Another story, just cuz I felt like it. Oh, and I might be slightly obsessed with werewolf stories:3
"This has really gone too far, Cleo." Mom said, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest and a little dent resting right above her eyebrows. It was one of the few things that I actually had in common with her.
"What has?" I ask distractedly, typing in a few last words on my computer before hitting the print button and using my arms to pull myself over to the printer on my rolly chair.
As the printer wheezes out the two pages of pure text, I scan over the little letters critically, nodding to myself after a moment and hole punching it so that it can rest comfortably in my newest binder.
"Writing this stuff down." mom says in a strange tone, and I look up to see her watching me go through my process.
"But mom, if I don't-"
"I know, Cleo. If you don't, you'll start getting panicked and worried, thinking you're going crazy." she threw her hands up in aggravation "I know."
You're probably wondering what the hell is going on. I would, and even to this day I find myself trying to make sense of what I know to be true.
Just an hour ago, as I was finishing up the last couple pages of the book my English teacher assigned, I had gone into one of my attacks. Well, mom calls them attacks.
I get all tense, and the world in front of me disappears. I start seeing things, images of scenarios and situations, sometimes just faces. And then I relax, and the world around me comes back into focus.
The first time it happened I was Six. Thinking back on it, I was terrified, and my mother was no help. She just shushed me and insisted that what I said was impossible. That there was no way a big airplane could possibly run into two tall buildings in the United States. How preposterous! But then, it happened.
And I, Cleo Dempry, had predicted 9/11, one of the most tragic terrorist attacks on the United States in history. But mom pretended that nothing had happened, and it made me doubt myself.
Maybe I had dreamed it? Perhaps I really didn't see images one day and then see them again the next, but the second time they were in real life, and everyone else could see them too.
My grip and understanding on the situation at that age had been surprisingly good for a six year old. My mom refused to talk about it, and dad was never around to confirm or deny any cases like this from his side of the family, so I had formed my own way of coping and dealing with the situation.
I wrote down what I saw as soon as it happened, and put it in a little binder to keep it organized. Then, when it happened, I would do another entry with the exact information concerning the event. Sometimes it was just little things, like a flower vase, and then a week later that same flower vase would be dropped, leaving a huge mess to be cleaned up. And other times, it was bigger, like storms and weather patterns that could affect whole states.
As I grew older I began to type up my entries, just to make sure that if some freak fire happened I would still have them on my hard-drive and my e-mail. I was so careful with them because they were my own way of coping. Mom had been no help, and for a while I had thought I was completely bonkers.
But these entries, these little paragraphs containing the important information that seemed to affect those around me, they assured me that yes, I had seen these things happen well before they actually did, and that no, I wasn't making it up.
As I pulled the metal clips together, they made a loud clang, and I flinched slightly at how much the sound reverberated through the silent house. It was just mom and I, living out here all by ourselves. I had never met dad, he had left before I was born.
"It's just a few more months until I'm out, mom." I assured her, thinking ruefully of my upcoming summer trip. I was so close to graduating from high school, with only a few stringy weeks left until I could officially brandish my beautiful diploma and say that I was able to graduate with all honors.
Quite the accomplishment, in my books.
As a present, mom had decided to fund a summer trip for me, where I hop into my car with a bunch of stuff and drive around doing stuff. At first, the idea had been repulsive. Why in the world would I want to spend a long time driving around, getting lost and doing things by myself?
But then, I had come to the conclusion that this was probably one of the best presents she had ever given me. I could go and be free, with a nice credit card in my pocket to assist me along the way. And by the end of my trip, I would be off to college, where I would hopefully graduate into the rest of my life.
"Cleo, lets not argue about this again. I really don't want you out of my life, it's just getting hard to deal with you lately." what kind of mother says that? 'I don't want to kick you out or anything, but this creepy seeing into the future crap is giving me the chills' was basically the translation I had in my head.
"It's been worse lately." I remind her timidly, looking up from under my lashes and remembering my last attack.
There was a bar of soap sitting on a tiled floor, but the edges of the image were incredibly blurry, so I couldn't tell where exactly it was. Then, one of my teachers is standing in front of a board and the class is cheering. And finally, a longer scene where mom is packing up my room, shoving my belongings into boxes for the basement and shutting my door with a sort of triumphant finality.
Most of them really aren't too difficult to decipher, but sometimes the future surprised you. It had a mean way of coming back to bite you in the rear if you ever had the slightest amount of confidence as to what was actually happening in the universe.
So I just learned to expect the unexpected, and call it even.
~~~~<¥>~~~~
On Monday, my predictions came true. My morning shower was ruined by a bar of soap mom had left on the floor of the shower, and I was left with a rather large bump on my head. Then, in home room, our teacher announced that seniors would be exempt from the mandatory school assembly on the importance of keeping your grades up. I think the administration has already given up on our class, which burst into loud cheers at the news.
Like I had expected it to.
The last piece of the latest update from my freaky seer-abilities had yet to come true, but I also think that the universe (who I had decided was the one sending me these images of the future, seeing as how I don't believe in anything else) was just trying to warn me about my inevitable removal from my mothers life.
