NOTES: If there is an underlined word, it's Asazi's thoughts. If anything is italicized, it's Asazi thinking from the present (this is sort of a flashback). If a word is bolded, it's emphasized. I'm NOT going to write this stuff again so make a note of this and read on and review.
Asazi
Chapter 2
We had made it to Missouri without any more conversation…or confrontation for that matter. But things were heating up. I didn't answer him and he thought that was a sign of disrespect. Actually, it was. He wasn't a good person so why treat him with respect?
Missouri in the summertime is actually quite a nice place but…I couldn't escape at anytime while we were there. We made numerous bathroom and food stops of course but as our trip continued, he began to stop once or twice every hour.
At first I wondered why but as we passed the sign that said welcome to…I can't remember which state it was…I realized what he was doing. The more we traveled the slower he got and the more he switched lanes in the highway.
And as we went into another state, I realized that he was getting high in the bathrooms of every stop. He kept on craving and the more he did, the more he switched lanes and the slower he got. When we reached Tallahassee Florida, we retired for the night in a hotel.
He said, "You sleep on the floor because I can't afford a double room." That's because you are getting high on your on supply you undisciplined freak, I thought. I bet you were planning on selling some or your dope to the hotel guy but you got high on the way here…
He parked the car in the Hotel 6 parking lot and we walked to our room. Number 306. It was on a second story and I made a note that the hotel's pool was down the stairs and through the door on the right. He unlocked the door and entered our room; I followed him.
He immediately hopped onto his bed after tossing the keys onto a small table and turned on the TV. "We got eight channels," the hotel guy had said earlier. I looked around the room; it was somewhat nice. The bed was in the middle, a small table with two chairs around it on the opposite side of the room and a bathroom door beside the table.
I'm very vulnerable in this room.
I heard a sniff and looked at Uncle Shawn. He had part of one of his fake pens up his left nostril. I turned away and said, with my back facing him, "I'm going for a swim." I heard him sit up with surprise.
"You talked?!"
"Yes, I did. I'm going for a swim." My back was still facing him and I vowed to myself that I would never talk to him with my face toward him.
"Interesting," he replied, as if studying a specimen. "You don't talk like a six-year-old does…go on, get outta here. I'll leave the door unlocked."
It suddenly occurred to me that he could lock me out. He obviously didn't care about me so he probably would. I then decided that I should get the keys to the room, just in case. I turned around and walked into the bathroom and pretended to wash my hands.
When I was done, I walked out and sat at the table that had the keys on it. I sat for a minute and watched the show Uncle Shawn was watching. It was nasty. I had seen people do this on a few of the movies I had watched in the hospital but not like this.
I quietly took the keys from the table and put them in my left pocket. I was wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt. Suddenly Uncle Shawn looked at me and said, "I thought you were going swimming."
I got up and left the hotel room, disgusted with my immature uncle and afraid that he would do to me what those actors were doing in the show. I walked down the stairs, turned and entered the door on the right. Behold the pool.
A skylight was above the pool; the watery light reflecting onto the walls created a beautifully exotic scene. I smiled for the first time since my parent's death…their death…
Tears came to my eyes as I thought about them. Tears then began to flow like a river into the pool as I treaded in the deep section, remembering the great times we had together. When my sixth birthday was celebrated, my first bike ride, my first day of school…my tears not only blurred my vision but they blurred my thoughts.
They were gone. Never to return to me again…my Daddy was a truck driver and he wasn't home very much…then a thought hit me. What was he doing in the back seat of our car? He wasn't supposed to be home for another two days…he was there to surprise me…
My realization only brought more tears. Mommy and Daddy gone forever. Their faces now unrecognizable and buried in the dirt…and I never even got to attend their funeral.
I sobbed and sobbed. For how long I don't know but I decided that I would never have children. No matter what I would never have children. I could die and break their hearts and they would live like I planned too. And I would…
Tears. Tears and tears and tears. I cried hard. And somehow, in the middle of the pool, I cried myself to sleep…
-_-
"Oh shit!" The voice was frantic and surprised. It also had a hint of fear in it. "What the hell are you…"
I slowly began to wake up. I felt water all around me except my face. My back and butt were on something rough, like sandpaper but underwater. I opened my eyes to see a man with a large beard peering down at me.
