“Hurry up!” I giggled. Running through the tall grass, I felt the warm breeze whip through my hair. A huge smile was plastered on my little five year old face, stretching from tiny ear to tiny ear. He smiled too, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, and stuck out his hand for me to take.
“I’m hurrying,” he laughed. “You’re just too fast for me.” I grabbed his hand as we both dashed across the field, enjoying our time at the farm.
Suddenly, the world went black. The wind sped up and violently lashed at the trees, uprooting most of them.
“Run!” I heard. But I couldn’t hear anything; every sound came as a hum, every vision a blur. Everything was happening at once, too fast for me to focus, but I my senses hadn’t betrayed me, and I still remember most of it.
The last taste was ash on my tongue, covering everything. The last sight was flames, licking up our house. The last smell was blood, splattered everywhere. The last feeling was pain, being swallowed by the fire. The last sound was my own voice, screaming.
I woke up with a start, drenched in my own sweat. What you just witnessed wasn`t that of some over active imagination, no. Although my mind may have altered some things to protect me from the original tragic scene, the end result was still the same. It was a fire, the fire that took my entire family and left me with nothing. It had left nothing but scars, on my body and in my heart. I`d been getting counselling for the past seven years, after no progress was made, the doctors gave up and told me to deal with it on my own.
This dream, this nightmare, had been occurring ever since the fire happened. Although, through the years, I`ve forgotten some things. Who was the man that I was running with? What caused the fire? Who was that happy little girl? No, it couldn’t of been me, at least, not anymore. I am not that happy, that was before, before everything changed, and I can’t say for the better.
I get up for school, put on a fake smile, a façade that fools everyone into thinking I’m normal, that I’m okay. Everyone has their own problems and mine aren’t ever going to go away, not having a family your entire life really damages you. No, I’m not staying at my grandparents, nor my aunts or uncles. They were all taken away from me by the inferno. I live with some weirdo’s who decided that I was cutest little girl at the orphanage.
I did my normal morning routines, never once glancing at the mirror. I didn’t want to see my reflection; I didn’t want to look at my face. I didn’t care how cute I was, the fire took that away from me too. A giant scar runs horizontally across my face. My friends told me that it made me look edgy and some guys have even told me it was totally cool and “punk”. Did care about any of that? No. It wasn’t “cool” in any way, it was a permanent reminder of what had happened to me, and I hated it.
My therapist tried telling me that it wasn’t my fault; of course it’s not my fault, I know that. But it could’ve been prevented; the stupid fire department could’ve showed up five hours earlier, the doctors could’ve made room for my family; they could’ve done more to save the people I loved. I was only a little girl, what was I to do?
Blaming people gets you nowhere though, I’ve learned that. So I get dressed and head downstairs where my foster mom has a big plate of pancakes with extra whip cream ready for me. I smile, for real. It’s the little things that can make people smile, those little things that can slowly glue together the cracks and fill the holes.
I sit down and dig in, eating them was the least I could do. No, my life was not perfect, sure I would love to go back and change it all, but I like my life now. It gives me a sense of reality, what I can and can’t do. Munching away, I pick up the can of whip cream and add just a bit more to my fluffy pancakes. Sure, there are a lot of bad things I’d love to erase from my life, but there’s lots of good too. Good things such as this whip cream, and as far as I’m concerned, you can never have too much, of a good thing.
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