Those last weeks passed so quickly that I barely had time to blink. Graduation was everything I had expected it to be, but mostly because I had seen the outcome of the event with my precognition.
Girls who I barely knew were acting like my good friends, if only because they wanted to depart with me on good terms. Not because they thought that I would be particularly useful to them later on in life, but because they seemed to get a strange sense of closure from giving me what they had thought I truly wanted: friendship. How wrong they were.
You see, most of the time, the things that I see have everything to do with what is in my life or happening to me. So the additional people crowding up my life were actually making me much more stressed than usual, and I was constantly having attacks containing useless information, such as who would get drunk at Kelly Vermont's end of the year bash, and how many girls Grace's boyfriend had slept with since they became official.
Pointless information that I could really care less about. It was all high school drama that neither interested or involved me. But somehow, Mr.Universe had decided that it did.
Because obviously I want to know the gory details of Grace's boyfriends escapades with that slutty freshman girl.
Mom had gone into a state of peace, and actually managed to converse with me more often than she usually did, meaning that I was able to hold a five minute conversation on where I would be going to first on my summer trip.
"Ugh, I can't believe this is it. We're done here, girlies!" Kelly Vermont screeched in a fake upset tone, while the other senior girls at the table -my table- all nodded with fake sad eyes. It was depressing, the lack of effort they actually put into concealing their hatred for one another. There was some sort of story, a hierarchy of sorts that they all seemed to know.
"The last day. So what are you guys doing this summer?" Grace sighed, leaning her chin on her palm.
"Partying, obviously." one girl said in a mean tone, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the stupidity of it all. They were so bitter, so angry at one another, and yet they couldn't look past their massive heads to see that this conversation was so pointless it was painful.
Why waste time talking about things that no one was interested in?
"Cleo, isn't your mom funding a summer trip for you?" one girl piped up, and I almost groaned. You people have already invaded my personal space, can you at least shut up?!
"Yeah. It'll be fun, I guess." I answered, not really looking up at any of them.
By the end of the day I was so tired that I could barely stand. It was the last day, my final day of high school, and by far the worst. Everyone was crying and sobbing in the parking lot, promising to call over the summer to hang out or to stay in contact. HAGS and all that.
I was in a little bit of a better mood when I got home, but that disappeared when I spotted the massive pile of boxes in the driveway, with a little white envelope taped to the top one.
Cleo,
Happy end of school! I packed up all of your stuff so you didn't have to waste any time doing it yourself. The credit card I got you should be in this envelope. Oh, and don't forget to call every once in a while!
Love,
Your Mother
Oh, the impersonal air about it all. Thanks, mom.
I rolled my eyes and groaned, crumpling up the note in my hand and fishing out the green piece of plastic from inside the envelope, then hauled all the boxes into my car. Within ten minutes I was out, my windows down as I drove at a steady sixty down the highway.
Who needs these people?
But secretly, as I watched the sign telling me that I was leaving sunny Florida, a little part of me ached.
~~~~<¥>~~~~
"Welcome to McDonalds, how may I take your order?" the fuzzy little voice asked through the black box next to the massive menu board, ringing with false joy.
"Uh, can I get a double cheeseburger with a coke?" I asked, letting my hand slide over my stomach. It was growling at me like some sort of wild animal.
"Medium?" the voice came back.
"Sure." I rolled my eyes. Was it sad that this was the most human contact I'd had in over a week? For the most part I was bored; wandering from place to place and driving as much as I could. The radio was on, if only to keep me from thinking about other things.
After I'd paid for my food and pulled out of the little shopping center, I started off on the road again, admiring the mountains in the distance. For the most part I had been following no specific rout, instead just taking the road that everyone else seemed to be taking. Stopping for the night at crappy little motels was pretty much the norm at this point.
I continued driving, popping a fry into my mouth every once in a while to sate my stomach, until I came across a large purple sign that signaled an exit coming up.
First of all, sirens were going up at the color. Purple? Isn't that against the law? And then the name.
Victoria Falls.
Something about it twisted a part of my insides, and before I knew it, I was twisting the wheel so that I could get over and onto the exit. It was like a trance, almost as if I wasn't myself as I switched on my turn signal, and got closer and closer to the exit. Before I could come to terms with what I was doing, my car was already driving through the town, Victoria Falls.
It was beautiful, the little town. Huge old trees with clumpy pink flowers lined the roads, and the cracked sidewalks were the perfect place for moms with strollers and the occasional jogger. There was no traffic or large trucks moving through, and I drove by at least three parks. Everything was beautiful, a picturesque model of the everyday life people dreamed about.
It all looked so chick, so cutesy, like a big-name designer had come in and rebuilt the whole thing. And yet, it was still a town. People walked about, and although a majority of them seemed to be very confident and beautiful, I still noticed little things that made the place not-so-perfect.
When my car passed by the fourth park, I was convinced that I could no longer just ogle this place through the dirty window of my car. I found the nearest parking spot and got out, stretching my cramped legs and subconsciously touching my rumpled hair. I had been in the car since early this morning, and it was nearly two thirty now. My hair was in a messy pony-tail, and my ratty old shorts and t-shirt seemed so out of place here.
But I was more intrigued with Victoria Falls than I was worried about how I looked.