Read Online September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series by A.R. Rivera - Free Book Online
Authors: A.R. Rivera
Ads: Link
understand how I got
from that reasonably happy girl to waiting to die. I mean, I know
how it unfolded, I just don’t understand how it could happen to me.
And I’m stuck in it.
This situation leaves me nothing to
smile about. I used to think of my nomadic life as a curse, but I
would give anything to go back and live there again. To just pick
up and go like I used to. If one of my foster parents said I
couldn’t do something, I would just wait until they went to sleep,
or went off to work. Then I would cut and run: do whatever the hell
I wanted for as long as I wanted to. Then it was wasting time in
juvenile hall—which was like a freaking vacation compared to some
of the places I stayed in—or doing time in a shitty group home
until they placed me with another foster family. I was disposable,
but so were they. That was my way of dealing: at any moment if
things got too heavy, I could always walk away. Life got heavy a
lot back then.
Then, I met Jake. He changed the way I
thought about my life and the choices I was making. The way I
looked at myself. He saw something in me. He valued me, I know he
did. It seeped into every word he said and flowed from his eyes
like a great, winding stream. His care was steady and I grew to
need it like my next breath.
I am rotting in this place,
decomposing on this thin cotton bunk with its one scratchy blanket
and concrete walls—it makes me wish for the one thing I thought I
never would. That I had never seen him, never talked to him or
heard his voice singing my name. I almost wish I never felt the
love he gave and took away. Because being here, knowing all of that
is gone is the worst kind of punishment. Being trapped in this
place makes even the best, sweetest moments sting with bitter
loss.
+++
My freshmen year in high
school, I learned to speak French in two weeks by reading a
French-to-English dictionary that the teacher handed out and forgot
it a month later. I took a semester of Spanish and quit because it
was too remedial; my brain absorbed everything in the text book
before we had our first major test. I’ve retained that easier than
the French, but still forgot most of it. I was like that with
algebra, too. When I looked at the problems, I knew the answers,
but struggled for that A because I didn’t know how I knew the answers and
couldn’t show my work on paper. Most times I can look at a puzzle
and know how the pieces fit together without having touched a
piece. Fat lot of good that’s done me.
All of that stuff that never mattered,
I could perform easily. I can still memorize nearly anything on a
page, written words and visual aids, too, but most times, that
ability doesn’t apply to names. And sometimes I blank-out on entire
conversations. So many times I have been talking with a person,
trying to open-up and let them in on my idiosyncrasies, only to
have them tell me they already know. I told them just yesterday or
a half hour ago, don’t I remember?
Now, I spend most of my days feeling
like a dumbass trapped in a fog.
But according to my medical records, I
was always an extraordinarily intelligent child, speaking in full
sentences by age two. I was reading chapter books by age three. I
skipped preschool and kindergarten, hopping straight into second
grade.
Then, the accident that did far more
than fracture my skull. It took time to heal. By the time I was
well enough to return to school, I was the same age as everyone
else in my class. And ever since, for as long as I can remember,
I’ve struggled with recall. How’s that for irony?
Yet, here I am, six years after the
most traumatic night of my life, wishing for the strength to
forget, dying to remember, and being asked to give every filthy
detail.
The assholes in overcoats: my lawyer,
the lady with the tight hair bun, and the quiet man with the sodas,
seem especially interested in the most painful parts.
As much as I love revisiting the time
I spent inside Jakes world, I know that telling these
from that reasonably happy girl to waiting to die. I mean, I know
how it unfolded, I just don’t understand how it could happen to me.
And I’m stuck in it.
This situation leaves me nothing to
smile about. I used to think of my nomadic life as a curse, but I
would give anything to go back and live there again. To just pick
up and go like I used to. If one of my foster parents said I
couldn’t do something, I would just wait until they went to sleep,
or went off to work. Then I would cut and run: do whatever the hell
I wanted for as long as I wanted to. Then it was wasting time in
juvenile hall—which was like a freaking vacation compared to some
of the places I stayed in—or doing time in a shitty group home
until they placed me with another foster family. I was disposable,
but so were they. That was my way of dealing: at any moment if
things got too heavy, I could always walk away. Life got heavy a
lot back then.
Then, I met Jake. He changed the way I
thought about my life and the choices I was making. The way I
looked at myself. He saw something in me. He valued me, I know he
did. It seeped into every word he said and flowed from his eyes
like a great, winding stream. His care was steady and I grew to
need it like my next breath.
I am rotting in this place,
decomposing on this thin cotton bunk with its one scratchy blanket
and concrete walls—it makes me wish for the one thing I thought I
never would. That I had never seen him, never talked to him or
heard his voice singing my name. I almost wish I never felt the
love he gave and took away. Because being here, knowing all of that
is gone is the worst kind of punishment. Being trapped in this
place makes even the best, sweetest moments sting with bitter
loss.
+++
My freshmen year in high
school, I learned to speak French in two weeks by reading a
French-to-English dictionary that the teacher handed out and forgot
it a month later. I took a semester of Spanish and quit because it
was too remedial; my brain absorbed everything in the text book
before we had our first major test. I’ve retained that easier than
the French, but still forgot most of it. I was like that with
algebra, too. When I looked at the problems, I knew the answers,
but struggled for that A because I didn’t know how I knew the answers and
couldn’t show my work on paper. Most times I can look at a puzzle
and know how the pieces fit together without having touched a
piece. Fat lot of good that’s done me.
All of that stuff that never mattered,
I could perform easily. I can still memorize nearly anything on a
page, written words and visual aids, too, but most times, that
ability doesn’t apply to names. And sometimes I blank-out on entire
conversations. So many times I have been talking with a person,
trying to open-up and let them in on my idiosyncrasies, only to
have them tell me they already know. I told them just yesterday or
a half hour ago, don’t I remember?
Now, I spend most of my days feeling
like a dumbass trapped in a fog.
But according to my medical records, I
was always an extraordinarily intelligent child, speaking in full
sentences by age two. I was reading chapter books by age three. I
skipped preschool and kindergarten, hopping straight into second
grade.
Then, the accident that did far more
than fracture my skull. It took time to heal. By the time I was
well enough to return to school, I was the same age as everyone
else in my class. And ever since, for as long as I can remember,
I’ve struggled with recall. How’s that for irony?
Yet, here I am, six years after the
most traumatic night of my life, wishing for the strength to
forget, dying to remember, and being asked to give every filthy
detail.
The assholes in overcoats: my lawyer,
the lady with the tight hair bun, and the quiet man with the sodas,
seem especially interested in the most painful parts.
As much as I love revisiting the time
I spent inside Jakes world, I know that telling these
Similar Books
