Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
HOME. The sentiment pounds into her ribs in tandem with her heartbeat as Violet tears down unfamiliar streets on her skateboard, popping up and down curbs to avoid the potholes and puddles. Home. Home. Home.
Forks holds no novelty in her stone cold heart, and yet the vehemence of nostalgia cleaving through her body surprises her again and again with each stroke of her leg kicking off the tarmac. Never in a million years would she have ever thought she'd miss her old hometown, especially after all the nightmares that'd transpired. Nightmares that her father thought she'd leave behind. But the skeletons go wherever she goes, and she's accepted it. She holds onto them because the bones of her past sharpen the knives of anger twisting in her guts. Plus there are stranger things to miss. Like how the streets shine like silver after the rain, and how days never look like days but crepuscular twilight. Or how it's supposedly summer, but it feels more like the cusp of winter. Home. It still feels all sorts of wrong without Luka by her side, but at least she's not miles and miles away from everything she used to know.
With the wind in her face, the buildings and houses and the infinite canopy blurring in periphery as she rockets forward, forward, forward, she is an unknowable comet shooting out on a warpath under the rainclouds looming overhead. People turn to stare as she flies by, wheels screaming against the tarmac. Shedding distance and gaining momentum. For once, the iron voice is the last thing she hears. For once, it is a muted buzz of undeniable impulses she is not enslaved to, not quite silent, but kept at bay. Cold air bites and scratches at her exposed skin, raising gooseflesh. A woman pushing a stroller cuts her an incendiary glower as she narrowly swerves to avoid hitting her fat toddler, who squeals in delight, blissfully ignorant to its near-death encounter.
First stop: Tillicum skatepark.
Violet skids to a halt before the old park and picks her skateboard up. Tapered off from the road, the sunken piece of concrete playground used to be a second home. Nothing's changed in four years. Except that it's a lot less populated than before. Before, when the entire place was a male dominated horror show, and Violet had been alone, with no friends to distract her from the shitty, judgemental stares drilling into her tiny body. A few weeks into coming here religiously, she'd met Sage, who'd introduced her to Kit, and they'd been an inseparable trio since, constantly improving, striving to outdo the boys on the ramps until they were good, until they were better, until they could be taken seriously enough to be considered menaces.
Now, the park is empty, save for a handful of skater kids smoking pot in the back benches.
Her phone chirps, a muffled sound in the pocket of her jeans. When she fishes it out and checks the caller ID, her shoulders pull back as her spine snaps ramrod straight.
