But I would imagine they didn't die if he brought his son with them...
Unless he's really crazy. Which I guess he could be.
Loved it!
Sorry I made you all think that. Cosmic's dad didn't know. They were getting out her birthday stuff when they disappeared. If Cosmic's dad had been crazy, wouldn't he take Mint too?
AN: Vulcan is not a vampberry, his skin is just acting weird.
Growing up was hard, everything was messed up from that day on. Nothing could ever be normal for me again. Pretty soon I wasn’t even really a person anymore, I was a news story, a tragedy, an event. I was gossip. I was “the girl whose parents disappeared” and also “the girl whose parents left” because people could never keep their story straight.
I decided that I was going to continue to be 8. I wanted to be 8 because that’s how old I was when I still knew my parents. And because if Cosmic didn’t get to be 9, or 10, or 11, or 12, then I wouldn’t, either. My aunt never even tried to throw birthdays for me, because she knew how much it hurt, and because she knew I just wanted to be 8. At least, until I was 14. She told me that she didn’t want to send an 8 year old to high school. I knew that she was telling me that for my own good. She didn’t want the other kids to make fun of me, she wanted to spare me any more suffering. It was too late for that. I entered high school without a single friend, and I left without any, too.
Christine raised me. Sometimes I felt bad about screwing her life up like that, forcing her to raise me when she clearly wasn’t ready, but she assured me that it was fine. She said that, as my fake-aunt, it was her job to take my mom’s place. She said that she knew what she was getting into, that she was the equivalent of my godmother--that is, if my family had been religious.
Her boyfriend at the time, a guy named Vulcan Twilight, who was extremely protective of her, was a little less sure, but she tried to make sure that I didn’t know that. I was more observant than she thought I was, but I couldn’t blame her for not knowing. Besides the fact that she wasn’t really my mom, and so she didn’t know me as well as my parents had, the times when I learned about her life was late at night, when I was supposed to be in bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d hear them arguing through the thin walls, always about me. I heard her boyfriend when he threatened to leave, when he said that she needed to send me somewhere that I could get help, when he told her that she shouldn’t have taken me in.
Vulcan tried to be nice to my face, though, and for that I was glad. He knew better than to insult me where I could hear him, because he pitied me. I didn’t blame him. Had I been anybody else, I would have pitied me, too. I was pitiful. I tried to stay out of his way, and I tried my best not to pry him apart from Christine. The least I could do for her was to not ruin her relationship. It wouldn’t be fair if I took that away from her, since I’d already taken so much from her. She deserved a better life than she could get with me there, but she insisted that I stay. She insisted that, among other reasons, she owed this to my mom. She also told me that she wouldn’t let me enter the foster system when there was somebody I knew who was perfectly capable of taking care of me.
Eventually Vulcan warmed up to me--or maybe he didn’t. The time he started being nice to me coincided with the time that he and my aunt had a baby. I was 12--well, to me I was still 8 at that point--but in reality I was 12. With the birth of their daughter, Willow, I felt even less like a part of their family. Willow was more important to both of them than I was, since she was really their flesh and blood, it was to be expected. I didn’t hold it against the, really I couldn’t. I understood that I was just grafted onto their family, I was sewn on like a discolored patch. I was never really going to fit in, luckily I had never been under the impression that I would. I wasn’t stupid. Being an orphan really opened my eyes to some of the more harsh realities.
Willow was the only one who really treated me like family, but it was only because she didn't know any better. She really believed that I was her sister. I knew it was only a matter of time before she'd realize the error of her ways, I only hoped that my story would have faded away by then. I didn't want her to see me that way, as "that poor girl." She was the only one who knew me for me anymore. The only one who just knew me as a person, instead of from the news.
I spent a lot of nights reading to her. I found some of my old favorite books, just the ones that weren't painful to remember, and I let her choose the one I would read. When she was very little Vulcan used to stand in the doorway as I read, like he didn't trust me to be alone with his kid. Sometimes it made me mad that he acted like that, but sometimes I thought that I wouldn't trust me either. Mostly I kept it together, but sometimes, usually after a bout of insomnia, I'd snap. I never hurt anybody else, but sometimes I would empty all my drawers, dumping clothes all over the floor of the room that never felt like my own. Sometimes I sliced my wrists. Once I even chopped off part of my hair, and then my aunt had to take me to a salon to get it fixed.
I went through a lot of phases if insomnia. Sometimes I was fine. Other times I wasn't. I could never tell when it would slip over me. When I would not be able to go to sleep no matter how hard I tried. I would toss and turn, but I always felt too hot, until I pushed down the blankets, and then I felt too cold and too exposed. Usually I got up, got dressed, and wandered around the house in the dark. I would go to Vulcan's office and run my hands along the spines of his book, listening to the way the hollow area between the dust jacket and the spine thumped as I brushed my fingers over them.
Sometimes I went to Willow's room, to sit and watch her like my dad used to watch me, but sometimes that was too hard for me, it brought back too many memories. More often than not I'd just go and stare at the stars. My mom had loved the stars. They were the one subject she could just never paint to her liking, but she sure tried. Her paintings of the stars had always looked fine to me, but she hadn't liked them enough to keep, and some she didn't even like enough to sell.
Once Christine caught me up in the middle of the night. She had woken up and come out to get some milk to help her sleep, while I was pressed against the window watching the stars. I hadn't been startled at all to see her. I'd whispered "Christine, is that you?" Hoping I could prevent her from thinking I was an intruder. My voice scared the living daylights out if her, but then she realized it was me.
