The dimming sunlight flashes in my eyes. I reach my hands to cover them. The rings and bangles glitter as I tend to the uninvited attention of warmth from the sun.
"Your eyes.. look like they're on fire," Sarah commented. Her admiration for my eyes is voiced once more. "Did you not sleep last night?" she asked.
"Sarah, I told you. I hate them," I objected to her idea with an attitude. "And they are HAZEL with red hues."
I need to change the subject.
She can't know I sneaked out last night. I wanted to run away. I took everything I needed to survive for a year by myself. I stole money and kept two of her gold bracelet along with her diamond nose pin for emergency funding.
I got Carter to pick me up at midnight near the park. He dropped me off near the Merry Motel. I paid him what I promised and when he left, I was alone. Alone and on my own.
I got myself a room for $85 for the night. As I walked to my room, I had a strange feeling of someone following me. Maybe, I was delusional. After all, I did carry thousands of dollars in my worn-out backpack.
If only a weird bearded guy didn't try to attack me through the window, I wouldn't have called 911. I had to return home; this world has always felt too dangerous for me.
I never called her "Mom". She has always been Sarah to me.
I am not being a troubled teenager when I say I wanted to run away. I planned it for over a year and a half. Ever since we left Brooklyn.
The sound of the guitar glides in. It's one of my favorite songs. Taylor Swift. It's something about her songs that keep me calm and listening.
The trees and bushes are passing by like it's floating in the air. The beautiful mosaic of the clouds confirms my intuition. I am moving to a countryside's countryside. I've never seen such beautiful hints of orange and crimson with such marbling clouds in Brooklyn. It feels like the colors dibbled from an artist's color palette. So alive. This sunset is surreal. Breathtaking. Thrilling. Grotesque. Yes, somehow, perilous. Is it the sky or the land that is making me feel this way?
I've never felt this insanely disturbing urge to turn around.
I close my eyes. Let the song step in. Let the future and worries step out.
Sarah turns towards me.
"Clay, think of it as a new adventure. A fresh start for both of us." She statedly cunningly with a smirk. "I know you're sad but there is no point. We already moved out - and we are about to reach Aurndale."
"No!" I interrupted. "There is a point.....the point is we go back to Brooklyn ASAP."
"You know I can't do that. You know WE can't do that." she looked at me with kind but warning eyes.
She would've repeated the same old tales of how moving away from the busy city life is going to aid my health. My heart.
I turned up the radio and rolled down the window of the car. I don't like the place I am going to. I didn't like the place I left either. Somehow, I always loved this part of my life. The journey. The move. The state between where I was and where I am supposed to go; I always sought relief from instability.
However, I always wondered why we moved so often. It was my 16th birthday. I counted the circles in my diary. I moved 23 schools so far. No friends. Definitely no BOYFRIENDS. Well, countless bullies but the teachers were definitely the worst ones. That's all I earned in my 16 years of life.
"When will we stop moving, Sarah? I really wanna stop moving this lot. I want a life. A normal life. I want friends. Maybe.... a boyfriend. I wanna party..... all night like the normal teenagers of my age..." tears clouded my eyes. I hate being emotional.
The cherry nose makes me look weak and fragile.
I covered my face with my hoodie. I know what she will reply with. I know her more than anyone in my life. The only constant existence.
I couldn't concentrate on my sad emotions for too long. All of a sudden, I could hear the flapping sounds of wings. The calls of the crows. The sound of the wind turning cold.
"What's that?" Sarah nervously looked up at the sky.
Flocks of birds suddenly started rushing towards the city ahead of us—thousands and thousands of birds. Ravens actually. The kind we see poking out an eye in the cemetery. The sky, for an instance, is covered with beautiful hints of orange to a greyish blanket of death cries. It looks like they are following something.
"Now that's so welcoming isn't it, Sarah?" I was surely trying to mock her decision.
Sarah had a shadow of grave worry on her face. Whenever she makes this face, I feel there is something she knows. The SOMETHING I consistently asked her about. That SOMETHING that makes her overprotective of me. A bad SOMETHING.
The car comes to a stop after 30 minutes. We are finally here. Moon Lake city. Vermont. A new start. Like always. And in front of me, there it stands, "The Stella Mansion".