dance in the rain // clover - blitz

[willow .]

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[/size]The day crawles on so slowly and I can barely keep my head up, the force of gravity tempting me to fell straight to the ground land in a heap as my eyes would close. I have to resist it though as I continue to walk back to the house, a piece of wood between my hands and a determined look crossing my broad face.

The wood is giving me splinters up and down, causing my fingers to spill with red liquid, and yet I continued to carry it, acting as though nothing is wrong at all. Even so, it stings just the slightest bit and as I watch Milla approach in the distance I can't help but to feel absolute relief at my luck, maybe she can carry it for me, the little scrawny girl that she is. No, she would never make it back to the house carrying that, she would surely fall and die from the weight, with her spindly arms that can hardly support her.

As I walk closer to her, I could see that her eyes are searching a page of a book, going from one side to the other is such rapid movement it hardly was able to register in my brain. "Hey there," I look up at her, setting the wood down for a second as I stretch my back.

"How are you today Mill?" I ask.

credit to zoe for template

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[clover ❁]

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milla partridge[/i][/color][/size]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left: 30px solid eeeeee; border-right: 30px solid eeeeee; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 390px;] Day Two Thousand Five Hundred and Eighty Three 5:45pm - I sit with my back against the hard wall and make meticulous notes on my surroundings. They are not dissimilar to 5:45pm on any other day, but I have already counted to twelve twelve times, turning twelve times and tapping twelve times against the counter. Twelve deep breaths, twelve steps and I found myself here. So I sit. Five birds on the lawn, four of them black and one gray. A scattering of birdseed on the grass - I'll have to check later who scattered it there, and calculate how many days will pass until we will need to replace the box. (We've had this box for 21 days, and the last one lasted only 19, so we are feeding the poor creatures at a declining rate.) It's rained overnight. (Page 45 says I did not predict this. It was supposed to be clear, and it isn't. It's cold, too.) I notice Bronwyn stumbling toward me, her strong frame supporting six pieces of wood. Carefully, I sketch this. It's important. Probably. She gains on me - it's another thirteen paces before she reaches my side. Thirteen irritates me. It's twelve and then another, it's right and correct and then so suddenly wrong. A wholly dislikable number. "Hey there," she says. As she speaks, I scrawl hurriedly, in case she speaks too quickly and I miss a word. "How are you today, Mill?" I am glad for her short sentences. It's those like Fiona and Enoch I dislike, with their rambling, endless sentences that go too quickly and make too little sense. Bronywn is blunt and to the point, making use of her limited space upon my paper. I nod at her and smile. Thankful. "I'm on schedule," I say, by means of answer, and then I notice that she's bleeding. "You're bleeding." Perhaps this is what Emma means when she says I am not helpful. (I like to think I am truthful, at least. Not wrong, not I.) template by chelsey

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[willow .]

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[/size]I take in the little girls face, small and delicate and similar to that of a butterfly. Her little beady eyes and the way that she holds the pencil between her spindly fingers, Milla must surely be one of my favorite siblings. I also cannot help to love her hair, the way that it curls so gently around her butterfly face.

"I am?" I ask, looking down at the smaller girl whist she points out that I am bleeding, probably from little nicks in the wood, it's no big deal but I still check anyways. For her. "I see," I squint down at my arm, a sudden headache coming on looking at the crimson as it drips down my arm, as it flows freely to the ground. It honestly makes me sick to see it.

"Hey Milla, you you take some of these so I can go bandage up," I flash her a small smile though it know that it is useless, anyone hardly sees emotion in my face, even when I really try to show it. Sometimes I Believe that it all is pointless, that no one cares. But I know that Milla does, my little sister with her beautiful hair and small ears. I love her.

credit to zoe for template

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[clover ❁]

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milla partridge[/i][/color][/size]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left: 30px solid eeeeee; border-right: 30px solid eeeeee; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 390px;] Log, continued. Bronwyn looks surprised as I point out the blood dripping from her fingers. Scarlet droplets fall into the grass approximately four metres from the west wall of the house. Blood has never irritated me in the way it does for others - Lena will go faint at it's sight and back away hurriedly, as if she is afraid it will contaminate her. (I don't like the thought of the germs, but the heavy crimson itself doesn't bother me.) She asks me to take the wood from her and I frown, because I'm not entirely sure how I'll balance that load on top of my notebook and pen while still keeping tabs on how many birds are nesting in the trees and how many petals are left on the roses. I ponder if perhaps she think I'm a little more capable than I am. "I..." I say, trailing off immediately. (I should think more about what I am about to say before I let sound leave my lips, I decide.) This prompt choice leaves me silent and staring for a very long moment. A memory of Emma mentioning 'awkward' flashes in my mind, and I think perhaps this might be the kind of thing she meant. Inside my head, I shrug, not caring. "Do you think you could leave them on the ground, there?" I say, pointing to a place a little while off, away from the trail of ants I know treks through this very area. I smile apologetically, hoping she'll understand that I am incredibly busy recording the events of the day - and that of course as we converse my pen is moving quickly, trying to capture everything that is happening. A heavy gust of wind rushes around us, making it seem sufficiently colder than the temperature I recorded just minutes ago. On second thoughts, I produce a bandage from my pocket - it wouldn't do to walk about unprepared - and hold it out to the girl who also inhabits the orphanage. (She calls me her sister, and I allow it, but technically none of the DNA we possess is shared. I am not sure if she knows this.) Making a reasonably effort to look caring and concerned about the splinters in her hand, I lick my lips. Last week, on Thursday at 7:42pm, I suffered a paper cut which produced similar wounds. On a scale of one to ten, it was around a four, which is considerable for such a tiny slit of the skin. I do sympathize with Bronwyn. template by chelsey