"You scared me, Mint." Was all she said to me before turning back and heading to the fridge to get the milk. I was feeling a frothy mixture of happiness and disappointment when she didn't ask me what was up. It was only because I was tired that I even thought there was a chance she would inquire. Nobody ever wanted to give me the kind of normal attention that I would have liked.
"Sorry, aunt Christine. Can't sleep." I told her, answering the question I wished she would have asked, but she hadn't. "I didn't mean to frighten you." I dropped my head as she walked back past me, expecting no sort of response.
"Do you need sleeping pills?" She asked me, bringing the over-filled cup of milk to her lips, "Is it bad?" She was trying to help, but I hated that she suggested medication first.
"The insomnia? It doesn't usually last more than a day or two." I explained, not wanting her to have to spend time and money on a medication I wouldn't need regularly, "Thanks for asking." She nodded and smiled, and then walked back to her room, leaving me with my thoughts.
The nights when I could sleep weren't always better. I had one of two dreams, if I dreamed at all, which wasn't very often.
One, the worst one, the nightmare, put me back to that day. I had to relive it over and over again. Coming inside, calling out for them, being alone. In the dream the whole house was dark. I felt so small, like all of the furniture was gigantic. I had to keep counting to 100, and keep coming back to look for them. Eventually it would get to the point where my heart was racing so fast that I woke myself up, and I would be sweating and crying. At that point I always had to take a shower to wash the nightmare off. If it was 11:00 pm or 3:00 am, I had to take a shower. I could feel the images of the dream peeling off like a layer of dirt.
The other dream, though much happier, and not really a nightmare, wasn't really ideal, either. I would dream that Cosmic was still here, and that we had graduated high school together. He was taking lots of science classes, preparing to become a scientist. I was always painting, though in the mornings I could never remember what the paintings were of. I would sometimes pretend that I had finally figured out how to paint the clouds and the trees, but I never really knew what it really was. Cosmic and I were together, as a couple but still best friends. We were going to get married, we'd planned out our kids' names, we had a house in mind. Everything was perfect, but something about the dream always felt uneasy. It was a feeling almost like I recognized the house we were in, but every piece of furniture had been moved half an inch to the left, enough that it disturbed me, but not enough that I could tell what was wrong.
And then I would wake up, and the illusion would shatter. I'd feel so much worse than before, so much like my life really was pitiful, and like it was taken from me when Cosmic and my parents disappeared. It would drag up all the feelings from the back of my mind, and leave me shivering, even in the summer time.
I never tried in school. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t stand being in classes without Cosmic, it just didn’t feel right. We were supposed to be in every class together, from kindergarten until 12th grade. The town was small enough that that would have been the case had he still been around. There wasn’t a single day in school that didn’t remind me of the fact that he wasn’t there with me anymore. It was the worst around homecoming and prom. I’d see the posters around the school, and wonder what it would have been like if Cosmic had asked me. I wondered what my dress would have looked like, and his suit. If I closed my eyes I could feel the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 of a pin as I imagined him fumbling with the corsage. That’s what it was supposed to be like. That’s how my life should have gone. Simple. Normal. Whole.
I shouldn’t have had to deal with what I did. Every day, as I dozed off in my classes, and brushed off any attempt at human contact, I wondered what it was that I did to deserve it. Was it because my life had been so perfect, was this just karma’s way of balancing everything out? Or was it because of something I did? What was I being punished for? What could possibly be so bad as to warrant a life without my parents and best friend?
“Ms. Mirage.” Echoed about in my head. The voice of my 5th period teacher, snapping at me, trying to wake me up. She was the only one who didn’t get it; I wouldn’t succeed. There was nothing she could do to pull my attention into school. There was nothing she could do to get my to try harder than a D average. She was hard on me, but she had moved into town when I was 13, she didn’t know any better. 5 years was a long time, long enough for my story to stop being the required reading for living in Moonbeam Falls.
“How’s the homework coming?” My aunt asked me, kicking aside one of the notebooks that laid closed on the floor. I felt the couch move as she sat down next to me, and her hand as she rested it on my leg for a minute--and then moved it. “Remember, if you never need help with it, I’m here for you.” She cooed. It was a response that she must have thought was obligatory, something she had to say to me in order to fill her role as my parent.
I grunted as a reply, covering my eyes with my arm. “Not doing it.”
My aunt sighed, “Mint, I really think you should. At least give it a try, okay.” She got up off the couch and shuffled over to my pile of school things. Kneeling down next to them, she picked a spiral notebook at random and began flipping through the pages. It was my notebook from math, which was nearly empty. There were a few scattered notes that I’d written down, and some doodles, but no homework assignments. I heard the disappointment before she even began to talk again, “Mint. Where’s your...” She flipped to the first page, trying to figure out what class it was for, “... math stuff?”
“Not there.”
“Mint, please, I really want you to try... a little harder... in school.” Her teeth were clenched as she talked, and she was clearly struggling as she tried not to be harsh with me, “I know that I haven’t pushed you much in the past, Mint, I’ve really been trying not to. I want you to be comfortable, I don’t want you to be stressed, but, Mint,” She kept repeating my name, trying to add emphasis, or draw me into what she was saying, or something, “I was really hoping you’d be able to get into college. It’s so close, but with your grades... your test scores... Mint, I want you to understand that... it’s going to be hard.”
“It’s gonna be hard?” I mumbled, “It’s not hard yet, but it’s gonna be.” My tone was soft, but I was angry. I hated that my aunt thought that I could just live a normal life, because I couldn’t. The minute I stepped into my empty house was the minute that any chance of a normal life was smashed to bits. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Mint, what I meant... look, I know that’s things are still difficult for you, okay, and I didn’t mean that I think it’s easy now... what I’m saying is... when you apply, I want you to... be prepared, okay?” The words coming from her mouth were so choppy and awkward, like she didn’t even believe them herself. She was lying to me, saying that there was even a chance I could get into any college, and she was lying to herself saying that I would even try. “Don’t let it get you down... you know... if you don’t get accepted where you really want to go.”
