25. Stove
There is no massive pot of potato stew when she returns.
Instead, the living room is filled with barrels.
26. Smug
She used be so smug when she was younger, back when everything was perfect.
God, she wants to punch that brat.
27. Emotion
Her first emotion, when the boy with the steadfast gaze offers her a shower at his house, is fear.
28. Chin
The boy with the steadfast gaze, she learns upon closer inspection, has dimples when he smiles, as well as a small mole on his chin.
The mole fascinates her.
How must it feel to have such a perfect life that even something as insignificant as a mole sits perfectly equidistant from either side of his face?
29. Winter
When she’s not shivering, dirty, and sitting beneath the shadow of a leafless tree, she can appreciate the beauty. The view from his bathroom is positively gorgeous. The world, powdered with white and covered in icicles, is a winter wonderland.
With this comfortably sheltered view through the window frame, it’s hard to believe that such beauty could be so deadly.
30. Knots
The clothes that adorn her body are clean and warm. The air smells deliciously salty, wonderfully sweet, and perfectly spicy. For a moment, she can almost believe she’s somewhere else - somewhere where the view is vast and blue in the best possible way, the wind tangles tangles her hair, and she feels her father’s hand on her own.
“Dad, how fast are we going?” she had yelled.
“Twenty-three knots!” he’d screamed back.
“Don’t yell,” her mother had reprimanded.
But when she had glanced behind at her mother, she had seen that her mother was smiling, too.
31. Stay
“Thank you for everything,” she says to the mother of the boy with the steadfast gaze. “I’ll return the clothes tomorrow.”
“Oh, honey,” the mother says, “Wouldn’t you like to stay? I’ve made you tomato soup. My son says it’s your favorite.”
She would love to stay if not only for the tomato soup, but her mother had once told her to never, at all costs, leave herself indebted to another. “Oh, um - “
“I insist.”
But then again, her mother spends most of her time unconscious on the apartment’s puke-filled couch.
32. Rarest
The rarest feeling in the world, she decides, is that of genuine belonging.
33. Describe
“What’s the world’s most impossible task?” he asks her one windy morning.
Her shoulders lift into a shrug.
“Describing a color to a blind person.”
34. Surrounds
She learns quickly that silence is one thing that he cannot tolerate for long. As a result, the space between them is often filled to the brim with random trivia facts.
She doesn’t mind. To her, it’s a welcome distraction from everything else that surrounds her.
35. Step
She takes a step towards him and stumbles.
She’s righted before she ever had the chance to fall.
36. Eyes
His gaze still speaks of steadfast loyalty.
She no longer wants to punch him.
37. Know
“Did you know that vodka is made from potatoes?”
“Nope,” she replies breezily before feeling the full impact of their words. She pauses.
The potatoes. The massive pot. The barrels.
Oh, no.
She’s off before he can utter another word.
38. Can
She can make it home before the officers arrive.
She can make it home before the officers arrive.
She must.
39. Tasteless
His mother sets a bowl of steaming tomato soup down in front of her.
Her stomach churns.
The soup is red, bright red. It’s the exact shade of the ugly red tape that had been hastily applied in a severe “X” across the front door of the apartment: the one that read: RESTRICTED AREA: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Her mother was arrested. The apartment was locked up.
All remnants of her previous life is gone.
And it took her four days to realize.
Briefly, she wonders why she has yet to be pulled aside by the school and placed in a community home. She wonders if, when her mother told the police that she was childless, her mother had been thinking of her daughter, for once, or if her mother had simply forgotten about the existence of her daughter.
Bitterly, she concludes that it was the latter.
His mother frowns at the untouched bowl. “Eat up. You’ll need your strength.”
The soup is tasteless.
40. Aimless
She aches from the sudden detachedness from her previous life. And yet, her release relieves her.
She thinks of everything. She thinks of nothing.
She doesn’t know what to do.
41. Weary
When he smiles, she’s too weary to smile back.
42. Tentatively
It’s a few days before the sky finally decides to reflect her the state of her soul.
He has kept quiet for the past few days. Their silences aren’t tense like they once were, but they haven’t been comfortable, either. She can feel his pressing curiosity, threatening to crush their delicate silence. She knows she should tell him before he asks, as he’s bound to find out either way. And yet, she can’t find the words.
“So, uh,” he says, tentatively.
His voice wavers slightly.
He’s also scared, she realizes with amazement. Of what, she doesn’t know. But she can guess.
“I didn’t realize that -” she breaks off abruptly, temporarily shocked by the sound of her voice. After a brief glance at him, she catches sight of the encouraging smile tugging at his lips. She continues. “I didn’t realize that my mother had been making vodka until you told me that bit of trivia, the one about vodka and potatoes.”
“You didn’t realize?” he asked, astonishment written all over his face. “But, wouldn’t you notice if your apartment started smelling like alcohol?”
Has she really not told him?
“It always smells like alcohol.”
43. Remembers
For the first time in years, she gets tucked into bed, complete with a kiss on her forehead.
Tears slide silently down her cheeks as she thinks of her father.
44. Signature
“Did you know,” she says, testing his signature phrase on her lips, “that one time, a crack junkie complained to the police about the cocaine he bought being of subpar quality?”
His head is back and he’s laughing, laughing, laughing.
She can’t process anything, she can’t process nothing, not when that jovial sound is cascading freely though his mouth. Her heart has stopped beating. She stops breathing. Her eyes are wide. She watches, and watches, and watches, and -
“W-well?” he asks, still wheezing and still giggling. “What h-happened t-to him?”
She’s caught completely off guard. Her heart is still in her throat. “Um. Oh. Right, er, uh - arrested. Obviously. He got arrested.”
He roars into laughter once again.
After a few seconds, she stops watching.
She joins him.
45. Intelligent
She never has the the guts to say it herself, but she’s grateful for his presence in her life. He always knows what to say, what not to say, and when to say nothing at all.
She’s glad to have met someone as intelligent as him.
46. Notice
It takes her a while, but finally, she visits her mother.
Her mother doesn’t even seem to notice her presence.
It takes her much, much longer, but eventually, she realizes that it’s okay that her mother cannot recognize her, much less pay her any attention. There are better people that can.
47. Strong
Once upon a time, she thought she was strong.
Fate has confirmed that.
48. Home
Over a bowl of ripe raspberries, in a blanket fort, they do silly, memorable things in the way that friends do. They talk of unimportant things and make unspoken promises. It takes her some time, but finally, it registers that she has inadvertently found herself a home with the boy with eyes that speak of steadfast loyalty.
She might as well make herself at home.
49. Carve
“What's your name?”
He smiles broadly. “I thought you'd never ask.”
She takes his name and carves it onto her heart.
50. Everything
The world is a broken record. History is a pattern that repeats itself.
Without chaos, everything remains.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.