Eden

I pushed my pillow against my ears, like I’ve done hundreds of times before when Sean and my mom fought. Only this time, the voices were so loud, it sounded like someone was yelling right into my ear. The shouts, yells, doors slamming, and crying could be heard all the way up on the second floor, where my room was, from in the kitchen.

Rolling over, I tried to make the thin pillow block out more of the noise, only the meagre amount of stuffing it contained did little to prevent the sound from reaching my ears. Down the hall, I could hear my one and a half-year-old brother add his voice to the pounding sounds coming from my parents. I doubted that my parents would hear the extra decibels my brother added, so I climbed out of my bed and padded silently down the hall to his room.

When my brother looked up over the edge of his crib and saw me, he stopped crying and giggled a little. I picked him up and placed him on the floor. Sitting down beside him, I pulled one of his favourite toys over. I shook the large stuffed ladybug in front of his face. He just giggled all the harder. I tickled and played with him for well over half and hour, before loud, pounding footsteps came up the steps. I listened in silent fear as someone banged on my door, calling, "Cerise? Cerise! Get out here!"

I recognised the voice as Sean’s, my step dad’s. Looking around Chris’s room, I saw no escape. The last time Sean caught me out of bed after he and mom had a fight, he dragged me back into my room and beat me. I had bruises on my arms and legs for the next two weeks. Quickly I placed Chris back into his crib and ran to the door.

"Better to fess up now and get beaten, then to be caught in Chris’s room and have him get beaten too," my thoughts urged me to go into the hall and face the wrath of Sean.

There he stood holding a long belt, which to me appeared as long as a barbed whip, and just as dangerous.

"What were you doing in Chris’s room?" Sean demanded, slapping the belt against his hand with a loud crack.

Slowly, I took a step backwards, "He was crying, I went in to get him back to sleep."

Sean moved closer to me, backing me into a corner. Putting me in a situation of no escape. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother climbing the stairs with a more than noticeable limb, bruises up and down her arms, and blood running down the corner of her mouth. Her hair was a mess, and when she looked up at me, her eyes pleaded me to forgive her. To forgive her for marrying Sean. To forgive her for fighting with him. To forgive her forever being born in the first place, for bringing me into the world. Her eyes were so sad, and empty. I remember how her eyes used to glimmer with every word, sparkle with every laugh, and shine with every kind word. That was before Sean came along.

Now that Sean was here, mom never smiled. Her will to live had disappeared. She was all but dead to me, to Chris, to the world. Anger boiled up inside me, ready to burst with the force of an erupting volcano. My tears turned the hallway into a blurry, under water kingdom. Only that kingdom was falling apart. Crumbling. The peaceful kingdom came crashing down.

I didn’t realise what I’d done until Sean was hit his head against the railing. Through my underwater kingdom, I watched in slow motion as Sean fell. My ears heard his head hit the railing with the distinct sound of bone against any hard surface. The crack of his head echoed through my skull, gaining power each time it echoed. Soon, the crack turned into a gunshot then grew in intensity in my head to the blast of a nuclear bomb.

Mom was looking at me. Then she was coming towards me, reaching out her arms to hold me. Together, my mom and I slid down the wall, into a sitting position and cried.

"I’m so sorry Cerise. I’m really sorry. I never meant for anything like this to happen!" Mom sobbed into my hair, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry."

Mom and I sat in the corner, rocking back and forth for what seemed like a lifetime. All the while, she was whispering that she was sorry into my ear. I guess I must’ve fallen asleep at some point that night, because I was jolted awake violently by the sound of police sirens outside.

I sat up and looked around. Sean was no longer lying on the hallway carpet. There was a police officer talking to my mom at the front door. I pulled the blanket that had magically appeared, laying across my legs, up over my head. I wanted this horrible night to be a dream. A dream so real, that I could still taste the fear in my mouth even after I awoke. But I knew that it wasn’t a dream. Sean really beat my mom up, and I really pushed him so hard that he hit his head and was knocked out cold.

The only part of this night that I couldn’t believe was that my mom had actually called the cops. Soon, the cops left and my mom went into the kitchen, probably to have a beer or something. She’d been drinking more and more often now. Usually whenever something went wrong she’d break out the box of beer and down a few. Now all the cupboards in the kitchen contain at least one bottle of alcohol, if not more.

Of course she never drank in front of Chris or I. No way she’s gonna be a "bad example". But I know that she drinks, sometimes when I lay in my bed late at night, I can hear her in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards looking for all the bottles she’s hid. In the mornings you can see the dull look in her eyes, the dark smudges that appear to be badly applied make up, and most of all, you can smell her breath.

I quietly stood and stealthily crept down the stairs. I open the front door with no more than a barley audible squeak. Shivering, I wrapped the light blanket around my shoulders to keep out some of the early March air. The stars twinkled brightly down on me. They seemed to be putting on a special display in a feeble attempt to cheer me up. They winked and glittered down. The moonlight cast shadows across the front lawn. The dew tickled my feet as I walked across the newly greening grass to the sidewalk in front of my house. I sat down on the curb and stuck my feet out into the street. The stars and moon were still looked down at me. Only now they appeared to be mocking me.

Slowly, the sky began to brighten with the faint light of morning. The first signs of morning light appeared as a faltering line along the horizon. Blinking out one by one, the stars disappeared. The space where the stars had once been was being replaced by shades of red, orange, and pale pink. Dew on the grass now made the grass appear to have been transformed over night into a glistening field of delicate, shining swords, held by miniature knights. They stood on guard protecting my house from harm. Harm such as Sean. The small knights dedicated their lives to defending my mom form evil.

