past lives

prologue

Indie had seen no rest within the past week. Between the packing and the road tripping and the excessive yelling, she'd hardly gotten a wink. But they'd reached the house at some point, and her stepmother and her dad didn't rip each other's throats out in the process, so it was dubbed an overall win.

Step one and two of this adventure had been spent packing her entire history into some boxes slapping a few fragile stickers on and the traveling through many states. Now she prepped herself for act three, unpacking and decorating. What she thought to be arguably the worst part.

Her stepmother, Portia, practically thought she was an interior designer. The moment she'd moved into their old house she'd begun critiquing even the slightest design choices, and planning redo after redo. In some way Indie had appreciated it, of course it was nice having a house that was simply that pretty, but she missed the warm home-like feeling it had given her before Portia adopted the monochrome color palette. It was the type of perfect that made it dull, as the same neutrals and soft pinks patterned every wall, surface, and chair. She made sure even their family photos fit her color scheme.

Her pony tail seemed to slip and slip as she brought another box in. Portia quickly ordered her on where to put it, and yelled at her as she'd almost dropped it. Near exhausted from the work, on top of her mush like brain, she'd mumbled something close to a sorry and pulled her hair up, for what she'd believed as the fifth time since they'd started bringing all of their previous houses furniture into her new home. She tugged at the mess that was her hair and tried to instill herself with some sort of strength that never really came and prepared to make what felt like her millionth trip to the movers truck.

A million years later indie was left to gaze at her new room. Off to the side of it there was a decent sized walk in closet with boxes stacked high next to it she'd filled to the brim with clothes she didn't know she had. And tucked in a corner there was her bed, still free of the new sheets Portia got her that matched whatever theme she had going on. When she'd pulled them out to find the same nursery pink color printed all over the main room's curtains. She'd known immediately that she'd have to find her plain white ones, as her room was the only place free of the stuffy overly polished feel of the rest of her home. She wouldn't let it slip away now. All in all the room was fairly average and the only thing that had drawn her to it over what is going to be turned into an office is the two large windows, the one facing the house next door and the other overseeing the garden in her own backyard.

Gardening had become a favorite habit of hers over years. It didn't attract attention like art and music did, but it filled her time and gave her millions of things to learn about. She was the type who guesses the flowers on the landscaping along all of her neighbors homes when they went through town. So far she was yet to be wrong too. It worked out well for Portia as well. She'd have herself a gardener to aid in her dream of some perfect home, and she didn't even have to pay them! So gazing over the clean backyard she imagined all of the flowers she'd love to place around.

She figured it'd be best to start unpacking immediately and started sifting through the items that covered her old room. Her old bookshelf had been broken in the move, and Portia insisted on getting her new bedside tables, so after tucking her reading chair in a corner and shoving her desk under the largest window in the room she was unsurprisingly out of furniture and already bored and tired. Nonetheless she began to pull out the millions of little items and danced around her room as she placed them, eventually finding her favorite.

It was an old family photo from when she was still a kid. She'd guessed she was 8 but even she didn't know. She was always a small fragile kid, making her appear younger. It had worried her parents and doctors for a while. After doing tests and taking various child growth vitamins and diet changes, it was pretty much accepted that she was a smaller child. Now after years not much had changed. She was now above average height standing at a whopping 5'5 and still built like a twig. Every year she told herself she'd gain more muscle, but in proper new year's resolution fashion, that only ever lasted a good two gym visits, to a week.

She'd recalled the events of the little photo shoot with her favorite photographer, they'd been regulars of hers at the time, and how after their parents had taken some couples photos of what looked like them slow dancing she'd whispered in the lady's ear that she wanted to do that so next she had her placed on top of her dad's feet and as he danced and swung her around. At some point her sister joined in as well, and they twirled around in the grass kicking there itty-bitty dress shoes off.

Eventually they settled down and sat, shaded by this tall tree hugging each other. Little Indie was standing between her two favorite people in the world, mom and dad, and smiling like she'd just been told the funniest joke an eight year old could ever hear. To her it probably was her older sister always the more wild one, was running around and chanting something or other that they family had long forgotten. Her mother has held her and anybody who even glanced at the photos knew this was a mother and daughter. While Indie had always taken after her mother as she'd gained that perfect soft brunette hair and the LA style blue eyes, the two even shared a little birthmark on their arms, a red tinted heart like blob, only Indie bared it on her right and her mother had it on her left. There was something else that made the two look like a family. Maybe the loving gazes and overwhelming comfort even the image held. Her father was in no way left out of the picture the photographer, Kacey, caught him off guard and he was laughing at his daughter, like an absolute idiot. She recognized the same soft button like nose in her mirror and the familiar way his eyes crinkled when he laughed that her own face imitated. They'd never looked as much like a family when any body else took their picture, her mother became good friends with Kacey. And Indie befriended her later. It was one of the many things she didn't think about as she knew if she kept her mind on it for a even moment more she'd break on the spot.

Many things fell into this category. How her friends would be going through their college applications without her, and how easily if would be for every name she has in her Snapchat to stop talking to her and practically disappear. Or how that place she used to live in was the only home she'd ever known, her mom's dream home.

She chose to forget about those things. She'd have to stop thinking of them. So she did she chose to put the picture down and mumble a goodnight into the air. And only moments after she was out like she hadn't slept for a week, and to be honest she was still unsure if she had.