“You wanna know where I really want to go?” I quipped, my tone getting sharper with every word, “I’ll give you a hint; not to college.” The words slipped from between my teeth like small, sharp icicles.
She didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her. She thought I was having normal people problems, the kind of stupid, non issue problems that I only wished that I could have. “It seems scary, I know that Mint, but trust me--”
“No.”
“Mint, listen to me, I was scared before heading off to college. It seemed like a big looming thing over my head, and expensive, too, but don’t worry, Vulcan and I can cover everything for you. It’ll be a fresh start. You can make new friends, find fun stuff to do, leave this dumb little town. That was really what scared me, the idea that I’d have to be around people that I didn’t know--well, besides you mo--” There she stopped. Her hand whipped up to cover her mouth before the rest of the word could slip out, but it was too late. I knew what she was going to say. My mom.
“Yeah, my mom. Let’s talk about my mom for a minute. Let’s talk about the fact that I barely know her anymore. Let’s talk about the fact that she disappeared almost 10 years ago, without a trace. Let’s talk about the fact that we all know they’ve stopped looking--that she’s a cold case. Freezing. Along with my dad, and my best friend. Let’s talk about the fact that you seemed convinced that all I really need--all I really want--is to leave them behind. It would make me feel so much better to just forget about the three people that meant the most to me--the three people who ever meant anything to me. That’ll make me want to do what you say.”
She looked like I’d just slapped her across the face. Her eyes were empty, and her mouth hollow, at a loss for words. She had run from the horrible truths that I’d held onto for so long, she swept them under the rug, because when she faced them--when she was forced to face them--she couldn’t do it. It was easier for her to just pretend that my parents had moved away. It was easier for her because it was two people, not four, because Cosmic and his dad had always meant nothing to her.
“I’m not going to college.” I finally said. My words snapped her out of her trance, and her head fell forward into her hands. I could hear her crying, but I didn’t feel bad. Not even a little bit. She had always been so good with respecting me, but she was clearly getting tired of it. What she didn’t understand was that I couldn’t fix myself just because she was tired of dealing with me. She was stuck with me. She had told me that she knew what she was getting into, but somehow I thought that was just a mask. She didn’t know--she couldn’t have known--what she was getting into. I couldn’t have told her that nearly 10 years later I’d be just as broken as the day I found them gone. But I was.
Christine, sniffling and wiping her nose, left the room without saying another word to me. She dropped my math notebook on her way out, scattering some of the loose pages all over the room. I heard the door to her room slam shut, and then the house was silent. I hated silence. My ear searched desperately for a noise to latch onto, for something to occupy my mind besides the memories that swept over me when silence did. As if a punishment for being so rude to Christine, I couldn’t find anything to hear. I could feel the room shifting around me, transforming to match the living room from my old house. I tried to make the cushions under me rustle, to stave off the flashback, but I was unsuccessful. It washed over me, lapping at my consciousness like waves, and pulling me out in the current.
Silence was everywhere, it was crushing me with emptiness. Choking me. Suffocating me. I couldn’t breath. If only there were a sound in the whole house to save me, but there was nothing. I got the feeling again, of anticipation, waiting for Cosmic to make a sound, to alert me of his presence. For a minute it took me back to before I knew that he wouldn’t make a sound ever again, to the pure panic when I was unable to find them.
I was shaking. I couldn’t keep any part of my body still. I brought my hands to my face, covering my eyes, and then my ears, and then my mouth. I couldn’t figure out where I wanted them to go. Eyes. Ears. Mouth.
See no evil.
Hear no evil.
Speak no evil.
“MINT!”
My eyes popped open, pulling me back to reality, and out of that awful nightmare--but right into another one. I was still shaking. My breathing was erratic, my vision foggy. It was like I wasn’t totally back into the real world yet, but somebody was talking to me. I sounded fuzzy and muffled, though I tried my best to listen, and nod as a reply, but I really wasn’t catching a single word of it--whatever it was.
“Mint. Are you even listening to me?” It was Vulcan. His voice had broken me out of the dream. If he hadn’t been yelling at me, I could have hugged him. He threw his hands up in frustration, “Dear Berry above, Mint, am I getting through to you at all? Hello? Earth to Mint.” He crossed his arms defensively, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you now, but you need to snap out of it. D’you hear me? Snap out of it, Mint!”
I gulped, but didn’t say anything. I still tried my best not to get on Vulcan’s bad side. He hated me enough as it was.
“Christine said--among other things--that you told her you aren’t going to college. Is that right?” He asked, and I nodded, “Well, if you think we’re just gonna let you live here...” He began to shake his head, “You need a wake-up call. Honestly, I thought that Christine offering to pay for your college was a little much, but she said that she had to. She said that she ‘owed it to Feijoa’.” The way that he threw my mom’s name around made me uneasy. I tensed at the mention of her, every muscle in my body going taut. “But you are not staying around here longer than you have to.”
“...sorry...” I muttered, and it was in utter sincerity. I did feel bad about ruining Vulcan’s life. He did nothing to obligate him to pull me under his wing, he was stuck with me because Christine was stuck with me, and he was stuck with her.
