Into The Water
10 roses in her hand.
10 roses that cannot stand.
1 rose falls to the water.
The single rose, gone like mother's daughter.
After I gathered my bearings, I slowly stood, still quite uneasy from my trek here. I could no longer look at the sand, which my mother had loved so dearly, so instead I looked out over the horizon. I finally realized the time of day. It was sunset. My favorite sight. What I loved most about the sunset was the colors and what they represent. I loved the calming blue, the fiery red, the warm orange, the energetic yellow, but most of all I loved the tint of gray that always told you something was going to happen. The gray was the mystery of the sunset. That's what I loved the most.
I then realized something. It had finally sunk in that I would only see about eleven more sunsets. I finally understood that I will die. I will die before I have had the chance to live. I never even revealed to myself who I was. I haven't had a chance to do anything. And I never will. I then realized that I'm not anyone really. I never have been. No one knows who I am. No one knows anything about me. I've always been the poor girl whose mother had died. Whose father had left. Who has been thrown from house to house. But I now realize I have eleven days. Eleven days to live a lifetime. Eleven days to prove who Sedona Grey is. My past doesn't matter now. It never will again. The only thing that matters is the next eleven days. The old me is gone. The new one is building herself.
As I walked to the shore line, I left imprints in the sand where I had walked. It showed I had been there. That's what I need to show the world. I will not go gentle into the night. I will go, not with a whimper, but with a bang. I'll show where I've been and where I'm going. No one else has to know. As long as I know I completed something in my short, meaningless life. When I reached the water I let it slowly wash over my feet. My converse were now wet, but that didn't matter. I slowly bent down and placed a single rose into the water. The tide delicately lulled the rose in further and further. It soon became a small red beacon surrounded by a sea of never ending blue. That rose was the old me. It is now gone and inferior to all that surrounds it. I now start my last eleven days as a new person. A person who will never have the chance to fully grow. But I have come to terms with this. I cannot stop fate. What happens is what will happen. It will just be happening to me. And it is that, in which I accept.
I began walking to my foster home. It was getting too dark. I started starring at the nine roses left in my hand. I admired roses. They were fierce, bold, strong, loving, and compassionate. All things that I was not. I think that was why they are my favorite. I ran my fingers across the multiple petals that bent and almost cringed away from my touch. They were pure beauty. But soon they will die, such as all things must. But they will not just wither away without value, such as I will. No, they will signify and represent my life. These roses are a life of all their own.
I finally look up and see my foster house a few houses down. I slow my pace, not yet wanting to confront my foster 'family'. But even as my futile attempt to avoid confrontation had failed, all to soon, I reach the worn away steps that lead to the weathered and chipped white painted house that I am forced to live in. It's not horrible here, not even bad, but... It's just not my home. My home was with my family. And they are gone.
I hesitated on the threshold of the door. I decided to get it over with and walk in. Lynn sees me first as I walk down the hall to my room. She meets my eyes and immediately knows the answer. I'm thankful because now I don't have to explain and reopen a wound that has yet to close. She doesn't try to console me or anything of the sort. She just let's me walk to my room as she looks upon me with yet another pitiful stare. I don't want pity. From anyone. Pity helps nothing. It solves nothing. It's a waste of time that I no longer can afford to lose. I can't let anyone pity me. Especially myself. I mumble a simple "I'm fine." under my breath and she quickly looked away, knowing how I hated sympathy.
I finally reached my room and laid down on my bed, which reminded me more of a cot. I now had time to think. I didn't want to think. I didn't have a choice. My mind began to wander away again. I thought about many different topics. I finally decided on one. I thought about my past sixteen years of life, until I finally succumbed to a night of fitful sleep.