Page 103 of This Love
My eyes pricked like they’d been hurt. I brushed my hands against them. Tears. I didn’t know crying could hurt.
I simply had to open the bottle. I had too many things that hurt.
I examined the lid. There were arrows and an image of a hand. I couldn’t understand what to do. I squeezed my eyes closed, so frustrated, then unexpectedly, my hands pushed down and turned, and the lid fell away.
They knew what to do. I just had to stop trying.
What else did my body know that I didn’t?
I shook two pills onto my lap. They were small and orange.
I put them in my mouth, rolling them around with my tongue. My teeth scraped against them, filling my mouth with a horrible taste.
I spat them into my palm, breathing hard again. Why was everything so difficult?
I opened the Mountain Dew and took another drink.
But the moment I lowered the bottle, my other hand popped the pills in my mouth. They went down with the rest of the drink.
I had swallowed them whole.
Magic.
I was magic.
I drank the Mountain Dew until it was gone and placed the empty bottle back in the bag. I managed to close the pill bottle and tucked it in next to it.
I glanced around. No one was coming. I could risk looking at the book.
I opened it in the middle. The pages had photographs. One of them was me, but I looked different. My hair was down, not in two braids. But it was definitely me. My nose. My eyes. I was surrounded by pots of flowers, most of them yellow. The blooms looked like stars with a funny round snout.
Standing next to me and the pots was a woman with a wrap on her head. Her skin was dark, while I was pale. She smiled, while I was serious. She was tall and substantial. I was small, like I was disappearing into the pots. Beneath it were written the words “Ava and Maya.”
The next one showed me with a man. He had straight, short hair and blue eyes. Our heads touched together as we smiled. This one said, “Ava and Tucker.”
A brother? A boyfriend?
Why didn’t I know?
I turned the page. This photo showed me with another man, gray tinting parts of his hair. This one said, “Ava and her father Marcus.”
I had a father!
Where was he?
Why didn’t he save me from Mother?
I pressed my hand to my thigh where I had seen the tattoo.
Mom is bad.
I glanced to make sure no one was coming and went back to the first page.
* * *
Mother stole the last book.
I can’t believe it.