"AAA," he screamed when I opened my eyes.
I slowly leveled my head and looked around. I was in the pool, the shallow end, and my backside leaning against the wall of the pool. How did I get over here…?
"Are you okay young lady," the man asked. I pushed with my feet off the wall and went to the middle of the pool before even looking at him. He was tall, a large, white and gray beard protruding from his face. His arms weren't equal though…I looked closely and saw that his left arm ended at his elbow. He was missing half of his left arm.
"Yes," he said, "I lost that in a tractor accident a few years ago." I frowned, realizing that I had stared and he had noticed. I must've been slow waking up because next thing I noticed was that sunlight was filtering into the poolroom from the skylight above.
I looked up and was temporarily blinded by the high noon sun. High noon?! Uncle Shawn is gone! I thought about that for a moment and decided 'good riddance'. I didn't have to runaway. He left me. At first that thought hurt, the fact that he left me, the fact that he didn't care…I was young and still didn't understand everything…
The man was giving me a suspicious look. "How long you been in this here pool?"
I decided to talk and tell the truth. "Since last night, around ten."
His eyes widened with shock. "And you're alive! You were asleep when I came in here." He paused, then said with an astonished smile, "A miracle."
I frowned. "What miracle?"
"You must've fallen asleep in the pool. Knowing most kids like your age you were in the deep end too, am I right?" I nodded. "If you fell asleep, you would've drowned. Yet you're alive."
Is that a good thing, I asked myself. I shrugged my shoulders and they shocked me with stiff, sore pain. He noticed that too and said, "You sleepswam to the other side!" He started laughing hard.
I made a face and remembered a movie about a serial killer going across America. This man reminded me of him and I made a then remembered that the man in the movie was insane. Was this man insane?
"So—where's your Daddy," he asked next. My face went from somewhat happy to completely sour.
"He's dead," I spat. Why'd I say that? That's not his business!
I guess for some reason, I felt that I could trust him. Back then, I was desperate for help, affection in a good way. I don't know why but I decided I could trust him.
He raised an eyebrow and said, "Who are you staying with here?"
"My Uncle Shawn, but he's…not…he's not good."
"In what way?"
"He sells drugs and he's power-hungry. He doesn't have control on his life and he wants control. I know that eventually he's going to start hurting me and tou—''
"There you are," exclaimed a familiar, fearful voice. Uncle Shawn.
I turned around with my stiff arms to see him standing in the doorway, his face a mask of happiness and joy. He was acting and he wasn't that bad at it when he wasn't high on his drugs.
I turned back around and snuck a 'help me' look at the man whose name I did not know. His eyes said he understood. Uncle Shawn stumbled into my peripheral vision and looked at the man who feared for my life. Not like my life is worth anything.
"Who are you," Uncle Shawn asked coldly, his eyes blankly gazing at the man's half-gone arm. Uncle Shawn turned to me and I saw it in his eyes. He was high. "Are you—," he tripped on a chair leg and fell into the pool. "AAA!"
SPLASH! The water splashed onto my face and into my eyes but I felt something…I didn't let the water affect me. I didn't blink. I started breathing fast and felt immediate pain and anger.
Uncle Shawn is going to hurt you, said a voice in my head. Finish him now so he can't anymore.
My eyes locked onto his splashing, panicked body and I dove into the water. I opened my eyes underwater and the chlorine filled them…I didn't stop. I swam to Uncle Shawn, who had just surfaced, grabbed his pant leg and yanked him down.
As I had hoped, the cold water only dazed him more. He probably didn't even know he was awake anymore. I held onto his leg with a death grip. Die! DIE!
I still don't know what came over me. I just felt that I had too. I still don't know why, still don't understand why or what I did that for…
His was starting to relax, giving up his air when something yanked him up out of the water, I held onto his leg but I was pulled out with him. Something pried my hands away and I was pushed away from Uncle Shawn's wet, soaking body.
It was the man who had pulled Uncle Shawn out. He saved a worthless life. For what, a voice inside seemed to ask.
I slowly swam back to the middle of the pool, away from the traitor. And then he said what changed my life. "If you want to kill someone, you'll have to learn how to do it first."
Huh?