I'll Come Back for You

Chapter Two:

Thank you so much if you are reading this! I am still working on the story itself and will be updating Wednesdays and Saturdays every week. Please be patient with me, and if you are enjoying the story so far... please, please, please vote, comment, and share. Thank you! 

I've also attached a picture of what Dimitri looks like in my head! Hope you like it!

-VIVKELLER23

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It was a wonderful life.

Kaliah laughed, throwing her face up towards the golden sunlight. It felt so good on her skin. It made her feel alive and well. Her blood seemed to hum from the gentle heat, its flow ignited her, pumping fire through her veins.

Mama snickered somewhere close behind her. Stay away from the sun, girlie, before you break out in freckles. Mama had a delicate peaches and cream complexion. Her hair was a halo so light, it was nearly white. And her face had the tiniest sprinkling of freckles.

That wouldn't have been so bad. Kaliah liked the sparse smattering she already sported on her nose. Papa said it added to her natural beauty, although all fathers thought their baby girls were lovely. But Papa didn't have the heart to contradict anything Mama said. So Kaliah turned away from the sunshine to lay on the grass under an old oak tree. She watched the clouds float above, thinking how wonderful it would feel to touch something so delicate with the tip of her finger.

You'd probably break the water cycle with your clumsiness.

Kaliah threw a dark look at her brother. But she smiled. Brothers were meant to annoy you, to toughen you up a little, to embarrass you before they beat up any boy who tried to do the same. She counted the petals on a a yellow flower beside her left arm. It was such a bright thing even if it was a weed. What made it any less powerful than a rose or an orchid? It was small. It wasn't the most beautiful flower in a garden. But it bloomed. It grew resilient out of the ugly weeds; just as daring as a rose sprouting from a bush of thorns.

We've got ourselves a romantic, Timothy, Mama whispered with a bright smile on her face. She got it from you.

Mama said she would never forget the way she'd met Papa. She'd been cast as Belle in the ninth grade production of Beauty and the Beast. Papa had been given the important role of cleaning the rose's vase. On the last night of performing, Papa knocked over the vase while giving it an extra shine and the crystal rose inside shattered. But he'd said he would fix everything. He'd disappeared and the play had gone on without a rose present. Mama had been so frustrated, she'd nearly snapped all her lines. And when the time came to kiss the beast, Papa had strutted back on stage carrying a huge bouquet of balloons shaped into flowers, bowed on one knee, and asked Mama to be his girl.

He'd proposed five years later with an identical bouquet of balloon flowers.

They'd been inseparable ever since, two halves of a whole. Papa had taken up carpentry after high school. He designed the most beautiful chairs and tables to fill the home he and Mama had created. The house was an old one, yellow as the flower that grew with the weeds. It was located on the outskirts of town and boasted a grassy yard of about an acre. The plain white walls of the house had been the perfect canvases for Mama's artistic imagination. They'd become vibrant explosions of endless mountains, enchanting forests, and magical lands created with Mama's paintbrush. And sometimes, if you looked up at the ceiling while sitting at the dining room table, you could spy a lion and a lamb roaming through a meadow.

The house wasn't anyone's idea of a castle. But by the look in Mama's eyes every time she walked into it, you'd believe it was worth a fortune.

And to Kaliah, it was priceless. She'd grown up here. Jesse said they'd been living in it for all of a week when Kaliah was born. Papa had designed a treehouse for her to run wild. She'd slayed dragons, saved kingdoms, waited for the prince, who was always showing up after all the work was done, in that treehouse. She'd felt unstoppable here.