Authors Note: I didn't change anything major! Just put up a line break that doesn't disappear because apparently underscore or whatever doesn't show up and separate the freakin time skip. :I
For the first time in several days, I felt a slight spark in adrenaline. Something new in my life had finally come. Day after day of eating, playing with chewed up second hand toys, poop, sleep, and repeat were over. I had already read all of the books I could find around the one bedroom apartment and I sure as hell was not touching those toys with my mouth even when I went through the pain of teething for the second time in this reincarnated life. I was three already and tired of the monotony and shame of reliving a helpless baby life.
That was the day when my second dad finally took me to an amusement park.
It was loud.
Bright lights burned my eyes.
People pushed and shoved at me.
It was absolute chaos and I loved it.
My dad was holding my hand as he led me around the masses up to a cotton candy stand. After paying for the purple one and handing it off to me he swung me up onto his shoulders pointing at the small billboard advertising the stunt man that was coming on in about ten minutes and headed over there into the large tent. My dad was one of those action rather than words men.
The inside was packed. Built like a stadium with a dirt 'stage' in the middle filled with different sized ramp's and obstacle courses. I hit my sugar high as my dad pushed and shoved his way up to the front. All the lights went out except for the ones illuminating the small man on a motorbike in the center of the tent. Loud, thumping music came on and the crowd roared and screamed around me, automatically filling me with a pressure so intense I felt ready to burst, to find some way to release it and I felt more alive than I had in my whole baby life. I was still on my dad's shoulders feeling on top of the world as the stunt man riled the raging crowd up with screaming and chaos.
"Are you ready!"
Hell yes I'm ready.
He revved up his bike and took off hard and fast towards the tallest ramp in the center of the stage. He lifted off those last few inches of the ramp and suddenly all I could see was this mortal, human man suspended midair risking his life for just a few moments of that sweet, fulfillment of freedom.
Flying.
I knew with a certainty that that was the life I was meant to live.
A life of sweet, reckless abandon.
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"What do you want for you birthday, piccolino?"
I look up. Look at my dad's violet eyes. Smile.
"I want a motorcycle."
My dad is rubbing his chin in that familiar way that betrays his deep thinking.
He pushes back his hair and looks to the sky as if asking what to do from the heavens and looks back down at me.
"I want grandchildren first." His eyes twinkle mischievously. He grabs my hand and pats it.
I continue to look at him in those eyes that we share. "I'm already working on it."
He chokes on his spit and looks at my face, my belly, back to my face and smiles a strained smile that's on the verge of turning dangerous. I smirk. His smile switches to relieved.
"Sometimes you look so serious that I am not sure if you are joking." He chuckles quietly while still patting my hand.
We are outside of the house lounging on the floor of our beat up porch while soaking up the rays of sunlight. The weather decided it would grant us a slight reprieve from the muggy, hot air of summer and sent us a small, cool breeze. Clouds drifted by lazily, blanketing the sun as if trying to soften the harmful but warming rays. The distant smell of sharp, clean ozone signaled the coming of lightning and rain, but for now the weather will behave and allow the sky to hold it back for a moment. The calm before the storm.
I take it all in, silently, feeling this calm settle deep in my bones as I register that my thirteenth birthday was coming soon and felt the full weight of living for thirty-two years instead. Even though Death allowed me to live again, I did not feel the full weight of this life unless I stared him in the face.
So as I lay here with my handsome, supporting father, I imagine that I am a normal kid just for a moment and let myself feel that calm. That calm before the storm.
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Authors note numero dos:
I swear this is like the third time I've had to fix this chapter because freaking underscore doesn't show up and separate two different parts of this chapter. I was confused myself and I was the one that wrote it. lol well HOPEFULLY...this works...or I swear to my Mexican granpa that I will probably...do nothing but cry actually. I'm a wimp like that.
