Lisa
Chapter 1
Lisa always hated family
gatherings. Perhaps it was the way that every human in the room
pretended to know you and your undying past. Or it had to do with
the fact that Lisa was one of those subtle teenagers that left
her gum on her keyboard and held her place in a book with
anything she could find next to her. The simplicity of her life
always seemed to be disrupted as she sat around loud aunts and
uncles that pinched children’s cheeks and asked Lisa what
she wanted to do with her life. Being a sixteen year old with
barely much thought into the future it was hard for her to answer
them. Something with books is what she’s always thought,
but who knows.
“An editor.” Lisa would always
answer and they’d make that annoying “oh” face,
like her plan wasn’t really interesting to them but they
pretended it was. Most of the time, especially around Christmas,
Lisa felt like a speck of the dust on her great
grandmother’s photo that just stood in the corner.
Sometimes she’d sit next to the photo and smile at it as if
her gram was still there, telling Lisa stories of how her and her
great grandfather met.
“He was tall, and so handsome.”
She’d say with a school girl grin on her face.
“He returned after the war, and I couldn’t
let him go to waste, so I snatched him
up.” She made a grabbing motion with her
hands as she said "snatched" that made Lisa giggle. Her
gram seemed so at ease and peaceful as she rocked back in forth,
a silver threaded afghan across her frail legs. Lisa and her
grandmother were both very much alike. They both hated family
outings and receiving gifts. During Christmas gram would always
tell her to help her up the stairs before gift time came around.
“I don’t need to hear the screaming kids.
Plus we can go play solitaire on my card table up
there.”
Those memories was something Lisa kept close to her heart. After
gram died the rest of her family seemed to be like a herd of
obnoxious penguins that Lisa could never really step around.
Thank god Jack was usually with her to save her from the madness.
But the tall blue eyed boy was nowhere to be found. She pulled
out her phone with a sigh and texted:
Hey, I know you’re too cool for family gatherings now,
according to Zack, but this sort of sucks without you
here.
unknown
Chapter 3
I brought the cup to my lips and let the warm liquid pour down my
throat. It was sweet
and it brought back a memory of which I've never had before;
it was cold. What seemed
to be white puffs filled the sky as I spun in what was an inch
deep of it. Smiling. I was happy
and someone called to me, had they known me? Another flash of a
face, not like the
face of the male I would always see, but it was a women. She was
young and her
prescience lit up the room once I stepped inside the sliding
wooden
door, "içmək" Drink.
She said pointing to a silver can, the aroma filled my nose and
made my taste buds water.
I took a sip and then- nothing. The memory ended, with a sigh I
opened my eyes to see Ella
sitting in front of my with a smile on her face, it was
contagious because I couldn't help
but smile back. Looking at her she began to try and translate
with her hands again. She
spoke out loud as she made the movements with her hands,
"What is your name?" Pointing
to me she then struggled to comply with the rest of the phrase
which caused her to show
anxiety in her features. "They call me
Ella." Hearing the word Ella sparked the thought,
Was
she asking what they called me? Like how they call the man Jeremy
and her Ella? A smile
spread across my face as I understood what the women had
said.
"Flora." I said with an accent
that was different from Ella's when she said it. For some
reason
in her language it sounded better. Prettier in fact, like a
flower which made her grin larger, as did
Ella's. Suddenly I heard someone approach, someone behind me,
which made me startled as
my head swung around to see who had entered the room. It was not
Jeremy this time, but another
man, he looked at me for a moment and my eyes widened. The face.
It was him, the boy from my
dreams, the boy who I was supposed to know. But how? The hair the
eyes, everything was the same,
but something was missing. He stared at me like an intruder, like
I had done something horribly
wrong. Whereas the boy from my dream smiled to me and invited me
to speak with him. In the
dream he spoke the same language as me but now it was foreign,
just like the others.
"Who the hell is this mom?" He
said angrily towards Ella which made me flinch away from the
hard tone in his voice. He just stared at his mother for a
response; he frightened me, would he hurt Ella?
Should I protect her? But as soon as the thought had come to my
head Ella touched my arm gently
to sooth me. She could tell I had been affected negatively by the
boy, looking at me she just smiled
assuring me that nothing was wrong unlike the thoughts that were
in my head. Directing her gaze
back at the boy she gave him a stern look and shook her head.
"Now Peter that is no way to treat a guest that has
been invited here. You've scared her and its wrong of
you to swear." Peter, I guess that’s
what they call him, just rolled his eyes and stomped
off his boots leaving muddy marks as he did so. I watched after
him intently, had I upset him? The
boy from my dream, was it just a dream? But how could I have seen
his exact features without
knowing him first? Looking back at Ella she could see the
confusion on my face and stood up,
"Come now Flora. I'll show you to your
room." Walking over to me she just smiled
taking my hand,
though I had no idea where we were going or what she had just
said I felt at peace. Like I could
trust someone without second guessing myself.