A Dandelion in Their Lives

All she sees are the reeds whispering soft, sweet, crooning, kind words while her parents shout loud, bad-mouth, I TOLD YOU THIS AND I TOLD YOU THAT. Harsh, chemical, acid burning hate they propel at each other each day while she lays in the soft grass. Their words are melting the sugar off the bare, candy-cane box-cut home.
“Cuz we’re poor, baby, we’re filthy poor, and you and your new shoes ain’t helpin’.”
Money. It always comes back to money. Julia hasn’t got a gold pot or a rainbow, but she wants one so she can dump it all over her parents, dump it on herself and be content.
She’s a dandelion in their lives. Make a wish and she’ll fly off to fulfill it, but try as she might, there’s no money that her young self can find.
No peace for the searcher.
She’s tired.
Drifting.
A shout shatters her brief pin-thin calm into a million pieces, and when it reknits, the edges are jagged, cutting, more fragile than before but stuck inside her, clawing blood out and pushing themselves in, clear-cut wisdom straight to the heart. It hurts. It’s rooted in her beating artery.
I’m growing up, leaving. I’ll never be poor again.
~
Julia Douglass stands at the pier with a friend, Caroline Conway. Caroline, with flyaway autumn hair and parchment pale skin. Caroline, with sweet words and a kind soul.
Caroline’s explaining to her how there’s this guy, and he’s really sweet but super lonely because he’s lived out in the country for a while. He’s homeschooled, doesn’t know anybody, and nobody really wants to know him.
Julia’s only listening for one word.
“And, he’s pretty rich, only son of two business people, and-”
Rich.
She’s been nursing that wound for a long time, letting it grow and grow until every sunset repre...

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...g sound to add to her sway, but she’s pierced by something, stumbling forward and falling to the soft, soggy earth.
Some wretched smell fills the air. Julia isn’t looking but she can hear him vomiting non-stop into the metal garbage cans, hear him drop completely to the ground by her side. He’s staring at her in concern and she’s staring at him. A tender moment.
Suddenly his eyes turn, refocus and he’s on his feet, staggering back, clutching brick, running away to leave her with glass reeds and metal tree trunks and the soft earth.
Triumphant.
She’s whimpering now, feeling the bullet and its bloody cut path. Her mewling howl is unnoticed, uncherished among the singing reeds. Shaking hands pull out from under her like molasses and her hands, they’re holding blood which glows magenta in the punk glowstick light.
Still triumphant.
She’s lying to herself.