Page 75 of Paint the Town, Dove
Thirteen Years Ago
It got really bad around Halloween.
Emory’s foster parents were out of town for a wedding, and Emory, who hated crowds, opted for staying home. She told them she’d be crashing with me. Of course, they didn’t know my situation.
They’d take a tire iron to the neck before they let her step foot on my lawn. Dead grass, more like.
“But Sinead and Flack aren’t home, right?” She’d said on our walk back from school. “We really can’t get ready at yours?”
I cringed as we approached my turn of the neighbourhood. “The remnants of them are there.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Em. Needles, drugs, nails, codeine.”
Her brow quirked. “Codeine?”
“This’ll get you through the days, Violet! These, right here!”I mimicked Flack.
She shrugged, unbothered. That’s what I loved most about Emory, her ability to hear the most fucked up shit and love me the same. I was never the mistake, only the product of a poor decision. I could live with that. As long as she could.
“Let’s get ready at Ryden’s,” I suggested.
“Are you sure?” she asked, biting her lip. “Isn’t his family life a little…”
I waved her off. “His mom’s nice, I met her once.”
And it was just once.
Seven months ago, I’d been clapping pans in his room while Ryden played guitar – to irritate him or to potentially explore a drumming career, I could not tell you – and she came upstairs.
“I thought you said she wasn’t home,” I sneered, throwing his plaid quilt over my head. I hated people, interactions with strangers.
I hated knowing she was being abused, and neither me or Ryden could do a thing about it.
But all that hatred became quiet when she entered the room.
“You can lift the blanket, honey.” Her voice was precisely that – honey. Smooth like silk, no smoker’s cough, no throaty lungs, no sign of danger.
But you never knew a person until you did.
I poked my head out, holding the blanket over my body like I was naked from the neck down.
“Hello,” she smiled, hand on the doorknob. Her hair looked soft, blonde. Not real blonde; her roots were brown. I glanced at Ryden’s hair, a midnight black. Must’ve been his dad’s.
I would’ve liked to talk to him.
I’m sure Ryden would’ve too.
“I dye my hair, just like you,” was what came out of my mouth.
Ryden threw a pillow at my face. “Scarlett, c’mon!”
But his mom only laughed. “The grey came out early.”
“But you look so young,” I looked to Ryden as I spoke to her. I caught sight of a bruise ringing the outer corner of her neck.
It wastoo much of a memory.
