I watched her lean against the brick wall, the color washed away by nighttime shadows and close her eyes.
"Tell it again."
I stare out at the bright lights from late night stores across street.
"That doesn't do any good. You always want to hear it again."
"Too old to believe in fairy tales...you mean, huh."
I let my breath out in a long sigh. "Something like that."
"Still. I want to hear it...before I have to go back."
I kick at the wall in frustration. "Don't joke around, girl! This isn't some magical armor you can use to wrap around-" My words are cut off my her eyes. Dark. Tired. Alone. Desperate.
Those kind of eyes....I hate them. Those eyes. Mostly, I hate the person that made them. I'll always hate them. Definitely. I swallow the words that rise up. There was no one to tell but a baby-eating bureaucracy that would only put her in a home likely to be worse than the current one. Sometimes you get lucky, but who would risk a roll of the dice that might land you in the same situation you were before...or worse, with the old freaks and their fever-bright eyes...hell with it. I suck in a great breath. Hold it. Let it out again.
"Once a young woman traveled along a path that had no footprints; one rarely used in woods so thick. She didn't care about that though; 15 and already stubborn with it, she decided to take the path that was less trodden, no matter where it led her..."
So I continued the fairy tale passed onto me once while she listened, hugging the story to herself like a living, breathing, invisible teddy bear. When the story finished, she got up. Slowly. Like an old woman. Without a word she turned toward her so-called home and began walking towards it. No goodbye. No 'see you tomorrow'. Already she knew tomorrow was never guaranteed.
I hugged myself, suddenly cold. I bit my lip until I could feel the flesh give way.
"Really...how I hate...those kinds of people."
"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent."-Michel de Montaigne
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