Like Gravity(43)

I turned back to the boy and caught him staring at me.

“You should go to bed. Your name is Brooklyn, right?”

I nodded, climbing to my feet. The boy stood too, and he seemed shocked when I reached out and grabbed ahold of his hand. I squeezed tightly, hoping it was enough to tell him what I couldn’t say out loud.

Thank you.

He glanced down at my small fingers wrapped around his and gently squeezed back.

“You’re welcome.”

I smiled my first real smile in weeks and disappeared back into the house, leaving the strange lonely boy in the dark.

***

I woke with a start.

I’d never had such a vivid dream about my time in foster care before. It caught me off guard, startling me with its clarity. Sure, I’d had vague memories of the boy who’d told me stories at night. But nothing had ever been that specific. It had felt so real – like I’d really been there, standing on that porch in the darkness.

I absently ran a finger over the jagged scar on my collarbone. It was barely noticeable anymore, just a faint line of lighter pigmentation. The slightly raised, permanent mark of my past was the only physical remnant I carried from that terrible day. Thankfully, my emotional scars weren’t nearly as visible.

I bunched my down comforter around me more securely as I stared up at my plain white ceiling, instead envisioning a swirling canvas of cyan and cobalt, dotted with brilliant yellow stars and a luminescent jade dragon. I’d nearly allowed myself to forget the fairytale world my mother had created within the four walls of my tiny childhood bedroom. The dream had brought it all back.

Suddenly, the walls of my room seemed too bare. I had no pictures, no posters, not a single work of art – just plain white walls as unadorned as the day I’d signed my lease. They’d never bothered me before, or maybe I just hadn’t noticed the bleak, impersonal nature of my living space. My clothes hung neatly in my closet, meticulously arranged by color and season. My laptop sat on a clutter-free desk. My carpet was vacuumed and there were no piles of clothes or discarded papers anywhere. It looked like a ghost lived here, leaving no footprint as she moved through life.

And after all, wasn’t that who I’d become? A girl with no family, no true friends, no emotions to speak of. Had I let myself disappear? Had I forsaken that little girl who’d believed in fairytales and happily ever afters?

Yes. Because it had been easier.

But I wouldn’t do it anymore. I would find that little girl again, somehow. I would take back my life from the apparition I’d become.

For the first time in years, I was thankful for one of my nightmares. And as I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep, I smiled.

***

I awoke the next morning near dawn, feeling more refreshed than I had in weeks. After making coffee, I sat on the roof and studied for a few hours. I had several exams coming up, and between Finn, therapy, and mysterious flower deliveries, I hadn’t had much time to focus on my classes.

When ten o’clock rolled around, I walked into Lexi’s room and grabbed the picture frame I was looking for from her desk. One pedicured foot dangled over the side of her mattress and a fuzzy halo of red waves quickly disappeared as she yanked her fuchsia comforter up to block the light I’d let in. Growling, she blindly threw a pillow across the room at me, evidently pissed I’d woken her up. I laughed and closed the door gently on my way out.

Looking down at the picture in my hands, I smiled. It had been taken last year at a Halloween party. Lex and I had dressed up as Mario and Luigi, and we looked carefree and happy in the photo – smiling so hard our lopsided black stick-on mustaches threatened to fall off our faces.

Returning to my room, I opened a drawer in my desk and moved aside several neatly stacked spiral notebooks. At the bottom of the drawer, I finally found what I was looking for. Two small, faded photos of my mother were all I had left. They were timeworn and tattered, but they were precious to me. She looked beautiful in them – young and incandescently happy as she grinned at whoever had taken the photos.

One was a portrait of her alone, leaning into the wind on a pier in California. Her arms were thrown up as she raced through the salty ocean spray toward the photographer. The second was a photo of the two of us. I was young, probably three or four, and she held me suspended in her arms. She was looking at me with the pure, unadulterated love only a mother can give, and I was looking back at her like she was my whole universe. Because she had been.

Tears filled my eyes, but they were happy. I’d been loved – I had the proof right here in my hands. And it had been neglected that drawer, gathering dust, for far too long. Dashing the moisture from my eyes, I grabbed the three photos I’d collected and made my way to the driveway. I hopped into Lexi’s car and drove straight to the closest photography store, where I knew I could have the prints enlarged and enhanced.

After explaining exactly what I wanted, I left the photos in the capable hands of the shop owner and headed across town to Andler’s, the only local mom-and-pop hardware store that was still in business. Most of the others had crumbled under financial strains in the recent recession, unable to compete when a national chain home improvement superstore had opened just outside of town. I wasn’t much for DIY, but whenever I needed to buy replacement light bulbs or duct tape, I’d head to Andler’s. I liked to think I was supporting the little guy.

Considering the early hour and the fact that it was Saturday morning, I was unsurprised to find that I was the youngest customer in the shop by at least three decades. I was also the only female.