Azura

The car ride home was quiet for the most part, except for the occasional mumbling coming from Max. I could tell he didn’t get his way during his conversation with Mr. Giant, from the bursts of annoyance when he muttered ‘bastard’ a bit louder than everything else.

Max has a habit of dominating the situation; he likes to be in complete charge of every little aspect in a situation. Which makes him a great soldier, but a bit of an overbearing brother. But, I know he just wants me safe and happy, so I can deal with his oversized ego.

“Hey, you want something to eat?” Max grumbles.

I smiled at him and nodded, signing I wanted some fast food. With that we turn into the parking lot for the McDonald’s drive thru. Max ordered me a fish fillet meal, and he got a McChicken meal.

When we got into the driveway, my mother, in all her 5’4” glory, was waiting anxiously. She was pacing back and forth across the driveway and biting her nails, when she saw us I could physically see how much stress and anxiety was released from her shoulders.

We get out of the car and she immediately runs up to me, examining my body for any signs of injury.

“Are you alright, honey? Do you need a CT scan? How about an acetaminophen?” As always she is a worrywort mother who just happens to be a doctor and uses very big medicine-y words when there are shorter, more commonly known ways to identify a medication.

I smile at her and sign that I am fine and just wanted to rest after eating. She gives me a small smile but anyone looking at her can tell her worries had not vanished.

I sit down at the kitchen island and Max comes and sits next to me.

I can tell he’s upset because he hasn't spoken to a single word since we got our food.

I tapped his shoulder to grab his attention and signed to him, “Why are you upset?”

“I want you to be safe. Personally, I don’t think this school is capable of doing that and as your brother, as your guardian, I only want you to be good. You know?” he signs back.

I smile at him and get up to give him a hug, which he accepts and stuff his face in my neck.

I’ve learned really early in life, that Max’s demeanor is the complete opposite of his actions. He looks deadly, like if you looked at him you'd die; when he’s here accepting a hug from me, a 5’ 1” girl, he seems like an oversized teddy bear.

I, 100 percent, understand where he is coming from, and I am well aware of the blatant animosity I get from everyone so I get why he deems the school “unsafe”, but I still want to experience life as an average teenager. I don’t want to be the loner new girl that everyone hates and she is oblivious as to why. I want to be the average teenager that has one or two friends to each lunch with and maybe hang out with after school sometimes.

Ya’ know?

After I finished my food, I headed towards the stairs and saw my mom coming down. She still looks worried.

“Are you sure you don’t need an CT?” My mother signs.

I chuckle silently, “No mom, I’m perfectly fine, I just need some rest.”

“But what if you have a concussion? Sleeping will only make that worse!”

“I don’t have a concussion, mom. I promise you I’m fine.”

She sighs in defeat, “Fine then. Have a good rest okay? Let me know if you need anything.

When I’m in my room, I look around. Nothing much has changed in the past few years. Same plain white walls, with various sized paintings of the same thing, over and over again, same bed I’ve had since I was twelve, a chipped bookcase full of all my treasured escapes out of this world. After the accident, I apparently became very closed off compared to how I was before I turned eight. I don’t really remember much of anything from that night except for the color red. I found out after I came home from being in a hospital for almost two months, that I sleepwalk. Each night within the first week, I somehow put my life in various life-threatening situations. One night, when I was ten, I apparently had gotten out of bed and walked all throughout the house, then woke each person in my family up, individually, I then walked out the front door, into the street as a car was speeding down the road, and almost got run over.

Not too long after the third incident, I began to sleepwalk less and get horrendous nightmares that deprived me of sleep, nightmares that filled me with so much fear that I’d be unable to eat and would isolate myself in my room for days at a time. Then again, just as the sleepwalking, the nightmares became less, less scary, less influential, and less dominating, because I got used to them, seeing as the nightmares were of the same moment as if frozen in time. A large wolf, with fur as black as night, and eyes as red as rubies.

Every time I have a nightmare, my body blacks out, and my actions are not my own anymore. When I regain my senses, a painting of a wolf with gleaming, bloodied eyes is staring back at me, as if I’d never left my nightmares. They began by haunting my dreams and then they began to haunt my reality.

Though, now that I’m sixteen and have been living with the sleepwalking, the nightmares, and the compulsive painting, I can say I’m a bit of an expert on being imperfect.

From birth I had been imperfect. I was the unknown baby, who hid behind her twin for the duration of her mother’s pregnancy so well that she nor the doctors ever knew that I was even created. I also grew up without a father, but Max was more than exceptional at taking the role of ‘man of the house’, when mom had to work late hours.

He fed my older brother and I, he bathed us, read us stories to fall asleep to at night, stayed by my bedside throughout the night when I was sick, even opted against going to college to make money to support us with his own will.

I learned from a young age to do more domestic work, such as cooking and cleaning to help my mother who worked most hours of the day, and Max, who was practically our father, have more time to relax themselves. But also because, after my accident, I became unable to hold down any sort of meat, such as chicken or beef, so I became vegetarian. I had to learn how to make meals that I would be able to eat, be satisfied, and hold down, so I learned to cook and turns out I’m pretty skilled.

But as I may be skilled in cooking, I can’t say the same for social gatherings. Having a social life and being mute, don’t help each other at all. Even though I can’t remember everything about my accident, I do remember how I felt, what I saw,though foggy, and what I smelled. My choice to become mute is due to my accident. I saw things that defy so many laws of physics, biology, science,and reality, that I don’t know what is real anymore. Even though I’m confused, I decide against speaking about it because I know that behind a large 500 ton lead door, with an unimaginable tangle of chains with countless padlocks randomly arranged in the chains, there is something that I protect myself from. I blocked something away a long time ago, and never knew what it was, infact, till this day, I still haven’t got a clue as to what is missing from my memories, I never got any of my memories back from before I turned eight.

I feel that me losing my memories was more painful for my family than for me, because they had to learn how to work around the fact that I couldn’t remember who they were. In the hospital, I had no idea what had happened to me, no clue as to how I got to the hospital, I didn’t even know who I was. I didn’t know my name or age, where I lived, my mom or my brothers, none of it I could remember, the only thing I knew was that I couldn’t hear. I knew I was scared, I mean, who wouldn’t be? You wake up in an unknown place, without having any memories as to how you got there, you’re surrounded by people you don’t know, and then told that those people you don’t know are actually your family members. That would make even a grown man’s head spin.

I lay down on my bed and think about how much different my life would be if I chose to speak, or if the accident never happened, or even if my memories never went missing. Would I have come to be the person, the Azura Sparrows I am today? Would I have more friends to hangout with? Would my family be less worried about me all the time? These questions continue to crash into my head, flooding it with anxiety.

Before I had a panic attack, I stopped thinking about an alternate path I could've taken and started to think about what I was going to do about school.

I have options, could go back tomorrow and act like nothing happened and continue with the goal of graduating in June in mind. I could go back tomorrow, continue and hand in notification that I’d like to graduate in January, or I can graduate now, and never worry or stress about the hate I receive in school.

But you made a promise to Mr. Giant, that you’d be back tomorrow. I thought to myself.

It’s true, I did make a promise. I stop for a minute, and think, why did I make that promise, I don’t even know Mr. Giants name.

Whatever, enough about today, today is over and I'm tired. I’ll make my decision of baring forward or retreating tomorrow morning.

I shut my eyes, hopefully tonight will be without painting another wolf, I thought to myself before I drifted to sleep.