𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺

Chapter 18

Once Upon A Dream by Lana Del Rey
Fix You by Coldplay
City of Stars (Humming) by Emma Stone
Look After You by The Fray

———

I remember that summer as being described by the color red.

It was bloody. It was dark. And it was not kind to me.

I had turned seven that previous October, and I was obviously underdeveloped among my classmates.

Looking back, I understand now that there was a lack of nutrition. I wasn't getting enough food to keep up with the lifestyle I'd created of living off the streets in a constant fashion of running away from bullies and those who'd caught me stealing.

My mind was barely beginning to perceive the world for what it truly was and my mother had been nowhere to be seen for the past month. The food left at the door was beginning to come rarely and I was struggling to find basic necessities.

So, this is where I learned to have sticky fingers.

It depended on the day. How sluggish did I feel... was I dehydrated... had I been having a streak of not being caught... it all depended on the day.

This particular day- was not my fucking day.

I'd been caught slipping a wallet from a red backpack in the back of a bowling alley. It was the backpack of somebody near my age with nothing but a gift card to a local toy shop and a few one-dollar bills. This wasn't much- but to me? This meant three cups of instant noodles and a soda.

The small soda.

Never the big one.

They'd caught me just as soon as I'd slipped through the front doors with the brown leather in my fingertips. I took off running as soon as I heard the thundering footsteps of the three boys I'd stolen from, but I was dehydrated. I hadn't eaten or drank anything in twenty-four hours, and the temperature had soared high enough that I was forced to steal a new pair of shoes from the local pool to avoid my feet burning on the cement just this morning.

It was hot enough that I envied the stray dogs getting picked up by the local shelters for a bowl of water and a dingy fan.

In the back of an alleyway, my fimble knees gave out from below me and I slammed into the ground with a loud smack before I rolled. Before I could regain my bearings, two boys had seized me by the arms and held me up.

I had a tattered backpack I'd kept on me that entire summer, baby blue with small Dalmatians running across the bottom of it. It came off when I fell, and those boys dug through it and ripped apart the seven dollars and spare shirt I'd kept in there.

I remember that I cried.

I remember thinking those tears had to be well over a hundred degrees.

So when they turned to me, I half expected them to simply taunt me and remind me of my place in the world as a dirty bottom feeder.

Instead, I guess they thought they should beat it into me.

As two boys held me up once again, a third stood before me. He was fat, an ugly set of black horns protruding from his blonde hair that laid across freckled and chubby cheeks. I remember his shirt was blue because I remember thinking that I liked the color.

I also remember that by the time they were done, his shirt was no longer a pretty blue.

They thought it was funny, slamming their fists across my cheek and laughing as the previously loose baby teeth flew from my mouth like darts. They laughed when my pale cheeks bled red and laughed harder when my eye swelled twice its regular size.