Awake and Alive

Falling Asleep

It's Day Four.

Wake up.

That's how the day starts, right?

Wake up. I can do that.

Go to the washroom. I count the steps. Five. That's how many to the bathroom. Brush my teeth. Wrap up my cast in a plastic bag. Take a shower.

Wait, what order does that go in?

I forget.

Walk out.

The hallway is fourteen steps long. I have counted them. There are twelve stairs. I've counted those too.

I can make it down them without tripping.

I can go around the corner. It's a left hand turn.

It's only seven steps from there. Then I'm in the kitchen. I go around the island.

The kitchen that isn't my home anymore.

It's painted a light caramel-orange. The countertops are brown-grey. It's not real stone. Wood, with a plastic covering. It's not heat resistant. I know my mother tells my  older brother not to put hot objects on that flat surface.

'Leave that pot on the stovetop!' She'd demand. 'Do not burn my laminate!'

I remember smiling at those conversations. Alexander would always scoff, throw down the little green pad thing that I always miss the name of. Then he would put down his pan.

That reminds me of home.

Of white granite and silver tile. Of stone grey and expensive carpets and wide, wide windows. Of a sprawling city below me and of winds that sang through my hair.

That is what I think of, when I dream of home.

I forget what home feels like. Is this how Avyanna feels?

Because she's right.

God, every damn word she says is right.

I didn't understand that until very recently. She'd offer her wisdom. She always offered her wisdom.

It wasn't always polite, kind... or even pleasant. But it was true. And all she desired in her life was to protect others.

She got so much less than she deserved.

She has a heart of damned gold.

Gold that is cracked. The gold is held together by tar. And the heart is coated in tar. It's thick. Thicker than anything I had ever seen. I'd never seen so much black in one place.

And all she tried to do was pass on her experience. I will never have the black that she has, but I should've at least tried to listen. To understand. Instead, I brushed it off. Ramblings of an angst-y teen.

She may be a simple year older than me biologically, but mentally, according to the legend; our, legend...

She is older than I am, by centuries. She has seen more, knows more.

She would twist things to how I had never seen them. I would brush them off as foolish and depressive.

'Home is... not good thing.' She'd say. 'Home is where your heart is.'

'And how is that bad?' I'd ask.

'Your heart breaks.' She'd pull out a knife, aim herself at a target. 'And your heart changes. And your home changes too.' She'd throw the knife. It'd hit the target. Dead centre. She always struck dead centre. 'But sometimes you remain stuck, stuck between two homes.' She'd walk for the target. Retrieve her blade. 'If you get stuck between two homes, and your heart breaks in one of them, then you carry those broken pieces to the other one.' She'd yank it out with finality. 'You can't fix it yourself. Your other home can't fix it. You're simply a burden. A burden that nobody knows how to help, not anymore. So you get left behind.'