Eleven Years Earlier

Her house only had the one window, a small little thing that could barely hold the serene picture of her front yard. It was pristine, shining brilliantly beneath the rays of a searing mid afternoon sun from vigorous scrubbing and wiping performed by her mama as if it were an Olympic sport. When she inhaled, she swore she could still feel the acrid burn of window cleaner sting her nose.

She wasn't supposed to touch it. Never, she knew she was never allowed to smudge the window with her greasy fingerprints but she simply couldn't help herself. Sometimes when the sky was a vivid cerulean and the sun was just the warmest shade of a sweet, lemon yellow, she had to press her face against the glass and let the warmth seep into her skin as she stared and stared.

Today was one of those days. If she strained her ears enough, she could just catch the chirping of lively birds and the rhythmic hum of harmonizing cicadas.

And she wanted it. She longed to dance with emerald blades of grass in gentle winds and feel leaves crunch beneath her feet as she spun around and played.

Her eyes caught on some kids running down the road and kicking a soccer ball between them, a group of five or six around her ripe old age of five. They were smiling and she could tell they were most certainly laughing and wondered if the sound traveled in the breeze and warmed it so it tickled those it brushed into even brighter laughter.

She watched as a girl with long hair that shone like honey tripped over the ball and skinned her knee, big fat crocodile tears running down her face as she wailed and wailed. There was a boy there that reminded her of an angel with his waves of hair glinting the purest gold and a gentle smile as he kneeled beside her and wiped away the girl's blood with the hem of his sky blue shirt.

The girl ceased her crying when the boy offered a hand and helped her up, a dopey smile on her face that she recognized as adoration. She saw that look, sometimes, when her mother stared at the man that often visited just a little too long.

She knew she shouldn't. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that her mama would be absolutely furious and that it most probably wouldn't be worth it in the end, but she raced into the bathroom, plucked a bandage from the first aid kit her mother kept there, and then-

She stood in front of the door.

She knew better. She knew better but the mere thought of sunshine seeping into her skin and actually hearing the laughter of other children were far too tempting an opportunity to pass up. Mama was otherwise occupied, for once not breathing down her neck with her own fearful oppression.

Her pale hand shook as she reached for the door knob, rusty from disuse. It was one of the only things mama didn't bother to clean obsessively. After all, the only one allowed to come and go was the man, with his serpentine smile and long looks that felt like glares.

She swallowed down her fear, pushed away her trepidation and stomped on it, crushing it to broken smithereens. This was not her fear. The outside was not her terror. It was her mama's.

And the little girl did not wish to be like her mama.

She slowly twisted the handle, terrified to make any noise. Her heart was pounding out of her chest, it's erratic beats rivaling those of a hummingbird's delicate wings. The little girl drew a deep breath in, staring at the scuff marks decorating the bottom of the door with a mixture of wild trepidation and enraptured fascination. This block of insubstantial wood, this barrier between her and the sun shining behind the clouds, was a prison that she allowed herself to be the one and only unwilling inmate of.

And even then, she'd been stubborn. And the little girl, she refused to acquiesce to such an existence, would no longer surrender and continue to be a prisoner.

And then she pushed open the door.

It didn't make a sound, creaking open silently even though she could have swore she'd hear a sharp squeak anytime the man left the house. As if it wanted to give her the gift of escape.

And so she whipped out of the house as quickly as humanly possible, clicking it shut behind her, and skipped down the pebbled drive with a reckless abandon the likes of which she'd never known. She felt a breeze kiss her skin and she laughed, she laughed so loud and so hard that her throat burned and her sides ached. But she could hardly feel it because the little girl thought it preposterous that pain could exist in such a world brimming with beauty.

The girl gave a little twirl, the spin throwing her balance off kilter and leading her to trip over her own two feet. Her knees knocked against the rocks that lined the driveway and she watched as blood welled to the surface of her skin and dripped in thick drops to puddle between the rocks on the ground. Staring at them, the little girl liked to imagine that the little drops were rubies among the chalky pebbles and rocks, shining brightly and hopeful, something beautiful that she had created.

She smiled and smiled until her cheeks ached and glanced at the bandages that were still clutched in her sweaty palms. Blood still tricked down the curves of her skinned knees and in rivulets to her calves but then she saw the tears glimmering on the girl's faces after she fell seared into her mind and kept skipping, galloping, running, even hoping up and down because when the rocks gave way to grass it felt so soft and lovely beneath her feet that she could hardly contain herself.

It felt like only a second had passed before she reached the group, the girl again sprawled out on the ground with tears drying on her pretty face and the boy inspecting her cut with a frown. The little girl noticed that their knees matched and she smiled bigger still.

She wasn't nervous when approaching them even though she'd just a few minutes before been frightened of a door. Because she was a kid after all, young enough that she didn't have a care in the world about her ill fitting clothes and whether or not the other kids would like her. Because she already knew she liked them and wanted them to laugh with her. And so they would. She'd already decided.

