Finding Love | ✔️

nineteen

/there is no remedy for love than to love more

- Henry David Thoreau/

♡

It's dark. It's the middle of the night. And I can feel something cold on my neck. It moves slowly, and then pokes me – ouch, it's sharp – and I wake up with a start to find that it's the reality and not some dream.

Aella is holding a knife to my neck.

"You bitch." She says with hatred dripping off her tongue.

"Aella..." I'm more concerned about the knife than her words. "Why are you doing this?"

"You didn't take my warning seriously. I told you he was hands off. Stand up." Keeping the knife connected to my neck, I obey. "You're going to die today, April. I'm so sorry he's not here to protect you," she pouts her mouth in sarcastic sympathy, "But that's your fault, really, because if you hadn't got him in music school, he wouldn't have been away at music camp."

"Eli is ours." Another voice joins in. Parker's.

"Parker, you're in on this too?" A painful shiver jolts through my spine. "I thought we were fam – "

"Aella is family. Eli is family. I am family. But you're not family."

"You sabotaged us." Aella interjects.

Suddenly, I'm fuming, and I push her away with all I've got.

"All you want is to remain in the trap you've been trapped in for your whole life!" I scream. I look over at Eli's bed, which is empty. "You say you care about Eli, but you don't! You should be happy for him! Maybe, just maybe, he'll make enough money to get you out of your miserable little lives!" Aella launches at me with knife in hand, and Parker's hollow cheers reverberate off the walls.

I turn. Run! That voice in my head comes back again. Run, April. Run for your life!

It's as if I'm always running, and I'm not stopping. My heart pulsates at an uneven rhythm. I can feel it in my temples, in my legs, and adrenaline surges through me. Aella's chases after me, hurling insults in my direction, attempting to stab me with her words and, well, stab me literally. I'm struggling for air. I can't control my legs anymore. They are just moving.

For some reason, I'm not scared or sad. I'm just running for my life, but besides this instinct I feel as if this marathon that I've been running in my whole life is about to end. Like this is the last pitstop, and I'm almost in the stadium, to complete the final lap where the crowds will cheer my name and I'll win something at the end. Something somewhere is giving me hope to go on.

I suddenly notice that Aella's screaming has stopped. No more heavy footsteps thunder behind me. I've lost her, or maybe she just gave back. I've been spared.

I begin to realize that I'm barefoot when I'm running on sharp, prickly grass that begins to pierce through my soles. I start to scream at everything: at the pain, at the past, at God. I let it all out.

And I'm running and screaming and running and screaming and then everything just dissolves into a black hole of nothingness.

***

I don't know where I am.

But when I wake up, there are two pairs of big blue eyes watching me curiously and, as I sit up, I impulsively do what I do best: scream.

A large pair of arms encapsulates me, fat hands patting my head like a baby, so I can stop screaming.

"It's okay, it's okay." A voice tells me, and something about it makes me stop screaming. I feel the arms retreat.

I look at the strange pairs of blue eyes properly now, both similar in their disposition, and they stare back at me.

"It's alright," the voice reassures me again. It's a woman. About sixty years old, she's got auburn hair that curls around her shoulders and cute little wrinkles around her eyes and mouth form when she sends me a tight-lipped smile. She's very cute and fat, like a giant teddy bear, with flabby little arms that shake while she rubs her hands on my back. "It's alright, darling." She croons. The more she says it, the more I start to believe it, and I close my eyes like a well-fed cat.

I open them again and inspect the other pair of blue eyes. He has been silent the whole time, watching me. He's much younger than her, and so I assume him to be her son. He's tall and skinny, and has awkwardly long fingers and a similarly long neck. His hair is the same colour as his mother's, and it's neat and short-but-not-too-short. And his eyes. The same big blue eyes, that express sympathy toward me.

Noticing that we've been staring at each other, the woman's voice says gently, "My name is Doreen Coleman, and he's my son," she nods towards him, urging him to introduce himself.

"I'm Gage." His voice is soft, like he doesn't want to hurt anything, and he's got pink lips that curve into a small smile when he looks at me. I try to open my mouth, to say something in response, but nothing comes out. My eyes, however, do not leave his.

"It's okay, darling. You don't need to say anything." Doreen Coleman says to me. "We'll take care of you. You can stay with us."

It's only when she says that that I realize I'm in a room, lying in a bed heaved with blankets (and there's a heater humming at the corner). The walls are a soft brown, and the carpet beige. Yellow sunbeams shine through the shimmery sheers, framed by undrawn golden curtains. It's heavenly.

"Get some sleep, darling," Doreen (or Mrs. Coleman) tells me, and I sink back into this warm enormous bed that I've found myself in. She kisses me on the forehead and leaves.

His blue eyes linger on me a little longer before he follows his mother out of the room. I curl back and fall fast asleep, and this time I don't have dreams of faceless mothers but instead dreams of pairs of blue eyes and sunbeams and flabby arms.

♡

Hello! I know it's been a long wait, but exams are over so I'm here! Posted two chapters today to try and make up for it. Hope you enjoyed them! x