He must not have believed my apology. “Don’t say that to me. If you were sorry then you’d get over it, Mint.” He spat my name, and it made my blood boil, “And you wouldn’t do that to Christine. You think she doesn’t hurt? Do you think that? Well, it was her best friend. But you know what? She’s making an effort to still be a functioning member of society!” His voice raised, but it didn’t reach a yell.
I stood up from the couch, not willing to deal with Vulcan’s bullsugar. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to him tell me that I should just ‘snap out of it’ or that because Christine continued to function without her friend I should function without my parents, and my friend. I wasn’t going to try to explain to him that it was different, that I never learned how to be a functioning member of society, because the people who were supposed to teach me that kind of stuff were gone. I wasn’t going to let him tell me not to trigger Christine. All while he was standing there triggering me.
I tuned his voice out as I walked away, though I could hear a distant buzzing, like the noise of a fly flittering around my head that I really wanted to swat, which I assumed was Vulcan yelling at me to come back. Yelling at me about how useless I was. Yelling.
I walked all the way to my room, not even looking where I was going at all. I was on autopilot. My surroundings were of little importance to me, because I knew where I was going. I pushed my door open, without hearing the usual squeak, but not because Vulcan fixed it. I walked, slow and steady, to my bed. I sat down on top of the blankets, scooting up against the headboard.
As the sun set I laid down on my bed, pressing my head into the soft pillow. I gripped my sheets hard, trying to stay there, and to prevent myself from doing something that I’d regret later.
Vulcan is a jerk. If I made the choice to take in my best friend's kid, my boyfriend wouldn't get to whine constantly about it. I'd tell him to get over it or get out. :roll:
I can't help but feel that Mint's problems are largely related to Christine and Vulcan's behavior. Between Christine walking on eggshells around her and Vulcan being a jerk and neither of them making any real effort to help, she certainly hasn't had a chance to get better. I know kids who have suffered worse than Mint who made it through okay because of the other adult influences in their lives. I'd say she needs to suck it up, but considering the adults in her life, it's not really surprising that she isn't coping very well. She needs to get out of there. >_<
Vulcan is a jerk. If I made the choice to take in my best friend's kid, my boyfriend wouldn't get to whine constantly about it. I'd tell him to get over it or get out. :roll:
I can't help but feel that Mint's problems are largely related to Christine and Vulcan's behavior. Between Christine walking on eggshells around her and Vulcan being a jerk and neither of them making any real effort to help, she certainly hasn't had a chance to get better. I know kids who have suffered worse than Mint who made it through okay because of the other adult influences in their lives. I'd say she needs to suck it up, but considering the adults in her life, it's not really surprising that she isn't coping very well. She needs to get out of there. >_<
Well, Christine leans on Vulcan a lot (because other than him she was closest to Mint's mom) and she doesn't want to 'lose' him, too.
Yeah, partly. They don't really know what to do with her. But she also has proved over the years not to be really responsive to their help, and I didn't really show that (to save time) but she asks for help and then pushes it away when it comes. Kind of like when people with social anxiety complain about not having friends, and then when somebody invites them somewhere they're too afraid to go.
Vulcan is a jerk. If I made the choice to take in my best friend's kid, my boyfriend wouldn't get to whine constantly about it. I'd tell him to get over it or get out. :roll:
I can't help but feel that Mint's problems are largely related to Christine and Vulcan's behavior. Between Christine walking on eggshells around her and Vulcan being a jerk and neither of them making any real effort to help, she certainly hasn't had a chance to get better. I know kids who have suffered worse than Mint who made it through okay because of the other adult influences in their lives. I'd say she needs to suck it up, but considering the adults in her life, it's not really surprising that she isn't coping very well. She needs to get out of there. >_<
Well, Christine leans on Vulcan a lot (because other than him she was closest to Mint's mom) and she doesn't want to 'lose' him, too.
Yeah, partly. They don't really know what to do with her. But she also has proved over the years not to be really responsive to their help, and I didn't really show that (to save time) but she asks for help and then pushes it away when it comes. Kind of like when people with social anxiety complain about not having friends, and then when somebody invites them somewhere they're too afraid to go.
Well, she could do better than him. But now they have a baby, so she's stuck with him. :roll:
When an eight year old resists help, you throw them in the car and take them to a specialist, you don't let them sulk until high school age. There's really no good reason why she should still be in the same state of mind ten years later. I hope some wonderful man (or woman) comes along and gives her the help Vulcan and Christine failed to give.
@ArielleA (my iPod wont let me do a normal reply) Vulcan is a nice guy, just not as nice to Mint because she's not his kid and he doesn't feel the same obligation to be her dad as Christine feels to be her mom.
Also, she didn't want to be helped; she wasn't going to be helped. But Christine was not goin to let her go into the foster system or up for adoption. She's still angry and sulky because her life was ruined. Her whole world was flipped upside down and the only people she cared about were taken from her. She didn't want any friends besides Cosmic and nobody wanted to be her friend because they didn't think of her as a person. Vulcan and Christine aren't negligent. And they certainly didn't "fail to give" her help.
And setup and character developement have to happen a certain way for the plot to work. If you'd rather I have them forcibly send her to tons of therapy and have her get over it like you think she should have then I can just cancel my plans for her entire story. My characters act the way they do for a reason.
@ArielleA (my iPod wont let me do a normal reply) Vulcan is a nice guy, just not as nice to Mint because she's not his kid and he doesn't feel the same obligation to be her dad as Christine feels to be her mom.
Also, she didn't want to be helped; she wasn't going to be helped. But Christine was not goin to let her go into the foster system or up for adoption. She's still angry and sulky because her life was ruined. Her whole world was flipped upside down and the only people she cared about were taken from her. She didn't want any friends besides Cosmic and nobody wanted to be her friend because they didn't think of her as a person. Vulcan and Christine aren't negligent. And they certainly didn't "fail to give" her help.
