Carolina [h.s]

forty

***

south carolina
august 1990

***

Vada
//

The dark hallway is long, dark and narrow. It's only slightly familiar and I know I'm supposed to run. But I find myself waiting a moment, waiting for someone.

Over the echo of my pounding heart, my whole body shakes as glass shatters and loud voices echo followed by a familiar heart shattering scream, and that's when I take off running again.

I reach the kitchen, and it's not sun-yellow-happy and familiar. It's not the home that I'm used to now and I know I'm supposed to hide. I find the cabinet underneath the sink, where I'm still small enough to fit and then I wait.

More glass shatters and I cover my ears to drown out the screams. She's protecting me and I fear she will lose and he will come after me next.

Then I think my fear is coming true as the door to the cabinet is pulled open and I scream because I think he found me. But red hair is dark and grey eyes are the familiar sad hue I will remember forever.

"Come on, baby," she tells me, pulling me out of my hiding. "It's okay now, we're okay." she reassured with bloody hands and a bruised face.

"Mom—"

"We're leaving now, like I said before." She takes my hand and leads me back down the hallway in a rush. "We're going to the place where it never rains and summer is all year round." She talks in a daze and I hear the echo of her voice off the sounds of the walls.

"But mom, what about—"

"No," She turns to me, eyes all wild and frame shaking. "Everything that you've ever seen before today, everything I've told you and everything he's told you—" She looks down trying to keep her cries from escaping.

"You get rid of it all, you forget about everything." She implies heavily. "Vada, come on, doll, please promise me you will forget everything." Pain filled eyes plead for me to agree.

"Okay, I promise," I finally say, because I would carry the moon on my back if she asked me too.

My vision turns and colors change and we go from fearing for our lives to running from them. But we never reach the place that never rains and has summer year round because mom says things never work out the way we always want them too.