She thrust the bandages in the eye-line of the boy with the golden hair, that potent gaze of his shifting from the bandaids to the little girl's face and back again. When she caught the beginnings of that beaming smile she'd seen all the way from her tiny little window, she felt her own mirror his, the euphoria of human interaction and the sweet rays of the sun enveloping her skin like pure magic.

The little girl took a moment to wonder why mama loathed the outside so much. How was there hate to find in the bright blue of the sky, in the fluffy tendrils of cotton candy clouds, in the ticklish blades of smooth green grass, in the buttery disk of the sun whose every moment of shining above felt like a warm hug down below? Why would mama keep her locked away behind a window where she could only look, could only wonder and desire? For a moment, just a moment, the girl felt like frowning, maybe even crying, but then she glanced back at the boy's smiling face and couldn't remember what it was she'd been so sorrowful about.

Suddenly, the bandaids were ripped from her hands and the little girl directed her gaze to the once tearful girl, now glaring with clear frustration that the little girl didn't understand. Before she could breathe a word, before she had the opportunity to hear what the boy's laughter sounded like up close wrapping around her ears, the little girl caught the sound of feet crunching over gravel and she knew.

She knew without even looking up that mama had found her.

She had a brief moment where she imagined. Imagining was her favorite game, her only game really, and so she decided to play it right then. She imagined that mama would smile at her, expression full of love, one littered with the complete and utter devotion she'd seen in the ones the man had received, and they would lay down in the grass together and open up their arms so the sun could hug them. They could listen to the laughter together and the singing of the birds; the little girl would smother mama with her thankfulness as mama cleaned out her scuffed knees and carefully applied bandages to stop the bleeding.

But the little girl knew the difference between imagination and reality. She knew she could live in the imagined but that would mean she'd live there all alone. But if she existed in reality then she would suffer through it with others. Maybe, she thought, there wasn't anything wrong with being alone.

That was all she wished for when mama snatched ahold of her arm, hysterical with a chilling wrath that made the little girl flinch away so violently that she pitched forward until mama yanked her up again. Mama was dragging her away so quickly that her feet were barely moving beneath her, were sliding along the ground as she cast one last look over her shoulder to see the boy.

Except he wasn't smiling anymore. There was a frown on his face, his eyes so sad that suddenly the little girl had the urge to sob and throw her arms around him. Mama's hands were so cold clamped around her wrist and his smile had been so warm that she knew in her bones that his hug would be warmer than the ones even the sun could give.

She turned back around because she couldn't bear it. The little girl wasn't able to carry the burden of the sadness she'd caused him, of that cheerful smile she'd wiped off his face. She wasn't able to feel the weight of the girl's anger crushing against her chest because it was too much. Too much to hope and wish they'd play imagine with her, let her hear their laughter, share their smiles.

She closed her eyes the whole walk home. She didn't want to see the world she'd never be a part of. The little girl almost wished she'd never let herself experience the beauty of it at all.

Because then she'd never know what she was missing.

Mama pushed her inside, slamming the door shut behind her and whirling around so quickly that the little girl had no time to brace herself before the first slap left a stinging on her cheek. The little girl didn't move a muscle, didn't even flinch like she had outside. Outside, wrapped around and around in the warmth of the boy's smile, she had felt so safe that she couldn't imagine something like violence existed.

But chained in here she remembered.

"How dare you, how dare you, how dare you!" Mama wailed over and over and over again until the little girl covered her ears and felt the sting of slap after slap sear across her skin.

"My angel, my sweet little fallen angel, how could you leave me like that? I love you with every ounce of my sanity, protect you with every pound of strength I have! Why, why would you leave me? Don't you know? Don't you understand? How can you not see it, how can you not feel the shadows sidling up next to you and slithering against your skin? They're waiting for you and they're waiting for you! They're coming and all that will be left is bones and blood, bones and blood, bones and-" Mama shrieked and shrieked, she wouldn't stop, wouldn't breathe, pulling at the silky strands of her hair until clumps of it fell at her feet.

And the little girl, with her cheeks still flushed with the harsh sting of her mama's touch, she threw her arms around her mama's waist and held her with everything that she had. She knew, she'd seen it before, understood that the only way to calm her down when she got like this was to hold her until she collapsed and slept for it off for days that seemed yawningly empty and endless.

"You're gonna die, little angel. They're gonna kill you, fallen little angel of mine," Mama whispered.

And still, the little girl held her. She held her until the tremors stopped and the muttering ceased. She held her as mama's breathing slowed and her hands quit clawing at her own skin, leaving thick red welts behind. And all the while she looked out the window at a world that she knew would never be hers and ignored the outlines of the boy helping the girl that was lovely and worthy and free walk away with their backs facing the window.