And setup and character developement have to happen a certain way for the plot to work. If you'd rather I have them forcibly send her to tons of therapy and have her get over it like you think she should have then I can just cancel my plans for her entire story. My characters act the way they do for a reason.
Whoa, I wasn't making comment on the direction of your story, I was just saying that in that situation (if this were real life), Christine and Vulcan did not act appropriately. No child is beyond repair at the age of eight from one incident, life ruined or not. Years of abuse, maybe, but Mint was perfectly well-adjusted for most of her life.
And I understand that things need to happen for character development. Heck, I'll be the first to say that, in my story, Astra should have sent Briar to therapy as soon as her father died, but didn't because anger and emotional stunted-ness were necessary for the story.
I'm working on an update, but my game is going really slow. I think it has something to do with the fact that I just went on a CC spree, but I don't know if it's from amount of CC or something specific that I downloaded that's slowing me down. >__<
Comments
and how did Cosmics dad know?
something is very strange here...
Confused.
Cosmic's father had something to do with it.
But I would imagine they didn't die if he brought his son with them...
Unless he's really crazy. Which I guess he could be.
Loved it!
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Interesting beginning.
THANK YOU!
I know, I'm mean. I was feeling particularly cruel while planning this whole thing.
He didn't. He honestly meant that they were going to set up her birthday surprise.
Sorry I made you all think that. Cosmic's dad didn't know. They were getting out her birthday stuff when they disappeared. If Cosmic's dad had been crazy, wouldn't he take Mint too?
Yeah, I wanted it to start with a bang.
Thanks. ^__^
So... I guess I'm not going out of town this weekend after all, so it's possible that I might get another chapter done (probably tomorrow) ^__^
*cheers*
I wish I could get it out right now.
But I have a mountain of homework to get through first. >__<
Thank you! ^__^
Then I'm doing my job.
It's because I'm a cruel writer. :twisted:
AN: Vulcan is not a vampberry, his skin is just acting weird.
Growing up was hard, everything was messed up from that day on. Nothing could ever be normal for me again. Pretty soon I wasn’t even really a person anymore, I was a news story, a tragedy, an event. I was gossip. I was “the girl whose parents disappeared” and also “the girl whose parents left” because people could never keep their story straight.
I decided that I was going to continue to be 8. I wanted to be 8 because that’s how old I was when I still knew my parents. And because if Cosmic didn’t get to be 9, or 10, or 11, or 12, then I wouldn’t, either. My aunt never even tried to throw birthdays for me, because she knew how much it hurt, and because she knew I just wanted to be 8. At least, until I was 14. She told me that she didn’t want to send an 8 year old to high school. I knew that she was telling me that for my own good. She didn’t want the other kids to make fun of me, she wanted to spare me any more suffering. It was too late for that. I entered high school without a single friend, and I left without any, too.
Christine raised me. Sometimes I felt bad about screwing her life up like that, forcing her to raise me when she clearly wasn’t ready, but she assured me that it was fine. She said that, as my fake-aunt, it was her job to take my mom’s place. She said that she knew what she was getting into, that she was the equivalent of my godmother--that is, if my family had been religious.
Her boyfriend at the time, a guy named Vulcan Twilight, who was extremely protective of her, was a little less sure, but she tried to make sure that I didn’t know that. I was more observant than she thought I was, but I couldn’t blame her for not knowing. Besides the fact that she wasn’t really my mom, and so she didn’t know me as well as my parents had, the times when I learned about her life was late at night, when I was supposed to be in bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d hear them arguing through the thin walls, always about me. I heard her boyfriend when he threatened to leave, when he said that she needed to send me somewhere that I could get help, when he told her that she shouldn’t have taken me in.
Vulcan tried to be nice to my face, though, and for that I was glad. He knew better than to insult me where I could hear him, because he pitied me. I didn’t blame him. Had I been anybody else, I would have pitied me, too. I was pitiful. I tried to stay out of his way, and I tried my best not to pry him apart from Christine. The least I could do for her was to not ruin her relationship. It wouldn’t be fair if I took that away from her, since I’d already taken so much from her. She deserved a better life than she could get with me there, but she insisted that I stay. She insisted that, among other reasons, she owed this to my mom. She also told me that she wouldn’t let me enter the foster system when there was somebody I knew who was perfectly capable of taking care of me.
Eventually Vulcan warmed up to me--or maybe he didn’t. The time he started being nice to me coincided with the time that he and my aunt had a baby. I was 12--well, to me I was still 8 at that point--but in reality I was 12. With the birth of their daughter, Willow, I felt even less like a part of their family. Willow was more important to both of them than I was, since she was really their flesh and blood, it was to be expected. I didn’t hold it against the, really I couldn’t. I understood that I was just grafted onto their family, I was sewn on like a discolored patch. I was never really going to fit in, luckily I had never been under the impression that I would. I wasn’t stupid. Being an orphan really opened my eyes to some of the more harsh realities.
Willow was the only one who really treated me like family, but it was only because she didn't know any better. She really believed that I was her sister. I knew it was only a matter of time before she'd realize the error of her ways, I only hoped that my story would have faded away by then. I didn't want her to see me that way, as "that poor girl." She was the only one who knew me for me anymore. The only one who just knew me as a person, instead of from the news.
