"You are giving this back as soon as I pick you up from school," Trenton warned sternly, setting my cell phone into my outstretched hand. I had managed to convince him that I needed it incase something happened at school. If I were being honest though, I just wanted it so I could make sure no pictures of me from the party ended up on Instagram.
"Promise," I replied in a cheerful tone, pulling the passenger side door open and climbing into his black jeep. Matt had gone to school early for a weightlifting session with the football team, so Trenton had to drive me today. He reversed the car and started out of the parking lot, a look of deep concentration on his face. Work was probably at the forefront of his mind, he was a salesperson for a local magazine and today, they were thinking of new ways to get more subscribers. Of course, Trenton wasn't particularly fond of the job, but he was good at it, like he was good at everything he put his mind to.
With a quiet sigh, I turned my head to look out the window but quickly averted my gaze when I locked eyes with the person in the car beside us. A feeling of discomfort tickled up my spine, but not because of the awkward eye contact. The car they were driving was a bright red mini van; the same car that my mother had driven my entire life. I closed my eyes as the memories swept over me, unbidden and unforgiving.
I looked down in dismay at the large, shattered picture frame that lay on the carpeted hall floor. A picture of my family from five years ago smiled back at me among the shards of glass as I bent down to gently slide it out from the rubble.
"Anna," my mom stumbled around the corner, startling me into dropping the photo, "Go to your room!" Long brown hair, the color of tree bark, draped her bruised face. Blood had begun to seep through her thin shirt from a fresh wound, and dark marks were forming on her thighs.
"Shut up, Charlotte," Dad growled at her, turning his eyes on me, "Don't you dare move."
My legs locked at his command, eyes widening in terror. I wanted to run so bad but my body was programmed to obey him. He had a way of making people do what he said, that I never understood. "Yes sir," I mumbled, hands shaking as I clasped and unclasped them repeatedly. My heart pounded painfully as I watched Dad yank my Mom up by her throat. His shirt was stained with spilled beer and bits of blood, sandy brown hair sticking up in clumps. Muscles rippling, Dad threw her down onto the ground unsympathetically. He turned and towered over me, standing at 6'7" with well-muscled arms and a flat, hard chest. His eyes flashed, pupils dilated, a violent look crossing his face.
"You should know better than to interrupt your mother and I," Dad curled his lip, eyes clouded with rage. The rank scent of alcohol covered him, saddening me as I remembered the good days before he started drinking himself mad. A flash of fear drowned the sadness as he raised his arm high and slapped me on the cheek. The blow sent me crashing to the ground, face throbbing in pain. Tears slipped from my eyes and landed on the soft carpet beneath me. The very hand that used to help me off the muddy ground when I had fallen from my bike as a child, was now the cause of my despair. Dad was slowly making his way over, fists clenched into tight balls at his side. I cringed, covering the rapidly-swelling side of my face with a trembling hand. My mother cried out desperately for him to draw his attention back to her, to ward him off of their terrified daughter.
Suddenly, the front door flew open and hit the wall with a thump. The sound of our salvation was music to my ears and I looked up with hopeful eyes. My big brother stood in the doorway, groceries in hand, staring at me in horror. His sandy brown hair was cut shorter than Dad's, standing at 6'3" and still growing, with a stronger build than our father. Dropping the groceries, he lunged at Dad, punching him square in the face. A sickening crunch followed and blood began to pour from Dad's nose. I let my body sink into the carpet in relief. Trenton's presence had always meant safety.
My eyes snapped open in time to see the red minivan make a right turn and disappear from sight. I breathed deeply, looking down at the red marks that were left on my palm from forming too-tight fists. Sometimes, repressed memories were triggered by the smallest things and at the most inconvenient times. Today, however, I had the protection of my big brother in the seat beside me, completely unaware of my turmoil but still a source of comfort.
Sighing silently one more time, I leaned back against the headrest and thought of how insane I would seem to anyone besides my two brothers. Firstly, instead of having freaky dreams when I'm intoxicated, I get ominous messages from someone that's most likely 'old as the hills'. Secondly, let's not even get started on the jarring flashbacks, or the fact that I'm not totally human. I sometimes wonder if we can even be classified as human at all.
"You seem to be thinking extra hard this morning," Trenton snapped me out of my thoughts, his deep voice quiet and smooth. "Usually, I can't get you to shut up," he mused, glancing at me with a small twinkle in his eyes. He was joking, of course. Trenton always says he loves when Matt and I chatter endlessly because we remind him of our mother. We both were very much like her; whereas Trenton was more reserved in nature.
I offered him a small smile in return, lifting my head from the rest behind it, "I was thinking about Mom."
