The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

69

JACKSON'S ARRIVAL WAS QUITE THE anticipation for me.

His distant relative he had been staying with while Klarise was occupied with...things, was bringing him over from San Francisco. Klarise was still in a very fragile condition, but me and maybe time, together, were nursing her back to a slightly more stabler state.

Klarise had been very nervous to see her brother again, she turned and turned in bed the night before his arrival. But something stopped her from welcoming him in with me. I didn't ask, but I knew. She was ashamed, as ever, for how her face and body has become.

"Will I look like this forever?" She asked me one of those few nights in our beds right before we turned off the lights to go to sleep, a few days of dealing with the custody paperworks with Jackson before he could come.

I drew a piece of hair back behind her face, my other hand stroking her bruised skin, each time seeing the purple and black spots paining me. I didn't want to lie to her. "I don't know."

Her arm under my finger tensed. Without looking at her face I could already sense it scrunching up from trying to keep the tears in. She kept thinking it was petty to not want her face and body back to when it once was. I try to tell her every time that it wasn't wrong to want that, yet then she'd bring up the fact of what happened to the other people back in that place they had kept her in. That place destroyed her.

I slipped my arm under her waist, the other one over it, and hugged her, my chin resting on her head. I stroked her back, trying to be as gentle as I can. "We'll find you the best doctor, I promise. We'll fix it, we'll..." I trailed off, seeing another evident bruise on her neck. I felt the tears in the back of my throat.

I felt her body rise and fall in my arms, her breath shaking, and I knew she was crying. After a few seconds, I could feel the wetness at my shirt, her tears pouring down heavily. Heaving, I pulled her to me tighter. I wish I could stop her cries, I wish I could do better. But I didn't know how.

She hugged me back tighter. We stayed there, not knowing what else to say to exactly fix any of this at once. It felt so awful, and I thought about Jackson then. I started to think about how that boy, this sixteen year old, might cheer Klarise up in a way I couldn't. I looked forward to his arrival.

—————

I knew Klarise was huddled only a few spaces away, staying out of view. Yet her presence never once was lost to me,

I was actually nervous myself. After all, this boy might be the one person Klarise cared about more than me. Or, the only relative to her that ever truly cared for her.

The fancy car that also held a depressing tone to it stopped in front of my house. A stubby woman of about over sixty stepped out of the driver's seat, then after some knocking on the window and harsh yelling, a boy I last saw three years ago that has had a growth sprout stepped out. He had headphones stuck into both his ears, a almost totally different person than I remembered him being.

The relative was still yelling at him when he gave an eye roll at her when she wasn't looking. It was sort of funny, but I contained my laughter as this harsh woman made her way toward me.

Jackson opened his mouth but then closed it when his relative started to speak in an awful manner to me.

"Where the hell is the girl?"

I felt my own anger ushering up upon my lungs. I took a deep breath and looked the woman in the eye with great confidence. "Do you mean Klarise Kong by that?"

"Who else would I mean?" She scoffed, then looked behind me, then at my house, and lastly, back at my face. "Tell her to get out here and pick up her damn brother herself. She ruined all of it! Tell her to come out now and pay the money that's supposed to come my way for taking care of this troll." She gave a harsh shove at Jackson, who clearly did not expect that, half tumbled toward my direction. I reached my arms out in time to try to catch him, but he had already gotten himself up and when he noticed my outstretched arms, he looked away with a look I couldn't describe. He took a step back from me.