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[willow .]

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[/size]She is scribbling madly in her small book with that pen clutched tightly between her fingers as I stare at her, all feeling fading from my hand as I am able to concentrate on the back and fourth movement of her pen. Its mesmerizing, to be honest and I finally realize what a big dummy I am when she looks up at me and asks me to set my load on the ground, how she was probably staring at me as though I were stupid while I looked at her beautiful hands. ( At least, thats how everyone else looks at me ). I could feel my cheeks burning a slight red as embarrassment coursed through my thin veins.

"Of course," I look back at her in time to see her pull a bandage from her pocket, you see, Milla is always prepared for everything. As she rips it open tediously and look once more back down at my torn fingers, the way that the skin is separated where the wood caught it and pulled it apart. Even though I have trouble feeling the pain all that much, it looks awfully bad and it makes me cringe just to stare at the crimson liquid as it pours from my fingers.

I can see the tight expression that crosses the younger girl's face for a split second, the way that her eyes narrow and then spring back to their normal glazed look, the look that she gets as her brain is analyzing everything in the entire world. I can see that she is a small bit fazed, not because of the blood, but by something else. I'm not sure what though.

"Is everything okay?"

credit to zoe for template

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[clover ❁]

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milla partridge[/i][/color][/size]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left: 30px solid eeeeee; border-right: 30px solid eeeeee; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 390px;] People don't often ask how I am. Once, when I was ill, running a fever of exactly 105°F, Miss Partridge lay a hand across my forehead and questioned it. I wasn't alright, not then, because I was shaking too much for my hand to record properly, and my mind was spinning and almost broken - I couldn't think. That day, I shook my head and told her no, I wasn't okay, because I was scared I would never see the world clearly, without the haze of sickness, again. She either didn't hear me or didn't respond. (Perhaps I just faded away into unconsciousness, I can't be fully sure.) Although the memory upsets me, it remains the only time I can bring to memory - a quick flick back through the pages of my records confirms this beyond reasonable doubt - that anybody spoke those easy, easy words. "Is everything okay?" I pause, unsure. I am, after all, a little behind schedule because of the conversation with Bronwyn, but already I can feel myself shifting and moving and recalculating things in my mind. If I read for four minutes and twenty seconds less tonight, I'll be back to my normal timings by 6:12pm. A deep breath is needed to make this okay, but with the rise and fall of my chest I am reasonably calm. I glance down to check that I, too, am not bleeding. There is a smudge of mud on the hem of my dress, left side, but otherwise my skin and clothing is unblemished, exactly as it was when I glanced in the mirror before coming outside. "Of course," I say with narrow eyes, "why wouldn't it be?" template by chelsey

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[willow .]

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[/size]Her eyes narrow and for one second a trace of panic floods me as I consider her anger at my stupid question, the big dumb one that can never get anything right. That's all I have ever been, to my mother, to my previous family. There was a reason they gave me up; I was never good enough, never up to their standards. They used to tell me I was just a large buffoon, a bad child with no hope ever to continue a life of her own. They will never realize how happy I am now though, here with my little sister and my new family. They will never know; and this makes me smile.

She keeps her eyes narrowed as they are suddenly averted back to the notebook in her hand, the thing that she is kept since I first met her, the first thing that she ever showed to me. There is to this day not a scratch on it, the outside is perfect, flawless some may call it. I just say that it is Milla, because she is perfect; expect for that small stain on her dress. I only notice it because she keeps nervously looking at it, the one imperfect thing that has infected the rest of her meticulous life.

Finally remembering what she said I look back up at her, a blank expression covering my dull face, my sharp cheekbones jutting out and my mis-aligned teeth just hardly showing from under my lips. "You just look a bit sad today," I point out, trying not to sound harsh. I know that she probably is fine, most likely as normal as she'll ever be; and still something in me screams for me to run and give her a big hug.

I won't though, for fear that I would break those little butterfly bones of hers, and that would be awful now wouldn't it?

--

template - zoe
faceclaim - sophie droogendijk
words - 315
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