"Oh," He filled the air with his thick silence for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the stop light ahead. "Because of the red van that we passed a bit ago?"
Blinking in surprise, my eyes averted down to my fingers that were playing with each other on my lap. Another quirk with my eldest brother is that nothing gets past him. It made me feel understood, yet vulnerable at the same time. "Yeah," I murmured, "I know it's dumb, it's been two years but I still think about her all the time."
Trenton's knuckles tightened on the steering wheel and he veered into the school parking lot to park. As soon as the car was in a spot, gears switched, he turned towards me as far as the seat belt would allow. "Annabelle, that is not dumb at all. Nothing about how you feel is dumb, and your grief does not need validation. Two years is incredibly recent in terms of losing a parent, especially when all things are considered, we've really lost two parents. Tragically." He waited until I looked him in the eyes, his gaze worried and sad. "I never want you to feel stupid for being sad, or scared or upset because of our past. I really, really hope that you never feel alone either."
Tears blurred my vision and I fumbled to unsnap the seat belt before climbing awkwardly onto the center console to hug Trenton around the neck. His big, safe, warm arms held me close while he stroked the back of my head. The lump welling up in my throat got the better of me and a few wet drops landed on his t-shirt. When everything was wrong with my world, when Dad as beating Mom, when I quarreled with friends or did bad on an exam, being in my brothers arms would make everything steady again. Trenton was my rock.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Abby tapped the butt of her pencil on the table a few times before filling in another blank on her worksheet. She always did the homework during class while our science teacher lectured about her powerpoint slides. Today, Ms. Cadburry was discussing the different vulnerability statuses that certain species are listed as. She was currently droning on and on about the overpopulation of rabbits and squirrels in north america, which was causing me to zone out. Chin resting on the palm of my hand, I yawned and allowed my weary eyes to rest just a moment. Thanks, or rather 'not thanks', to my extraordinary Twister hearing abilities, I could pick out every pencil scratching, loud breathing or smart phone tapping in my vicinity. Instead of dealing with the minor annoyances, I turned my attention back to the power point.
"...rather sad, since it's the fastest land mammal on record." Ms. Cadburry's words peaked my interest, causing me to lift my chin from it's resting place and pay full attention. A picture of a beautiful cheetah stared back at the class from the projector, healthy and strong looking. Ms. Cadburry switched to the next slide, her voice subdued, "As you can see here, the Cheetah isn't critically endangered just because the loss of its land."
The class all sighed or muttered in disgust but I was silent, my gaze locked with the image on screen. I had seen pictures before on social media of trophy hunters posing with giraffes, wolves and even lions, which made me nauseous and resulted in me unfollowing the Animal Rights Facebook page, but I had never seen one of a slain Cheetah. The magnificent animal's head lolled off to the side, and part of its body dragged on the earth as the hunters -a male and female- posed with its corpse. They were smiling stoically at the camera, their rifles strung over their shoulders.
A deep, burning rage settled in my tummy, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to prickle. I averted my gaze down to the table, careful to not let anyone see how dark my eyes had probably gotten. When experiencing extreme emotions, sometimes a Twisters eyes would mix with the shade of it's soul animal. In my case, a rich amber color, which was in far contrast from my normal blue. Thinking of how my eyes currently resembled those of the dead Cheetah on the screen, my heart hardened further with hatred. This time it was personal. This time it was the slaughter of something that harbored part of my own essence. How could humans be so cruel?
A quiet, but sure voice in the hidden recesses of my mind replied, "and yet you want to be like them so badly."
"I know," I whispered aloud on accident, a note of shame in my voice. Abby glanced at me but I lowered my eyes more and coughed a little to convince her that I hadn't actually spoken. Snapping my attention back to my thoughts, I could still feel the anger and shame that tensed my muscles and seemed to raise the temperature of the room around me. I had spent my whole life trying to be more like Abby and our other friends, but is that what I really wanted? Of course, none of them were trophy hunters, but none of them understood what it was like to be prosecuted by humans either. My brothers and I could only twist into our soul animals in the dead of night, hidden from civilization with at least a mile of woodland between us and it.
If I were to find a big cat in the forest by our home, I would revere it, I would stand in awe before it. Whereas, if a normal human found me in the woods as a Cheetah, I would be captured, killed or experimented on. Even my best friend Abby would call the police, just like any of them would. This is the way humans are conditioned and as hard as I have always tried to ignore it; my family, Mrs. Cadburry, my sense of right and Sky Leaf himself, will never let me forget the simple truth. That I was never like them, and I wasn't sure anymore if I still wanted to pretend that I was.