A Reflection in their Darkness

<< To reminisce >>

The sunset today isn't like many previous ones I've seen from this view, tonight the pink clashes with purples and blues, reminding me of Cotton Candy or mixed slushee's at the fair grounds when I was a child; I can still smell it, not just the scent of the treats, but the smell of being young, and having excitement for the purest and tiniest of things.
I find my mind diving into the edged reminiscent memories of childhood, the good old days as they say, because of a captivating sunset that my old home was too sheltered to allow me to see.

•America- One.
•But France- still a thousand.

America changed the world for me, and, despite its beauty, no sunset can get rid of the shallow disappointment that tags along with it; I try to be optimistic, but it was better back home, fake or not.

To reminisce on youth is an awfully painful experience, and yet they are ironically built from sets of good memories.

I sigh, crossing my legs on the flat surface of the roof below me and rest my head on the glass of my window; I know there's no turning back from the epiphany that drifted my naivety away; I'm too aware of the truth now. But that doesn't mean I can't dream of going and getting my old life and self back, no matter how impossible it is.

A creek from besides me pulls me out of my self-pitying daydream, but I don't look away from the view; I already know exactly who it is.

He doesn't say anything, and neither do I. There's nothing to say, nor do we want to, we agreed after all that just because we have the same place to escape to doesn't mean we need to acknowledge each others existence; it's better off this way if we want at least some sort of peace in our lives.

Athan Aetós sits across from me on his own roof that connects to his bedroom, just as this one does mine, and it's always too close as it was just our luck that they'd be made inches apart.

I never properly look at him but my peripheral vision works wonders and so I'm able to see enough. As always he's sitting with his legs up, his arms hanging over his knees, fiddling with something- sometimes it's paper or a pencil, or something else, but I've grown too accustomed to it to question it by now. He always wears this hoodie, the same black hoodie even on warm days, the hood has stayed up for all the time that I've known him, just about covering his dark hair and, if I even bothered to look now, the shadows of both would make it hard to see his eyes so I don't think anyone but his mother knows the true color of them; they're probably dull and dinghy, that's what I'd assume anyway, a horrible person can't have pretty eyes, it's too irritating for me accept when it comes to him. If they're plane and irksome like his fathers then that would be more relieving, and it would make allot more sense too, but I'll never know and I'll never want to.

That's enough sightseeing for one day.

Removing my eyes from the now dissipating mass of colors, I reach to the side of me, picking up my diary, also known as my closest friend, and place it on my lap. And I'm quick to notice that Athan does it at the same time accidentally. He yanks a small drawing pad from his pocket and twirls a black pencil between his fingers as he stares contemplative at the blank paper, before finally going straight into intense sketching that I'll never know looks as bad as I'd like it to.

I open my diary onto page seventy-one for the seventy-first day of the year, I always make sure to get my diaries with enough pages to last me until the next year begins, but this pattern only began since I moved here, it's not like I've had anybody else to speak to the past eight hundred and one days anyway.

Dear diary,

It's day 71 of the year, and it'll be night soon. The past hour the sky has been tormenting me with it's splash of indulging colors, and yet it only causes my memories to plague me.

Why can't I appreciate the little things anymo-

"SOPHIA!"

The letter 'O' flies across the page at the sound of my mothers familiar angry shout, and I have to close my eyes to keep my annoyance at bay.

Just great.

Her voice never used to alarm me like it does now.

I open my window to get inside quickly before my mothers incessant impatience gets worse by the second.

"HELLO?!" She continues to shout, and agitation nips at my skin.

"I'm coming!" I shout back as kindly yet as loudly  as I can for her to be able to hear me.

But no matter how softly I speak to her, her next response isn't uncommon, "who do you think you're talking to, girl?!"

I huff to myself, momentarily closing my eyes to prepare like I always have to, and step one foot onto my window seat inside my bedroom.

No one in my family knows that I spend time out there.

"I'm sorry!" I force the penitent tone to my voice because I can't be sorry for not doing any wrong, can I?

I suddenly hear a deep chuckle from behind me, and I snap my head around.

Athan's not looking at me, the pencil is still flicking across the paper, but the barely visible dimple on the side of his cheek shows he's smirking.

"I can see why you're so unbelievably unbearable to be around, you get it from her." He says in disgust, and my eyes turn into slits.

"You know, if you weren't so irrelevant people may actually be able to take in the bullshit you say." I respond. He stops what he's doing but instead of waiting for a reply I slam the window shut and walk away, whilst my mothers ceaseless ranting and unrelenting guilt-trip begins.

"To hell with you then." "No one ever listens to me." "If I say to do something, you all do it." "I'm the Queen of this house, no one else." "I don't know why I'm still here."

A few of many phrases I could recite on demand if anyone asked.

But I should have been quicker, now father is going to get the brunt of her anger which means I may have to stop her from getting physical towards him. Guilt kicks me in the gut and I jog even faster, but as I get to the stairs I spot my little brother peaking his head out of his bedroom door wearily. I point to my ears and smile, and he knows what to do: put his headphones on full blast and wait for my say so to take them off.

Just because I have to deal with this doesn't mean he has to.