I spent a lot of nights reading to her. I found some of my old favorite books, just the ones that weren't painful to remember, and I let her choose the one I would read. When she was very little Vulcan used to stand in the doorway as I read, like he didn't trust me to be alone with his kid. Sometimes it made me mad that he acted like that, but sometimes I thought that I wouldn't trust me either. Mostly I kept it together, but sometimes, usually after a bout of insomnia, I'd snap. I never hurt anybody else, but sometimes I would empty all my drawers, dumping clothes all over the floor of the room that never felt like my own. Sometimes I sliced my wrists. Once I even chopped off part of my hair, and then my aunt had to take me to a salon to get it fixed.
I went through a lot of phases if insomnia. Sometimes I was fine. Other times I wasn't. I could never tell when it would slip over me. When I would not be able to go to sleep no matter how hard I tried. I would toss and turn, but I always felt too hot, until I pushed down the blankets, and then I felt too cold and too exposed. Usually I got up, got dressed, and wandered around the house in the dark. I would go to Vulcan's office and run my hands along the spines of his book, listening to the way the hollow area between the dust jacket and the spine thumped as I brushed my fingers over them.
Sometimes I went to Willow's room, to sit and watch her like my dad used to watch me, but sometimes that was too hard for me, it brought back too many memories. More often than not I'd just go and stare at the stars. My mom had loved the stars. They were the one subject she could just never paint to her liking, but she sure tried. Her paintings of the stars had always looked fine to me, but she hadn't liked them enough to keep, and some she didn't even like enough to sell.
Once Christine caught me up in the middle of the night. She had woken up and come out to get some milk to help her sleep, while I was pressed against the window watching the stars. I hadn't been startled at all to see her. I'd whispered "Christine, is that you?" Hoping I could prevent her from thinking I was an intruder. My voice scared the living daylights out if her, but then she realized it was me.
"You scared me, Mint." Was all she said to me before turning back and heading to the fridge to get the milk. I was feeling a frothy mixture of happiness and disappointment when she didn't ask me what was up. It was only because I was tired that I even thought there was a chance she would inquire. Nobody ever wanted to give me the kind of normal attention that I would have liked.
"Sorry, aunt Christine. Can't sleep." I told her, answering the question I wished she would have asked, but she hadn't. "I didn't mean to frighten you." I dropped my head as she walked back past me, expecting no sort of response.
"Do you need sleeping pills?" She asked me, bringing the over-filled cup of milk to her lips, "Is it bad?" She was trying to help, but I hated that she suggested medication first.
"The insomnia? It doesn't usually last more than a day or two." I explained, not wanting her to have to spend time and money on a medication I wouldn't need regularly, "Thanks for asking." She nodded and smiled, and then walked back to her room, leaving me with my thoughts.
The nights when I could sleep weren't always better. I had one of two dreams, if I dreamed at all, which wasn't very often.
One, the worst one, the nightmare, put me back to that day. I had to relive it over and over again. Coming inside, calling out for them, being alone. In the dream the whole house was dark. I felt so small, like all of the furniture was gigantic. I had to keep counting to 100, and keep coming back to look for them. Eventually it would get to the point where my heart was racing so fast that I woke myself up, and I would be sweating and crying. At that point I always had to take a shower to wash the nightmare off. If it was 11:00 pm or 3:00 am, I had to take a shower. I could feel the images of the dream peeling off like a layer of dirt.
The other dream, though much happier, and not really a nightmare, wasn't really ideal, either. I would dream that Cosmic was still here, and that we had graduated high school together. He was taking lots of science classes, preparing to become a scientist. I was always painting, though in the mornings I could never remember what the paintings were of. I would sometimes pretend that I had finally figured out how to paint the clouds and the trees, but I never really knew what it really was. Cosmic and I were together, as a couple but still best friends. We were going to get married, we'd planned out our kids' names, we had a house in mind. Everything was perfect, but something about the dream always felt uneasy. It was a feeling almost like I recognized the house we were in, but every piece of furniture had been moved half an inch to the left, enough that it disturbed me, but not enough that I could tell what was wrong.
And then I would wake up, and the illusion would shatter. I'd feel so much worse than before, so much like my life really was pitiful, and like it was taken from me when Cosmic and my parents disappeared. It would drag up all the feelings from the back of my mind, and leave me shivering, even in the summer time.
I never tried in school. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t stand being in classes without Cosmic, it just didn’t feel right. We were supposed to be in every class together, from kindergarten until 12th grade. The town was small enough that that would have been the case had he still been around. There wasn’t a single day in school that didn’t remind me of the fact that he wasn’t there with me anymore. It was the worst around homecoming and prom. I’d see the posters around the school, and wonder what it would have been like if Cosmic had asked me. I wondered what my dress would have looked like, and his suit. If I closed my eyes I could feel the 🐸🐸🐸🐸 of a pin as I imagined him fumbling with the corsage. That’s what it was supposed to be like. That’s how my life should have gone. Simple. Normal. Whole.
I shouldn’t have had to deal with what I did. Every day, as I dozed off in my classes, and brushed off any attempt at human contact, I wondered what it was that I did to deserve it. Was it because my life had been so perfect, was this just karma’s way of balancing everything out? Or was it because of something I did? What was I being punished for? What could possibly be so bad as to warrant a life without my parents and best friend?
“Ms. Mirage.” Echoed about in my head. The voice of my 5th period teacher, snapping at me, trying to wake me up. She was the only one who didn’t get it; I wouldn’t succeed. There was nothing she could do to pull my attention into school. There was nothing she could do to get my to try harder than a D average. She was hard on me, but she had moved into town when I was 13, she didn’t know any better. 5 years was a long time, long enough for my story to stop being the required reading for living in Moonbeam Falls.
