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hitchhiking in the hearse - d11 train
Jun 4, 2024 22:49:22 GMT -5
Post by august vance d7b [Bella] on Jun 4, 2024 22:49:22 GMT -5
n o r i - ♥ - h a l l i d a y
When Ezra, Tucker, and Remi leave the justice building, it feels like all the air goes with them. I sit there for a moment, teary-eyed and hollowed out, thinking about the ones who can’t be there. Four years isn’t so long, but it’s enough to make it harder to muster up a mental image of Mom and Dad. After a while your brain takes the needle off that record so it can stop spinning obsessively at the end. Thinking about them now feels almost like looking at a picture within a dream. More of a shopping list than a picture, even.
Mom’s perfume had smelled like daisies and rubbing alcohol; the first because she loved them, the second because she’d made the perfume herself. Dad had hands like sandpaper, like baseball mitts, but he never held anything hard enough to hurt it. Mom liked raisins, as much as we’d teased her for it. Dad’s face got all twisted up when he concentrated on something–the TV, the newspaper, cooking, tying a shoe. Dad liked to play guitar, and Mom would sing about freedom. Their songs were all sorrowful minor scales with that silver-shining hopeful note threaded in.
In the end, they were full people, with lists so much longer than mine. Now I’m wondering if I’ll get burnt up too, without much to show for it.
My lips pull tight across my teeth as the peacekeepers usher me onto the train, just chewing on the bad taste left in my mouth. We step in, and I’m not sure if I should take my shoes off. I never had carpet. They wear their boots, the dirty pigs, so I take my sandals off just to show ‘em. But they leave as soon as they get there, leaving me standing with my toes sinking into the greasy fibers.
Home rolls away, not a single whistle blowing like they said in the old songs. I take a seat next to the window, pressing my temple to the crystal-clear glass as the train starts to roll backwards. When footsteps approach, I squeeze my eyes shut, not at all willing to talk to anyone right now.
But then a heavy sigh leaves my lungs and I find myself blinking up at the other unlucky kid from Eleven, throwing my hands up in the air.
“If you’re waiting to take advantage of my most vulnerable moment, this might be the time.” I glance back out the window. “Don’t think I’ve cried that much in a while.”
Folding my arms over my chest, I watch him warily. I don’t know what kept me from ignoring him. Just my upbringing, or gallows humor?
