Afterglow

fog

before:

The truck was filled to the brim with plush blankets and pillows, all set for the spectacle.

The telescope perched in the dusty grime gave access to the meteor shower that would light up the darkened Los Angeles sky with burning hues and would allow those to make their wish if they were naive enough to believe that they'd actually come true.

Iridescent stars speckled haphazardly across the obsidian sky glowing with neon moonlight begged to be seen through an unabashed gaze.

"Got everything we need?"

I threw my boyfriend of a few months a lazy smirk as I wrapped my arms around his waist.  We hadn't brought along any alcohol on this trip, so I prepared to lose myself in a completely different way, the isolation from the desert allowing my terrifying thoughts to close in on my consciousness, and I couldn't let that happen.

"Midnight exactly. I think we're ready."

"Perfect. Well, almost."

Ian leaned down and placed a gentle kiss upon my lips which sent my head careening somewhere completely different than simple stargazing. Good, I needed a distraction. We leaned back onto the pillows and I was starting to realize his real ulterior motive for a date that called for so much bedding.

A pair of headlights illuminated our tiny sliver of quiet darkness and we sprang apart, only to be confronted by none other than my father and his heavily pregnant new wife as she waddled out of the passenger seat of his brand new SUV which Ellen had insisted upon because 'it's for the baby!'

"Kate! What the hell do you think you're doing all the way out here at this hour with this boy?! I thought I was clear that I didn't want you seeing him. He is nothing but trouble, and you know that!"

"Dad, listen-"

But he wasn't going to listen. Those facial features that looked nothing like mine twisted up in anger. Where he was all fair skin and light eyes, I was tanned and dark eyed, my almost black hair in complete contrast to his blonde locks shorn close to his scalp.

"I am done listening. First it was the bottle of alcohol I found in your room, then the sneaking out and now this boy? You're better than this, you had everything handed to you in this life, what more could you want?"

"Oh Mitch, don't you see what she's doing? She's acting out because she's not the center of attention anymore, and the baby is. Maybe you should just have her go back with her mom, you know, until things get settled here. All of this drama is stressing me and the baby out."

And there it was, the final straw. She had said the magic words. This baby was his flesh and blood, which was something I most definitely was not. This new child took precedence over me, just like my 'sister' back home did. I'd always be a second class citizen in this family, and Ellen was just making sure that I got that message loud and clear.  I had received that message three months ago when I stumbled across the skeleton my parents thought they had sealed in their dusty closet seventeen years ago, but they didn't realize that someone had changed the locks, leaving the door primed to be opened once more. 

Didn't they know?  Every secret came out in the end.  Unluckily for them, the person who discovered it was the one person they had tried to conceal the truth from the most in the first place.  Funny how those things worked out.

The glare I shot her made her shrink back in fake fear.

"When we get home, you're packing your things and moving back to New York in the morning."