Imagine Painting the Sky

Chapter One

I had no shoes. I realized quickly that all of the shoes I could find, lined up in a row at the foot of my bed, were all too small. I found a pair of sandals from when I must've been about twelve, three pairs of beat up, hole-covered tennis shoes, and a pair of ancient grey flip flops that hardly seemed suitable for such a place. I sighed in defeat and sat on my bed beside the array of toe-squishing shoes. I hadn’t been to visit in too long. 

The room was painted a pastel pink, the color of a young girl’s childhood. Isobel had picked it though, while I had wanted yellow. Dad vouched for yellow, I remembered it. The desk was white, spray painted by a determined Isobel, who wanted everything to match and look like her old room from when she was a girl. And the wardrobe was white too, as well as the clock that hung beside a wide window. Worst of all, was the bedspread. Pale pink with hot pink flowers spread along it, a tiara encircling the flowers. The words “princess diva” were written in cursive beneath the tiara. I felt like a five year old all over again. 

With a sigh, I ran a hand lazily through my hair. I stared at the bookcase, filled with thin, picture books about princesses from little kiddish movies. I saw a soccer trophy from first grade, a teddy bear I’d never used, and a kindergarten finger painting project gone wrong. The whole room was fragments of a little girl who was no more. I was almost sixteen, and I’d changed in ten years. I’d grown taller and lost all of my “baby fat” that Isobel used to remark about, I lost my gap toothed grin and the sand color of hair I used to have. It grew lighter into a blonde so pale, it was borderline white. 

I was torn away from my thoughts by here a soft tapping of knuckles on my door, and it creaked open. Isobel was there, clad in a long, black dress that was shiny in the light. Her pin-straight dark brown hair was swept up into a fancy looking bun piled on the top her head. A black flower was expertly pinned behind her ear and dark heels clicked on the floor. I was surprised at how little makeup she wore, how bare and pale her face was. She was nearly always caked up in various cosmetics, at this point, she was hardly recognizeable. She looked at me, my slight, short body dressed in a simple black blouse and tiered skirt. Her expression was hideous. She glared at me with darkened eyes, her frown deepening with every blink, and the wrinkles she tries so hard to make. 

“Rowan,” she sighed, a thin hand on the bridge of her nose, “we talked about this. You said you’d wear the dress I bought you.” Her lips were in a line, turning white from the pressure she was using to push them together. Her eyes were darkened with a sorrow she was trying so hard to keep hidden away, but when she kept it locked up so, it would explode. Explode at me or Gabriel in a fit of screams and tears. 

“I didn’t want to wear the dress,” I muttered, “Daddy wouldn’t have cared.” Isobel made a noise that sounded like a mixture between a hiccup and a gasp of surprise. Her hand fluttered to her chest, and her lips formed a flabbergasted “o”. Her brown eyes grew wide, and she looked at me expectantly. She wanted me to apologize. I didn’t regret what I’d said one bit. 

“Rowan Margot Hillary Van-Marren!” she wheezed disapprovingly, clomping into the room from her place at the threshold. I wondered how she managed to do so without tripping over the three inch heels she wore. 

I don’t speak. I mimic her face, the wrinkles at her brow and cheeks, the frown and the dark eyes. She doesn’t catch on, and instead scolds me for being pouty. She tosses a shoebox she’d been hiding behind her back at me, my eyes follow it as it spills its’ contents onto the floor. Isobel snorted and stomped out of the room. Her shoes pounding the floor like an earthquake of soldiers, in uniform line, marching to a beat no one can hear. 

I kneel down on the ground beside the box, seeing a brand new pair of black ballet flats tipped onto the ground. I was about ready to put on a pair of black converse and be ready to go, but I had these instead. I tugged on my tights, smoothing away wrinkles, then placed the shoes on my pointed feet. They were too big. But better than getting blisters or twisting an ankle or wearing flip flops to a funeral.