Featherweight

Decisions

WARNING: DRUG REFERENCE WITHIN THIS CHAPTER

Lucinda had only ever felt like this once before:

She had been nine at the time, and had a group of small friends - handmedowns from Rebecca, all older than her. They would let her tag along and take part in whatever they were doing, she was somewhat a pet. Despite being kind to her most the time, there were... incidents.

Whenever Rebecca brought up the conversation, Lucinda would defend her friends with a fury only children can posses.

"They let me play with them whenever I ask!" She would shout.

Despite her faith in the group, there was, it turns out, a serious problem. On occasion they would ask her to deliver 'special deliveries' and within a year the girl was confronted by a group of strangers who were not happy with what she had been handing out. She was in hospital for a week and still had the tiniest of scars on her jaw ('angels', or swallow mutations, had a particular fibre added to their genetic cocktail that made them quick healers - the fact there even is a scar proves that whatever had made contact with her face must have dug deep). The depression that followed affected the entire family. It took months of food refusal, extreme withdrawal, and enough tears to water a bed of roses to get her back on her feet. Even now there were deep scars of betrayal left on her heart.

Liars

The pain she had spent five years building away from hit her now with enough force to drive her to insanity. She spent an hour methodically ruining her beautiful bedroom, shattering glass knick-knacks, ripping up childhood drawings, tearing bed sheets.

Who's telling the truth, a group of strangers or the rest of the world?

Are they all lying?

Is Rose really my friend?

Her head hurt. She wanted it all to go away.

So she slept.

In her dreams she saw Rebecca at the age of fourteen, sitting on her bed, stroking Lucinda's hair as her nine year old face stared into the distance. She had not eaten in three days, and looked like a 40 year old woman who had been locked away for the last twenty years, eyes as hollow as her cheeks, body unable to function, They sat in dead silence for a few minutes before Rebecca spoke:

"sometimes, in life, we make grave mistakes. This can be because somebody tricked us, or because we wanted something so bad we can't accept its not what we were hoping for. Sometimes it's just fate. little bits of us can die inside, they can hurt like hell, and that's because we cared, and its their fault they don't read you the way you should have, so why should you have to punish yourself? I'm glad you made your own decision and, even if you feel hurt now, if it had been different everything would have been ok and I would have been wrong and you would have been right, so don't give up hope. I'm sorry, I'm the worst at giving advice, just ignore me and... chin up, be proud."

with that she left the room.

"I'm glad you made your own decision"
"fate"
"we make mistakes"

Lucinda woke, the newly born sunlight streaming through the window into her face, and she knew what to do.

She ran to her desk and grabbed a long strip parchment, before feeding it into her typewriter. She wrote three long letters, leaving the first one on her badly made bed, the second, addressed to Agather Christine, the lordes local, Press office Q,stowed away in a bulging bag. The final had no name, and was tucked away in her breast pocket. Tangled hair flying round her face like swarm of scarlet bees, she slid down the banister and ran out the door.

After running for a few minutes, Lucinda reached a cluster of caravans, big and small, new and old, pulling away and driving into the distance. Her heart stopped. She ran so fast she felt like her legs were tearing out of her sockets. The tears that were forming in a steady drizzle from her eyes broke away.

"WAIT" she screamed, her body and mind exhausted. The van at the back stopped and a blond head poked out. Lucinda closed her eyes and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and-

"TAKE ME WITH YOU!"