Mud Hearts

by Cheshire Catz

Trashed the sweater and ditched the heavy liner' - she's ready to show herself to the world.. well - Shermer High... With the shadows of her former "Basket Case" reputation lingering - Allison dating the school's star athlete doesn't play well.. Can a single school cafeteria baking DISASTER bring Allison and Andrew closer together despite social differences?

3. Purging

March 24 1984

Saturday Night

Dear Diary,

..Hi, it's Allison. I haven't wrote a formal diary entry in a long time..I guess it's cause I've had nothing to say.. or I couldn't put what I was feeling into words. No scratch that - I have a-lot to fucking say.

I'm here now. Fuck this.

I've only just realised that all my existence on this planet, has been me trapped inside my own head. So many days have passed by and with it, the slow decline of my youth. I'm sick of wasting all my time. When I was eleven I wanted my parents to love me. Back then, my parents were simply people who I would happen to pass by on the stairs from time to time. Each time I saw them around the house, I never made the connection that they were my parents - they were simply people who would scream and shout at each other and stumble home drunk..I wished them to speak to me, give me a hug - I wanted a mother and a father. But then I got older, and I understood that they didn't care. Nor will they ever. I've had to learn to deal with this, I mean what else can you do?! But I very clearly haven't dealt with this..

All my memories are of me:

Wishing.. for the pain to go away..the loneliness. Hoping everything would get better.. wondering when would my life would begin.. Then I would fall asleep into a short uneventful slumber only to wake up too soon. Each day is supposedly a "fresh beginning" but never me. I wake up, and the same pain continues. As if my whole life is meerly a timeless vault of never ending darkness.

I go to bed each night, and wonder when will I wake up in tomorrow.

When will my life, begin.

Is it my fault I am this way? Did my parents ignore me because I am not good enough? ... Who could love a basket-case...? But I can write with my toes, and play piano.. I learnt this myself, without the aid of a parent or anybody for that matter.. That's pretty impressive, right?

But dear diary, I think my darkness is being shattered by soft light. From the moment I entered the library to serve the detention.. I felt different. Is this what it's like to be alive..? Dear diary, I think I'm coming alive.

My name is Allison Reynolds, and I'm a basket-case... but strangely.. I'm okay with that.

THIS DIARY ENTRY MAKES NO SENSE to future Allison or anybody else reading this, but oh my god right here, and right now.. It makes perfect sense.

I steadily opened my eyes to the silencing hush of my bedroom, as if the objects in the room were silencing one another to keep me asleep. The gentle whistle of water running through the pipes in the wall was soothing, somebody must be taking a shower I think to myself. My movements are gentle and slow, I was afraid of breaking the perfect tranquillity that was washed over me.

Before I closed my eyes again, I remember seeing a flicker of robin egg blue and sighing as I buried my face into the soft fabric.

I guess I never went through with the plan of tossing Andrew's jacket aside after all. Yet oddly... I was okay with that.