Extraordinary [Rewriting]

Lesson Number Three

Lesson Number Three

***

We will be more successful in our endeavors

If we can let go of the habit

Of running all the time,

And take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves.

And we'll also have a lot more joy in

Living

~Thich Nhat Hanh

***

By the time I had reached my room after being sent home due to having a high fever, I realized that I still had to tutor Dakota. After all, it was a Thursday. How could I forget I'd be housing the devil for an hour or so, that day? Leave it to me to forget something like that. I was currently sprawled out on my bed, trying to keep from dozing off without looking at the clock first. So, poking an eye open, I looked at the digital clock on my nightstand and saw that it was only eight thirty in the morning, which meant I had plenty of time to sleep until Dakota would potentially be over. Truthfully, you could never tell what his actions would be. Dakota did whatever Dakota's did. Using my time wisely, I had decided that I'd take a nap and attempt to better my health by the time Dakota got here. I was too lazy to clean up any mess that might be present, anyway. So, unfortunately for Dakota, he'd just have to deal with a small bit of clutter. Just minutes after I had laid down, I found myself falling into a long-awaited sleep with a dream, I mean a memory, I was trying to avoid.

Wind howled against my window that night. A storm was brewing and I was all too aware of it. Mommy and daddy had had another fight. This one was worse than the last, and the last before that, etc. This time more things were broken. I'm pretty sure mommy's arm was broken. And daddy's nose.

There was a lot of glass on the floor, too. I had almost stepped on some on my way upstairs, away from the true storm that was brewing. Their shouting was getting louder, and no matter how hard I had pressed my small, eight-year-old hands on my ears, I could still hear them. Mommy was crying and yelling. Daddy was just yelling. He always said that men didn't cry. That's probably why Tyson left. That's probably why Tyson never came back.

Mommy was throwing things, again. I could tell, because daddy never threw things, he was always deflecting them. But still, daddy was worse, because he fought like a man, and mom fought like a victim. Maybe because she was, and everyone was just too narrow-minded to see it. See, mommy and daddy, they used to love each other. I knew they did, why else would they have had me? Why else would they have gotten married? Why else would they have met, if it weren't for love? Why else? But mommy said that love doesn't last for everyone. She had said that it didn't last for her and daddy.

I didn't understand, but she said, in time, I would. I didn't want to understand. I didn't ever want to understand. Because if I were to ever understand, that would mean understanding heart break and pain, and I didn't ever want to understand that.

Daddy was becoming more violent, I could tell by the way mommy's cries got harder and her feet hit the floor faster. There was a loud thump. Someone had fallen. Curious, I had gotten up to go see who it was. So, I went down the stairs, and stood on the last step to see. It was mommy. She was still crying. Daddy was standing over her, his hands were in large fists. He'd turned around when he heard me. The look in his eyes scared me, it had always scared me. They were my own, and that's probably why. I didn't ever want my eyes to portray such evil, such heartlessness.

Daddy was really good at wearing masks. He put one on as soon as he'd seen me. He told me to go back upstairs; he and mommy were just having a little fun. But I liked having fun, and I didn't remember fun looking like that. He told me they were playing a little game of Simon Says; told me that mommy wasn't doing a very good job playing, so she had to get punished for it. I'd told him that that wasn't the rule. That that was never the rule. I stopped playing Simon Says after that day. I stopped playing anything after that day. Games had lost its appeal to me. Fun had lost its appeal. Probably because I didn't know what fun was anymore. Because fun—fun didn't look like that. Fun didn't look like torture.