Encrypted Souls

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Eleven.

Waking up this morning wasn’t exactly the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do. With only a few hours of sleep, a pounding headache and a – what’s supposed to be ‘normal’ – day ahead of me: I want to die.

Obviously not literally, I’m not a quitter by any means. Ma and Pa always taught me to fight for what I wanted, and that’s what I will do. I will fight for normal. Right now, that’s all I really do want, is a normal life. To be a normal woman, working a normal job, living in a normal apartment… with normal boyfriends. Yeah, that doesn’t exactly work. The fact that I have two boyfriends is a whole shit ton of not normal.

I can just hear Ma’s disgusted voice in my head now.

“You are a disgrace! Obviously dysfunctional, and not meant to breed.”

Pa would probably call the Officials himself and have them take me away, I can imagine him dramatically fanning my mother and sending me scornful looks from the kitchen.

I shake my head, erasing the images of them from my head. It’s a good thing that they don’t live anywhere close to me. They decided to move from Canada to Texas for a job Pa had been offered. Pa is somewhat of a cowboy, and I can’t even count the number of times him and Ma have packed up their whole lives into that Dodge pick-up truck and left for a ‘job’. I stopped keeping track after a while. When I was younger I was forced to move along with them, being crammed in the backseat of that God-awful truck – taking only a duffel bag full of necessities with me. At least I had Tabby. 

Tabby has been through everything with me. We actually met in grade – school when I was only ten, and she was eleven. This was when Ma and Pa decided to settle down in Kentucky for a little while, and it was actually the longest time we had ever stayed in one place before. Tabby and I had instantly clicked.

We would have sleepovers at her house, because her parents actually lived in Kentucky. She was born there, and had only lived there. During one of our many sleepovers though I discovered something horrible about her family though, and I remember all of the envy I had previously had about her perfect family disappearing.

            It was late, and Tabby and I had made a fort on our bedroom floor. We tucked ourselves into the sleeping bag and played with each other’s hair. We would do this until one of us would fall asleep first. Tonight Tabby was the first to fall asleep. I heard the bedroom door creak open, and through the thin sheet of our fortress I saw the light from the hallway leak in.

            Slow and deliberate footsteps made their way to the entrance of the fort, and I feigned to be asleep. It is way past our bedtime, and I don’t want to be caught awake still. I hear someone unzipping our sleeping bag from Tabby’s side, and I peak one I open because I am just too curious. It’s Tabby’s father, and he doesn’t see me. He thinks that I’m really sleeping. I feel Tabby’s leg twitch against mine, and I know that she’s awake as her father covers her mouth with his finger.

            What is he doing? I don’t move an inch, afraid to be caught awake.

            Above Tabby’s head, I see her father trail his hand along her neck – all the way down to her tank top, until his hand disappears underneath it.

            This isn’t right. My breathing becomes uneven at the realization, and Tabby’s leg twitches against mine again. Is she trying to tell me to keep silent? What should I do? Suddenly her father pulls her from the sleeping bag, and I quickly shut my eyes. I only open them again when the rustling has stopped, and I see that her father is leaning over her, his hand still under her tank top. Tabby squirms beneath him, tears running down her cheeks – and he looks at me.