Small, I know. But I am finally home after a stint of alternate reality, so this is as good as it is going to get.
/ /
If you close your eyes, you can see another time.
And isn't that what we all do? Shut away the reality and latch on to a previous existence, stare out at those water-color moments from our past and turn them into something better...
Something closer to what you always wanted and less like what it truly was.
/ /
When Spencer closes her eyes, she sees a family that adores her and doors that do not slam in her face and cruel games are just a figment of her over-active imagination.
When Ashley closes her eyes, she sees a family that needs her and fiction is just a storybook at night and all those blown kisses from her father do not come with lies attached.
When Aiden closes his eyes, he sees a family that wants him and attention isn't something earned with silence and every touch is gentle instead of brutal.
/ /
Her feet are wet and sand sticks to the soles, but she'll flutter her way up the wooden walk-way and she'll barrel through the door. Her mother chastises, but they all know a maid will clean it up after they leave.
The kitchen, windows thrown open, smells like the sea. And as she darts past her mother, she recognizes sun-tan lotion and something else, something clear but strong in a glass.
Rounding the corner, though, thrusts her into the realm of her father - cigar smoke and after-shave - on the couches and against the walls.
She loves each and every fragrance, loves that it means this is home for a while.
But it is her own room, caught up in every color of the rainbow, that she loves the most.
The trail of clean sheets and tiny parcels of lavender, with the salty breeze blowing through the curtains - that is the scent of perfection. Even the sunlight, marking out spots with almost unbearable heat, has an essence all its own.
The sun smells like joy. Like freedom. Like the best of everything.
It blinds the worries that niggle at the back of her mind. It blocks away the doubts that linger.
It makes her mother seem more at ease. It makes her father seem more present.
It allows Ashley to be thirteen instead of anxiously ancient.
/ /
It is the moon that Spencer looks up at as Ashley tries one key then another, trying to coax the lock to open. And they do not talk about anything as they finally walk into the somewhat stuffy house, as Ashley feels around for a light switch and is only able to find one for the porch.
Spencer doesn't mention the embrace they just shared or the tears that Ashley just shed or all the trouble they are trying to outrun.
Ashley doesn't bring up the fact that they have fled the scene of every crime committed against them.
And every crime they have committed against others.
And even those crimes committed against each other.
They don't talk, though, not now. Ashley reaches out silently and Spencer takes the girl's hand in her own, the two of them toeing off shoes as they move through quiet hallways and as they leave behind the only light on.
Stairs creak with the lack of recent use as they go up and up, shadows rippling along wallpaper with each passing glance of the beach below, and Spencer keeps flickering her gaze to the shafts of moonlight. The way it coats things in silver - the edge of a step, the glass pane, a curl of Ashley's hair - and her hand flexes involuntarily, holding onto Ashley a bit tighter.
Ashley merely returns the favor, as if it were the most natural thing ever, and those fingers weave with Spencer's easily. They form a kind of physical representation of the bond that is building between them - instinctual and sure and a beacon in a world of darkness.
And they don't talk.
Ashley pulls Spencer into one of the rooms, letting go only to open a balcony door and let fresh air in, then they are clasped together again.
Then they are dissolving with the rest of the night, crashing down upon a bed made for one, and this isn't about sex. Maybe it never was.
But all stories have to start somewhere. Maybe that is how their story had to start, with make-believe and masks and a room painted in fantasy.
This isn't about sex, though. Not now.
They hold hands and they fall asleep, breathing in time and one beat of the heart for another, knowing that there will be plenty of days to sort out the mess left behind and there will be plenty of time to figure out the concerns on the proverbial doorstep.
Not now, though.
Now is all about this - the two of them - and nothing else.
/ /
TBC