“How’s the homework coming?” My aunt asked me, kicking aside one of the notebooks that laid closed on the floor. I felt the couch move as she sat down next to me, and her hand as she rested it on my leg for a minute--and then moved it. “Remember, if you never need help with it, I’m here for you.” She cooed. It was a response that she must have thought was obligatory, something she had to say to me in order to fill her role as my parent.
I grunted as a reply, covering my eyes with my arm. “Not doing it.”
My aunt sighed, “Mint, I really think you should. At least give it a try, okay.” She got up off the couch and shuffled over to my pile of school things. Kneeling down next to them, she picked a spiral notebook at random and began flipping through the pages. It was my notebook from math, which was nearly empty. There were a few scattered notes that I’d written down, and some doodles, but no homework assignments. I heard the disappointment before she even began to talk again, “Mint. Where’s your...” She flipped to the first page, trying to figure out what class it was for, “... math stuff?”
“Not there.”
“Mint, please, I really want you to try... a little harder... in school.” Her teeth were clenched as she talked, and she was clearly struggling as she tried not to be harsh with me, “I know that I haven’t pushed you much in the past, Mint, I’ve really been trying not to. I want you to be comfortable, I don’t want you to be stressed, but, Mint,” She kept repeating my name, trying to add emphasis, or draw me into what she was saying, or something, “I was really hoping you’d be able to get into college. It’s so close, but with your grades... your test scores... Mint, I want you to understand that... it’s going to be hard.”
“It’s gonna be hard?” I mumbled, “It’s not hard yet, but it’s gonna be.” My tone was soft, but I was angry. I hated that my aunt thought that I could just live a normal life, because I couldn’t. The minute I stepped into my empty house was the minute that any chance of a normal life was smashed to bits. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Mint, what I meant... look, I know that’s things are still difficult for you, okay, and I didn’t mean that I think it’s easy now... what I’m saying is... when you apply, I want you to... be prepared, okay?” The words coming from her mouth were so choppy and awkward, like she didn’t even believe them herself. She was lying to me, saying that there was even a chance I could get into any college, and she was lying to herself saying that I would even try. “Don’t let it get you down... you know... if you don’t get accepted where you really want to go.”
“You wanna know where I really want to go?” I quipped, my tone getting sharper with every word, “I’ll give you a hint; not to college.” The words slipped from between my teeth like small, sharp icicles.
She didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her. She thought I was having normal people problems, the kind of stupid, non issue problems that I only wished that I could have. “It seems scary, I know that Mint, but trust me--”
“No.”
“Mint, listen to me, I was scared before heading off to college. It seemed like a big looming thing over my head, and expensive, too, but don’t worry, Vulcan and I can cover everything for you. It’ll be a fresh start. You can make new friends, find fun stuff to do, leave this dumb little town. That was really what scared me, the idea that I’d have to be around people that I didn’t know--well, besides you mo--” There she stopped. Her hand whipped up to cover her mouth before the rest of the word could slip out, but it was too late. I knew what she was going to say. My mom.
“Yeah, my mom. Let’s talk about my mom for a minute. Let’s talk about the fact that I barely know her anymore. Let’s talk about the fact that she disappeared almost 10 years ago, without a trace. Let’s talk about the fact that we all know they’ve stopped looking--that she’s a cold case. Freezing. Along with my dad, and my best friend. Let’s talk about the fact that you seemed convinced that all I really need--all I really want--is to leave them behind. It would make me feel so much better to just forget about the three people that meant the most to me--the three people who ever meant anything to me. That’ll make me want to do what you say.”
She looked like I’d just slapped her across the face. Her eyes were empty, and her mouth hollow, at a loss for words. She had run from the horrible truths that I’d held onto for so long, she swept them under the rug, because when she faced them--when she was forced to face them--she couldn’t do it. It was easier for her to just pretend that my parents had moved away. It was easier for her because it was two people, not four, because Cosmic and his dad had always meant nothing to her.
“I’m not going to college.” I finally said. My words snapped her out of her trance, and her head fell forward into her hands. I could hear her crying, but I didn’t feel bad. Not even a little bit. She had always been so good with respecting me, but she was clearly getting tired of it. What she didn’t understand was that I couldn’t fix myself just because she was tired of dealing with me. She was stuck with me. She had told me that she knew what she was getting into, but somehow I thought that was just a mask. She didn’t know--she couldn’t have known--what she was getting into. I couldn’t have told her that nearly 10 years later I’d be just as broken as the day I found them gone. But I was.
Christine, sniffling and wiping her nose, left the room without saying another word to me. She dropped my math notebook on her way out, scattering some of the loose pages all over the room. I heard the door to her room slam shut, and then the house was silent. I hated silence. My ear searched desperately for a noise to latch onto, for something to occupy my mind besides the memories that swept over me when silence did. As if a punishment for being so rude to Christine, I couldn’t find anything to hear. I could feel the room shifting around me, transforming to match the living room from my old house. I tried to make the cushions under me rustle, to stave off the flashback, but I was unsuccessful. It washed over me, lapping at my consciousness like waves, and pulling me out in the current.
Silence was everywhere, it was crushing me with emptiness. Choking me. Suffocating me. I couldn’t breath. If only there were a sound in the whole house to save me, but there was nothing. I got the feeling again, of anticipation, waiting for Cosmic to make a sound, to alert me of his presence. For a minute it took me back to before I knew that he wouldn’t make a sound ever again, to the pure panic when I was unable to find them.
I was shaking. I couldn’t keep any part of my body still. I brought my hands to my face, covering my eyes, and then my ears, and then my mouth. I couldn’t figure out where I wanted them to go. Eyes. Ears. Mouth.
