Page 23 of Lilah
I push past both of them and walk straight into my room.
I take a shower and think about everything that just happened. If I could cry more, I would. My head just hurts too bad from doing it so much already.
I look at myself in my full-length mirror in my room.
The scar above my eyebrow. The huge scar along my shin. The scars on my knee. The terrible scar on my rib.
Half of me is made of metal now. Three of the four ribs I broke had to be fixed with metal plates. A tube had to be inserted intomy chest cavity to reinflate my lung after it collapsed when the ribs broke and poked my lung.
My knee basically had to be reconstructed after I shattered the entire patella, not to mention the ACL tear which caused a whole other surgery on its own.
My shin bone, both my tibia and fibula had to have metal plates and screws inserted.
All on the right side of my body.
My shoulder and head were the only other things that were completely screwed up, literally. My shoulder was dislocated and scarred all up and I got a grade three concussion.
I lost memory of the accident until about two weeks after it happened.
The day I woke up and finally remembered what happened, it was the worst day of my life and it always will be.
No one knows exactly what happened.
Mr. Terrip knows the just of it; My brother and I were in a wreck almost two years ago. He passed away, I didn't.
I pull on a flowy pale yellow sundress. I decide against a sweater to go over top of it but I'll probably regret it, but Mr. Terrip always keeps the store at 58 degrees Fahrenheit.
He gets hot easily and it blows my mind.
To be frank, I think he keeps it cold on purpose to get on my nerves because he knows I get cold easily.
~~~
"You're quite late today, Azalea," Mr. Terrip chides without realizing I've been in the store for over thirty minutes.
"I'm flattered that you've noticed my missing presence," I smile at him softly.
"I've been over here figuring you out," he narrows his eyes at my form.
"Figuring me out, huh?" I giggle, shaking my head at him.
"You don't seem normal," he observes and I snort.
"I don't think Iamnormal Mr. Terrip," I give him a smile before continuing while I have his attention.
"You see, I have this problem, bear with me here Mr. Terrip, and this problem is truly unfixable if you ask me," I peek down at him to see that he's already not listening with his nose buried in his newspaper.
I give myself a mental high five for dodging Mr. Terrip's questions about why I don't seemnormaltoday.
I walk away from his desk, a satisfied smile on my lips. I have a seat on my designated little comfy chair and I pull out my book.
I put one earbud in my ear and my thoughts drift away as I listen to music and read words simultaneously.
Mr. Terrip constantly nags me on how I should focus on only one, not both at the same time. He says it'll give me more brain farts than I already have.
He just doesn't understand that I'm a national champion multi-tasker, a pimp, and a CIA agent; he's got nothing on me.
Is a female pimp a pimptress? A pimpa? Pimpina?
