LAURA
Craig leans back like he’s sunbathing. I can’t figure him out. Was he out here to make fun of me? In the last five minutes, he hasn’t said a word. I lean back against the bark, now. Three ridges poke into my back. I study the blades of grass around Craig’s tattooed hands, the colors distracting me, the design personal. It isn’t tribal marks, or letters or that nonsense that most people do; it’s art. I wonder if he designed it himself. The tattoos cover both his arms; some peek out of the collar of his t-shirt along his neck. I wonder if he is completely covered in tattoos. The thought makes me blush.
He grins. He’s aware that I’m watching him. I look away, letting my hair cover my face.
Coward.
I want to tell the stupid voice to shut up, but it’s right. I am acting like a coward.
I count to ten before pushing my hair back from my face. Craig hasn’t moved a muscle. This situation is making no sense to me. I focus on the grass once again, but my eyes flicker to him, fascinated with the art, the piercings, the sense of acceptance and confidence that he oozes like we aren’t sitting in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital. We could be anywhere. A college lawn, a state park, even just friends hanging out.
I take in his three piercings in his right ear, I can’t see the left. I think how I wouldn’t be friends with someone like him on the outside. He just spells trouble.
The glint off his eyebrow bar catches the light. When he’d spoken earlier, I had seen metal in his mouth. I refocus on his large hands again. The ink goes as far as his knuckles and trails off completely at the first joint of each finger. His fingers are spread out, making it impossible to understand the image. I want him to close his fingers together and let me see, but I don’t dare ask. I can make out some of the art on his arm. A tree with apples that aren’t actually apples when you look closely, but hanging men, with no faces. The colors are breath-taking, the image haunting, yet beautiful. A contradiction. Craig shifts and I look away.
We sit like that until Michael arrives. He looks from me to Craig and a grin spreads across his acne-scarred face. I feel disappointed as Craig gets up off the grass in one quick movement and leaves without another word to me. He pushes past Michael while calling him an idiot. Michael is watching me now, but I let my hair shield me. The way he looks at me is different; I feel uncomfortable. I count to ten before he gives up and leaves, too.
A lump forms in my throat. I never care what people think, but right now I feel like a freak. Like this place isn’t for all the broken people. Just the broken Laura’s of the world. My eyes burn with unshed tears. I don’t want to cry anymore.
“That well has long dried up.” Tears fall easily now as I remember the words of my sister. Her large, smiling mouth would have been perfect for a toothpaste commercial. She was the girl next door, only now her eyes shine with tears she holds back fiercely. “One day, I will have my justice,” She swore it to me that day, as she sat cross legged on her bed, and I foolishly believed her. Believed that justice would be served. Believed that there was a system of good and evil, where revenge was sweet.
I swipe angrily at the falling tears. This world breeds monsters in the form of men. There was no justice, or revenge, or higher power that was going to intervene. The only thing you could do was walk away and leave everything you knew and loved behind. Surviving was moving.
With that thought, I get up, wipe grass off my trousers, and count as I make my way back inside. I shiver, pulling the sleeves of my black sweater down over my hands.