Constellations in August

Why My Small Town Is The Worst:

1. You know everyone.

2. People can lie and everyone will believe them.

3. You can’t escape them

4. Legacies. (To kill and protect.)

5. Her.

Small towns suck. It’s all on the list… that’s how I know.

I wish I could get out of this godforsaken place.

I have never understood why people come to small towns. Maybe to get away from their sad life in the city… Most people from my town would jump at the chance to Escape…. To be free.

Most people my age at least.

The older generation in this god forsaken town have accepted the fact that no matter what… they will never be able to leave. But the younger generation, they fight tooth and nail… knowing that they will never EVER leave. Never escape. Leading into a cycle… one that never ends.

My whole life… I had never rocked the boat. I was the stereotypical “Good Kid”. The Straight A’s scholar student with millions of hours in community service that stacked like bricks.

I was the stereotypical “Perfect Gifted Child”. I had never rebelled. That was always my brother. He loved to call me a little miss perfect.

That is… until the worst day in my life.

August 3rd of 2004.

Just 7 days before my 18th birthday.

The day that changed me… shattered my very existence and all I had known.

Before that day, I could count the amount rules I had broken on one hand. Before that day… I only had one blemish on my record… and it was my first and last tardy… and that was in 6th grade… simply because I was being a good Samaritan.

Before that day…the worst thing I had ever done in my life was staying up well past midnight reading of far away lands that I dreamed of escaping to but never could. By the time I was ten… I had fallen in love with the world of language… the methods of putting into someone’s head an image with nothing but words. When I was young, I often heard my mother talking with her friends about the circles under my eyes… and if she had messed up so bad that her child was so serious… a complete opposite from her and my father.

But that day… August 3rd… was the first day I had fallen in love with something other than a book. With someone other than a fictional character. With someone who was so rambunctious, loud and rebellious.

Not until Her.

Before Her… I had never broken a rule. I had never gotten drunk.

Before Her I had never broken a promise.

Until Her … I was the picture-perfect poster child.

I will never forget the first time that I heard that laugh. That godforsaken melody.

Raspy like midnight… sharp like knives. The laugh that made time stop.

A sound that made rules crumble and worlds collide.

It was the most jagged siren song. A sweet cacophony of hellfire.

Her laugh was too alive for this graveyard town of less than 200 hollowed souls. Her laugh shattered through the monotony of this hell hole.

It was on that damned day that I had heard Her… the rupture of Her laugh… that everything I thought I knew had dissolved into nothingness. It was that day… everything I thought I was…turned to be a filthy lie.

She had clawed her way into this silent corpse-town and left nothing but chaos in her wake.

I had never found a more fascinating creature until Her. And I have never had since that summer with Her.

First was Her laugh in a silent library… obnoxious and loud. Her laugh shook the silence…sending vibrations that stirred the dust from its slumber and into its tribal dance in the mid-morning light.

It all went downhill from there.

She waltzed into the no longer quiet corner, the dust dancing with her. First glance, nothing but a new yet simple being. Second glance was where it all started. The second glance was a collision where the ordinary shattered into myth.

The second glance is where I saw a bold-faced goddess.

Obsidian tendril swaying from the crown of Her head. Silver rings hung swaying in the air, catching onto the morning sun like matches. Her braids clicking like bones and glittering like fragments of rebellion… a constellation of charms. With tiny brass moons and chipped beads that caught the sun like stolen stars from the night sky.

One charm looked as if it were a bullet casing.

I never asked why.

But it was the second thing that hooked me on.

Her laugh was the first thing to ruin me. Everything after was overkill.

It was that time I should have known to go back to my notes.

I should have known to ignored her.

But when She glanced up…it felt like gravity had been rewritten.

Her eyes weren’t soft; they were green storms that daring me to jump overboard into the sea… daring me to drown.

Then She smiled.

Oh… how Her smile was nothing like I had seen before. It was a blade, curved and gleaming, cutting through every rule I had ever lived by.

The Chesire Cat paled in comparison.

Twice as dangerous.

Twice as beautiful.

How lovely it was… Her smile...

But it was the beginning of the end.

It started small. It often does.

Herbal tea with sweet honey switched to coffee. Dark and bitter… like Her jokes. Ironed and crisp pastel dresses and long skirts morphed into crumpled band tees, black boots and cargo pants. A style that made my mother’s lip purse tighter than a crack in the concrete. My pin straight hair grew to mini braids, messy waves and untidy buns. A style that caused thousands of eyes to turn my way… long after She left… a style that stayed long after I left. Sips of burning alcohol, wisps of ash and smoke that clung to my skin and clothes like a second skin.

Then it grew… as it always does.

I skipped choir practice once… then twice… then forever. I began walking home from the library the long way… past the bridge She had labeled as her new home. I started wearing black boot to church service… the pastors wife stared. I stopped saying grace at dinner… my mother noticed. I wrote her name in red ink… in the margins of my bible. I still have it.

Then… I had worn her jacket to service… Everyone knew it wasn’t mine. My mother was mortified. After that…I began skipping Sunday service. Said I was sick. I wasn’t.

Worst yet…as my younger self would say… my most horrid sin of my life that led to my downfall…

The one that had sparked fireworks in my blood. It caused my heart to pound recklessly. Gravity to cease. After that… nothing was quiet anymore.

The day had been the worst day recorded. Dry yet humid. Heat closes enough to be called hell. My mother never told me this… but I knew she blamed me for it. Sweat boiled off of your skin before you could begin to wipe it.

That day… I barely had enough energy to walk to the parlor in the heat. But I did. I shouldn’t have. I had bought two scoops of bubble gum. I hated that flavor. She loved it. I had learned to love it too.

It started innocently enough.

I had made it to the bridge. First mistake. Staying was my second. We used the same spoon. My brother used to call that an Indirect Kiss. I should have left it there. I didn’t.

But I am glad I didn’t.