. She looks sad like me until she smiles at me, then it changes everything.
She’s strange. Like she doesn’t want to be here.
I may not belong here, but she doesn’t either.
“Thanks,” I tell her as I walk to her and she nervously looks between me and the woman again, her mom.
She’s shy as she talks to me. “I haven’t met you before.” And then she smiles again, even sweeter this time. She smiles at me like her happiness was meant to belong to me. Like I could take that happiness from her. Like I could be happy too. “I’m Chloe Rose.”
CHLOE
Maybe if I leave, the nightmares will go away.
Places hold memories. They can’t help it. The image of a dented brass doorknob comes to mind. I’ll never forget the memory of what put that dent into the hard metal. The sound of a click against a window, the window he crept through late at night. It can’t help but exist, yet it carries so much heaviness with it. So much more than just an object, so much more than just a place.
I’m done crying; I’m done remembering.
I think I’ve been ready to leave for a long time. Longer than the time that first light went out on the street and I had the urge to run in such a primitive way. I think I was ready to run the first time Bastian’s lips pressed against mine. My heart knew it, but it would only beat if he came with me.
There’s a method to the way I place each item in the old duffle bag. I was given the bag in gym class one year in high school. It was a promotion for some sports drink and I think it could carry at least two weeks’ worth of clothes. That’s all I need.
Each piece fits in easily. My books I can put in a cardboard box and place in the back. I’ll always need my books.
Other than my clothes, I don’t know what I’ll take. Toiletries, obviously. But these photographs aren’t mine and the ones I have, I don’t want.
The light catches the glass of a photo on the far right of the wall. A photo of my mother when she was young, and I was in her arms. I don’t remember that far back, but my uncle said she loved me deeply. That she bundled me up in that picture because it was so cold out and she was worried about taking me outside for the photos.
She loved me once.
But she loved the alcohol more.
I’m okay with it. I’m okay with it all. Because I survived, and I still know how to love. A piece of me will always love her. I’ll love the woman in this photo because she’s not the woman in my nightmares.
My fingertips brush along the edges of the frame as my throat tightens and I wish I could go back to that time to tell her. I wish I could go back to so much.