Miracles In December

{Chapter 1}

Carla attempted to smile. Skin stretched over hard white bone that hurt her face the wider she pushed it, but push it she did, until salty tears sprang up on the edges of her eyes. Quickly she blinked them away knowing from experience that if she let them fall it would be ages until she could get them to stop. None of her friends had had the displeasure of seeing her tear stained face yet, and she intended to keep it that way. So she did her best to smile, painfully, and earnestly to the delight of her few friends who lapped it up, preferring to accept fake displays of happiness rather than face the horrors that might be hidden underneath.

"So are you free tonight?" A voice pierced the darkness disrupting her train of thought. Her friend Sam was speaking to her. Carla thought for a moment. Tonight her mother would be working till late at the hospital and wouldn't be home until Carla had long since fallen into a fitful sleep. Not wanting to face an empty house and the shadows that came with it, she quickly nodded her head managing to stammer out a barely audible yes.

"Fantastic! Meet me at the diner right after school. I've got a surprise for you!" Sam let the word you draw out melodically before giving her a sly wink and all but sashaying down the hallway, long blonde hair swinging behind her. Carla's smile faded with her friends retreating figure and she sighed, her head drooping and shoulders curving into a familiar slouch.

Shouldering her messenger bag littered with random buttons that winked under the schools fluorescent light, she trudged off to her next class. As she slinked through the halls her light brown hair hung in front of her face in a thin sheet and she didn't bother to brush it aside, grateful for the barrier between her and the eyes of her fellow students. The hair swayed as she walked providing a glimpse every now and then of the other students in the hall, and she shivered at the accidental eye contact. Molten gazes that seemed to burn into her soul.

At last she arrived at her class room five minutes early and was thankful to find it bare of human life except for the teacher Mrs. Trudle, but she was so old she didn't really count. The old woman had more wrinkles on her face than years she'd been alive, each one softly folding into the next. Carla actually really loved Mrs.Trudle. One day after class in her freshman year she'd asked her why she kept the title 'Mrs' when her husband was dead. One of the few school rumors Carla had paid attention to.

Mrs.Trudle had sighed running a liver spotted hand through wispy white hair and responded,"To me the bond of marriage is everlasting. It survives all things. Not even death can tear apart our love. At one point in life we made a vow to always find home in each other's arms. He will always be my husband and I will always be his wife. Even if I can only feel his touch in memory, the love I have for him has never faded. And I have no desire to find a new one. It's just the way things are for me. Now does that answer your question?" She had then giggled softly at Carla's wide eyed expression before turning back to grading her papers.

When Carla walked in Mrs.Trudle peered over her large horn-rimmed spectacles and gave her a warm smile that reached all the way up to her sparkling blue eyes. Carla quickly returned it with a small one of her own before she swiveled on the balls of her feet and walked down the aisle towards her traditional seat in the back righthand corner, next to the window.

Slowly students filtered in after her and filled the recently empty seats until the quiet of the classroom had been replaced with a low hum of gossiping whispers. Carla blocked out the voices of her classmates while she scribbled doodles on the cover of her notebook, a habit she'd had since she was young, until the bell rang and the buzz of the class once again faded out into silence.

Mrs. Trudle tottered on her kitten heels to the front of the classroom and took attendance before promptly diving into her lecture. She was a sweet lady but her voice barely rose above a loud whisper and her cadence had as much enthusiasm as a metronome. Soon enough Carla's brain could no longer maintain a focus on polyatomic ions and their chemical formulas so it drifted onto other things as her eyes sought the muddled scenery beyond the window.