See no evil.
Hear no evil.
Speak no evil.
“MINT!”
My eyes popped open, pulling me back to reality, and out of that awful nightmare--but right into another one. I was still shaking. My breathing was erratic, my vision foggy. It was like I wasn’t totally back into the real world yet, but somebody was talking to me. I sounded fuzzy and muffled, though I tried my best to listen, and nod as a reply, but I really wasn’t catching a single word of it--whatever it was.
“Mint. Are you even listening to me?” It was Vulcan. His voice had broken me out of the dream. If he hadn’t been yelling at me, I could have hugged him. He threw his hands up in frustration, “Dear Berry above, Mint, am I getting through to you at all? Hello? Earth to Mint.” He crossed his arms defensively, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you now, but you need to snap out of it. D’you hear me? Snap out of it, Mint!”
I gulped, but didn’t say anything. I still tried my best not to get on Vulcan’s bad side. He hated me enough as it was.
“Christine said--among other things--that you told her you aren’t going to college. Is that right?” He asked, and I nodded, “Well, if you think we’re just gonna let you live here...” He began to shake his head, “You need a wake-up call. Honestly, I thought that Christine offering to pay for your college was a little much, but she said that she had to. She said that she ‘owed it to Feijoa’.” The way that he threw my mom’s name around made me uneasy. I tensed at the mention of her, every muscle in my body going taut. “But you are not staying around here longer than you have to.”
“...sorry...” I muttered, and it was in utter sincerity. I did feel bad about ruining Vulcan’s life. He did nothing to obligate him to pull me under his wing, he was stuck with me because Christine was stuck with me, and he was stuck with her.
He must not have believed my apology. “Don’t say that to me. If you were sorry then you’d get over it, Mint.” He spat my name, and it made my blood boil, “And you wouldn’t do that to Christine. You think she doesn’t hurt? Do you think that? Well, it was her best friend. But you know what? She’s making an effort to still be a functioning member of society!” His voice raised, but it didn’t reach a yell.
I stood up from the couch, not willing to deal with Vulcan’s bullsugar. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to him tell me that I should just ‘snap out of it’ or that because Christine continued to function without her friend I should function without my parents, and my friend. I wasn’t going to try to explain to him that it was different, that I never learned how to be a functioning member of society, because the people who were supposed to teach me that kind of stuff were gone. I wasn’t going to let him tell me not to trigger Christine. All while he was standing there triggering me.
I tuned his voice out as I walked away, though I could hear a distant buzzing, like the noise of a fly flittering around my head that I really wanted to swat, which I assumed was Vulcan yelling at me to come back. Yelling at me about how useless I was. Yelling.
I walked all the way to my room, not even looking where I was going at all. I was on autopilot. My surroundings were of little importance to me, because I knew where I was going. I pushed my door open, without hearing the usual squeak, but not because Vulcan fixed it. I walked, slow and steady, to my bed. I sat down on top of the blankets, scooting up against the headboard.
As the sun set I laid down on my bed, pressing my head into the soft pillow. I gripped my sheets hard, trying to stay there, and to prevent myself from doing something that I’d regret later.
And I waited for somebody to come.
To ask me if I was okay.
But they didn’t.
I can't help but feel that Mint's problems are largely related to Christine and Vulcan's behavior. Between Christine walking on eggshells around her and Vulcan being a jerk and neither of them making any real effort to help, she certainly hasn't had a chance to get better. I know kids who have suffered worse than Mint who made it through okay because of the other adult influences in their lives. I'd say she needs to suck it up, but considering the adults in her life, it's not really surprising that she isn't coping very well. She needs to get out of there. >_<
Well, Christine leans on Vulcan a lot (because other than him she was closest to Mint's mom) and she doesn't want to 'lose' him, too.
Yeah, partly. They don't really know what to do with her. But she also has proved over the years not to be really responsive to their help, and I didn't really show that (to save time) but she asks for help and then pushes it away when it comes. Kind of like when people with social anxiety complain about not having friends, and then when somebody invites them somewhere they're too afraid to go.
When an eight year old resists help, you throw them in the car and take them to a specialist, you don't let them sulk until high school age. There's really no good reason why she should still be in the same state of mind ten years later. I hope some wonderful man (or woman) comes along and gives her the help Vulcan and Christine failed to give.
Also, she didn't want to be helped; she wasn't going to be helped. But Christine was not goin to let her go into the foster system or up for adoption. She's still angry and sulky because her life was ruined. Her whole world was flipped upside down and the only people she cared about were taken from her. She didn't want any friends besides Cosmic and nobody wanted to be her friend because they didn't think of her as a person. Vulcan and Christine aren't negligent. And they certainly didn't "fail to give" her help.
And setup and character developement have to happen a certain way for the plot to work. If you'd rather I have them forcibly send her to tons of therapy and have her get over it like you think she should have then I can just cancel my plans for her entire story. My characters act the way they do for a reason.
Great chapter!
And I understand that things need to happen for character development. Heck, I'll be the first to say that, in my story, Astra should have sent Briar to therapy as soon as her father died, but didn't because anger and emotional stunted-ness were necessary for the story.
I didn't mean to offend you. :?
You'll just have to wait and seeeeeeeeee
Thanks! :]
I get that it's not his kid. I totally get that. But. I don't know. That still bothers me >__<
I'm anxious to see where you are taking this, Sho. Mint and her story has me very intrigued.
He is kinda a jerk to Mint, but he's nice to Christine, I swear. He's not just an all around apple-hole.
But, yeah, he's a bit harsh and not understanding.
I'm really excited for this story, you have no idea.