Stored Deep Inside Me

From the corner of my eye I could see the car slowly rolling to a stop ten feet from our front door but I could not bring my eyes from my bleeding finger tips. The cuts looked more like tiny slits opening up and spilling a dark magical elixir from some other world. As it leaked down onto my desk, a small river began to form, continuously flowing eastward toward the great unknown. In an attempt to pull me closer to their reality, the people outside are loudly slamming doors and grinding their feet into the gravel of the walkway. Are they so important that they deserve my attention? I think as a slide back into my world.

"Tess, I want you to come down and meet Lila," comes a woman's voice echoing up the stairs, honing in on my body and piercing into my ears. I am stunned. I have lost all motor skills, panic is useless- they'll catch me either way. I try to cover my fingers with something but my body refuses to move. Who is this woman getting ever closer to my door, her voice now unbearably loud? Just as the knob begins to turn I come back to where I am. This place is not foreign but rather the room I have known as mine all my life. And the woman now entering it followed by a tall pale girl is my mother. She is excited about something. Her lips move so quickly, but my ears are still stunned from the initial blow and I cannot decipher her intentions. The girl is now staring past my mother to the river of blood on my desk. I suppose it will be hard to explain the necessity of releasing the river in the middle of this yellow and pink floral room.

Still mostly incapacitated, I have regained the ability to move my arms and quickly hide them beneath my desk just as my mother follows the girl's horrified gaze to my desk. "Oh my God! Tess, what has happened?" In the next second she is at my side pulling me up and toward the bathroom to better inspect me, all the while dripping tiny blots of blood across the pink carpet. As we pass the girl frantically dances out of our path with a look of horrified interest. I smile as I pass her, maybe this summer won't be so bad after all.

It has been two days since "the incident," as we are now referring to it, and I have not been allowed out of my mother's site in all of that time. She regards me with caution and I her with contempt. And so it goes all through dinner until the girl, who I now know as Lila, says, "I once had a small cat named Tess. But she was weak and died from feline pneumonia when I was five." My mother does not know quite how to feel about this. I see her lips contemplating different approaches but eventually she just says, "I'm sorry dear. Did you miss him terribly?" As the laugh builds behind my lungs I get up to leave the table, but it is too late. My hearty laugh can surely be heard all the way to the great unknown. Not a living sole escaped it, especially not my mother whose fierce glare now violently batters my skin. Still laughing, I pick up my cloth napkin and hold it between us to stop the assault. At this, the girl also laughs. Ha! She has picked a side, now there's no going back.

Against my mother's "best judgment" she allows my new accomplice and I to be alone in my room after dinner. The girl seems pleased to have sided with me. Throughout the remainder of dinner she smiled at me or chuckled under her breath. Now she is sitting stiffly on the edge of my bed. Her posture is beautiful. Only once have I seen any to rival hers and that was years ago in a far away land. Actually, she resembles Lady St. Claire...

"So, how are you?" she shyly whispers. Though her little voice has no aggressive tones, it causes me to jump and loose my train of thought. "Oh, I am so sorry. I just wanted to talk to you, not to scare you. Oh, please forgive me!" She is at my side now holding my hand. Again I feel the laughter coming but this time I just let it out. Relieved, she joins in.

When the laughter subsides I respond, "I'm great. And you?" Smiling she retorts "better now.” Then after a short pause, “What were you thinking about a minute ago?" Hmm, I know I must be tactical with my response because in the past I have warded off potential allies with the smallest miss phrasing. "Well, I was noticing your excellent posture and thinking how you remind me of someone I once knew." She takes a minute to consider this before simply stating, "You talk strange. You use words I haven't really heard before. And you talk like you are older, but you're my age right?" I decide to let her ponder things a little longer before replying, "When you were born is not always an accurate indicator of your age." Her thoughtful expression pleased me and I decided this indeed would be a good summer.