That day I left school with a bruised body, a bloody nose and a low self esteem - again. This day was hardly any different to the rest - I went to school, I underwent my daily beating and I went home - only, it was different. Not physically, but still different. I could feel it like an itch that had been slowly forming in the centre of your back and you can't quite get to it. I felt like I was being watched, and I was curious to know why. I wanted to scratch the itch until it was raw and sensitive. But it was probably nothing, just my paranoia again. Just inside my head, nothing more, nothing less, because why would someone be watching me, of all people? Even so, I kept my guard up, better safe than sorry.
Unlilke my usual routine, instead of walking straight home I walked to the tattoo parlour, DunksDesigns, across town. The parlour sat on the corner of the road leading out of town, in a run down neighbourhood, and the bright aqua-blue building stood like a clown at a funeral. The sign on the door said it was closed, but judging by the light from the back room, it seemed someone was home.
The door swung open at my touch with a small squeak, and I was welcomed with a blast of warm air. "Hello?" I called, and a heavy, average height man with peircings and sleeve tattoos came into the from room of the shop wiping his face with a towel.
"Look, I'm sorry for any inconviences, but the sign says we're closed." He said without looking up.
"Closed even for a sister?" I say, then realising who he was talking to, he took the towel from his face and smiled, then wrapped his gigantic arms around my shoulders. I wasn't actually his sister, I just liked to pretend because I had no known biological family other than the aunt I lived with, and something told me, he liked to pretend too.
He let me go and took a step back to look at me. "You look like shit." He said.
"Full of compliments as always, I see." I replied. Dunk was nice. Honest. Bluntly so.
"So what can I do for you?"
"I actually have a new design for you." I take out my old sketch book of tattoo designs that I had drawn for Dunk in the past, my most recent drawing is marked with an old red shoelace. "I was hoping you could tattoo it for me on my left shoulder blade."
"Well, let's take a look, shall we?"
...
My house was in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields and forests for miles. That was what I loved about it. My aunt was hardly mum ever around, out on "business" she would say. I didn't mind though, because I liked the quietness of being by myself and I was technically old enough to live by myself. It was a small house, nothing much. It had what I needed, so I stayed.
When I arrived back home, there was a note from my aunt on the kitchen counter:
Maggie,
I'm gone out to a meeting with a client from work. I won't be back for a while so you'll have to make your own dinner. There are left overs from last nights dinner, if you want to heat it up in the microwave.
Clair.
Thanks Clair, but no thanks. When Clair says she's gone on a "meeting" it usually means she's gone on a date and won't be back for a while, if you catch my drift. Also, Clair's cooking could be a bit. . . Unreliable, to put it kindly, and besides, I was exhausted from the walk and stiff from healing bruises, so I wasn't going to risk getting sick tonight.
I didn't really care that I got punched and kicked in school. I don't even know why I didn't care. Obviously it was sore, but. . . But. But. But. The big "B" word. "But" what? I thought. Why do I keep thinking "but"? Do I deserve it? Do I enjoy it? Of course I don't enjoy it. So what is the but? That was the thought that was ever present in my head.
But maybe worse is yet to come...
...
Later that night I made a vegetarian burger - nearly as bad as a real one - and started doing my history homework. I always dreaded history. Not for any particular reason, it just constantly confused me. I could handle the other subjects, like geography or science or maths, but history? I failed nearly every test.
It took me long enough to finish my homework, I cleaned up the plate I used for my dinner and washed the dishes in the sink, then went outside and walked into the nearby forest. It was almost as if time stood still in the forest, like I had stepped into some sort of pocket universe. A big one with a smaller one inside.
I only ever come here at sunset. The fading light tints the grass red and the wood of the trees a brownish-gold, like they were gigantic gold pillars holding up the sky. It had rained earlier that day and the way the water on the leaves caught the light made it look like the forest was on fire! At night though, the moonlight would cast it's light on the leaves and they looked like they were made of silver.
I loved to watch the sun go down. It was always so beautiful. The sky would blaze orange then the sun would disappear and the stars and the moon would come out, and even though the sunset was beautiful it was the stars I really came for.
I keep thinking that if I stare at the stars long enough I'll somehow fly up into them and live far away on a planet that no one knows about. It's crazy and impossible - I know. But I can always dream and hope for the wonderful.
Every night I would look at the sky and there would be one star that would never move. Some nights it wouldn't be there, but mostly it would, just dangling like any other star really. If anyone else looked up at the sky it would look like an ordinary star. But I know what a star looks like, this one was different. It shined brighter and was more blue than the rest.
Sometimes if I really focused, it was almost like it was crying out for help. . . All alone up in that big sky.
My star.
My cold blue star...
Only it wasn't blue. Not anymore. It had started to turn red around the edges and seemed to be getting larger. It got more and more red and larger and larger by the second.
My star was falling.
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- S x