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Elias was the first to find me, wandering around the town. Barefoot and shivering, everyone passed me by but he didn't. He took my hand and led me to May. She said I could stay with her along with a handful of other girls.
But within each flavor of us there is baggage, everyone with their backstories, everyone with their scars. Some are shared aloud, others stay secret. Whether it's shame or privacy that makes those secrets secret we all have them.
We aren't a family no matter how many times May claims how close to one another we are so might as well label it, we aren't. Some of those girls need someone to tell them they have a family but there is a reality to it. A reality that has been taken from our hands and thrown away into the sea. Forgotten and disregarded, it crashes against the rocks and back into its body, then gone. All gone.
"You shouldn't always be at that cliff you know," May says, flipping past pages in her book then looking up at me.
May is the oldest of us, she got here when she was 19. She lived in this house for years. She sees herself responsible for us, maybe like a mother, always making sure we're okay. Like how her and her pity decided to fill this empty room just now. Reading, she gives me space and attempts to comfort me with her company but all I truly want is to be alone. Her intentions are considerate but my eyes feel too heavy to hold a conversation.
Sat across the corner of the three bedded room, she stared concernedly. Her eyes, as pure and honest as the heart they reflect, she continued.
"You always look out of it when you come back from that cliff. It doesn't seem to make you any happier. Why don't you change scenery?"
I met her eyes, then stared back out the window shrugging. I don't care enough to answer. Setting her worn out book down on the thin blankets, she sighs. "You might find something out there, seeing you like this, it bums us out too." I look back at her.
The unrideable smell of charred wood pulls me deeper in a thought that drowns. I want to tell her why my heart is sore, I want to tell her how I got here. But before I could open my mouth Charlie comes bursting in. She must've sniffed May out from miles away since that's all she seems to be good at.
"What were you guys talking about?" She asks, shooting me death glares. Eyes as plain as dirt, like mine. Except hers, hold something more than I could ever compare. A heat that waves in and out of control no matter what her face is doing.
Charlie is a jealous person. She sticks with May wherever she goes, like a dog with its owner she gets defensive, as if May belonged to her. It doesn't seem that unusual she would follow her since she is the second oldest and are close in age but what is unusual is that May can tolerate her and still have a smile on her face. A true saint.
May stands picking up her book from the bed, "Nothing, we were just talking about the book I was reading."
"Oh, okay…" Charlie replies all skeptic but then goes on to chatter away.
May smiles then turns to walk out with Charlie. With a graceful swoop of her long blazing, red main she walks off.