Only they weren’t doing their job to their full potential. They were letting in evil, little by little. Sean had knocked out their entire defence system. Now the evil was pouring in as they set their swords back up in the air in protest to the intruders.

As the sky became light blue and the sun rose over my head, I yawned and looked at my watch. I was already late for school. Jumping up, I ran across the lawn and threw open the door. Once inside, I quietly ran up the stairs to get dressed.

In my room, the feelings from last night flooded my mind. Echo’s of the previous night still reverberated back and forth faintly between the walls. I closed my eyes and sank to my knees on the threadbare carpet. The voices, the sounds, over took me. Pressing my hands to my ears I attempted to bring order back to my mind. When I gained control of my own body again, I tried to forget about Sean.

I went though the usual motions of the morning. Putting clothes on, eating, getting my books ready for school. I pushed Sean to the back of my mind, determined to forget about him for the rest of the day.

I didn’t get to school until the beginning of third period. Teachers and classmates gave me strange looks when I walked into the school during the class change. I knew that mom was going to be mad at me when I got home. The school was most likely going to call her to inform her of my tardiness. Maybe she’d still be hung over from last night, and decide not to punish me.

"Well good morning Cerise. A little late to be getting to school though isn’t it?" One teacher said to me as I walked passed. I just smiled a little and nodded.

I slid into my desk and ignored the looks from my friends. I was surprised they even looked at me. Lately they’d made it seem as though I didn’t even know who they were. I felt exiled, rejected. The people who were supposedly my best friends were now just like everyone else. Everyone else judged, and made fun. I never thought that people like Karen and Sarah would ever turn their backs on me. They were different.

As I pulled my books out of my book bag, I noticed a new girl looking at me. She was weird looking in every way. She had short jet-black hair that would appear to be a black hole in the middle of a dark night. The earrings she had ran all the way up her lobes. Her eyebrows were barely visible on her pale white face. A black T-shirt hung loosely across her gaunt body. Baggy black jeans barely clung to her pencil thin waist. Her pale lips seemed to be frozen in a perpetual frown.

Quickly I looked up, hoping she hadn’t noticed me studying her. Not very likely.

She appeared to be the kind that would hang out with the outcasts. The kinds to do drugs, drink, and smoke. Not someone I should be thinking of getting involved with. But then again, I was now an outcast. A series of improbable events had launched me straight for loser-vile.

As the teacher droned on at the front of the room about plants, I watched large, black clouds pile up outside the window. To me those clouds represented what I was feeling. All the awful feelings I had felt lately were building up like dark black clouds in my soul.

On automatic now, I stood up and moved from class to class, ate lunch, and went to my locker all in a daze. I didn’t hear anyone, or see anything. My entire being was focused on my anger. I was suddenly knocked back into reality when I walked into another person.

I lifted my eyes from the scuffed tile of the hallway and looked right into the light blue eyes of the girl from period three.

"Hey, I’ve been trying to get your attention all day. Are you stoned or something?" she accused me, her anger coming through loud and clear.

"Uh…no, I don’t do drugs. Sorry I didn’t notice you before," I stammered. The black of her clothes and hair contrasted highly with her pale features.

"Don’t worry about it. You just looked kind of lonely, so I thought I’d ask if wanted to come hang out with me and my friends some time."

Whoa, I thought, this? Coming from someone like her? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. She doesn’t look like the kind to care if someone looks like they’re lonely or not.

"So?" she asked impatiently, "How about today after school? We’ll be in the woods behind the school."

"I guess so," I said in a voice that sounded anything but confident.

"Great, see you then," she started to walk away, her black hiking boots slapping loudly on the tile floor. Abruptly she turned around and asked, "What’s your name?"

"Cerise, yours?"

"Mary. Well, see you after school."

Stunned by Mary’s act of unpredicted kindness left me pondering how well I could read people. I used to think that I could guess at anyone’s personality and get it pretty dead on. But after the way I got Mary’s personality wrong, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I couldn’t have been more off about Mary.

I went through the last period of the day in a daze, my thoughts wandered endless from topic to topic, but never stayed on what the teacher was saying. I kept thinking about what Mary’s friends would be like. Would they be as nice as Mary? Would they dress like her?

My mind created thousands of possibilities of what they would be like. In some of them they were kind and accepted me immediately. In others they were horribly mean and unkind. I was hoping for the first.

When the bell rang, I nearly knocked my chair over in my haste to leave the classroom. I ran out the door and to my locker. I quickly threw on my jacket and tossed my books into the bottom of my cluttered locker. I dashed out the door and towards the woods that created a dark and menacing boarder along the back wall of the school.

As I reached the line of trees, I slowed down and tried to bring myself under control. So what if this is the first time in weeks anyone’s shown interest in being my friend? I shouldn’t come across as if I were that desperate for a friend. Only then did I realise that I had no clue where Mary and her friends would be. The woods were a large place. It was easy to get lost in them.

Then the sounds of a large group of people laughing and talking all at the same time reached my ears. I decided that it was a pretty good bet that that’s where Mary was. Seeing as how very few people even ventured into the woods on the brightest day of the year. By now, the dark clouds I had seen in the early morning were right over head, threatening to burst into a shower of raindrops at any moment. Now I wished that I’d brought my raincoat along with me this morning. But the sunrise had given no clue to the storm that would choose my small town as it’s prey later in the day.

I followed the noise to a small clearing. There I saw a group of 5 or 10 teenagers. Most were dressed in black, and most held a beer in their hand. Some held a cigarette in their other hand.

Slowly I crept up to the edge of the clique as a leopard would sneak up on it’s meal. I hoped no one would notice me. I didn’t think I could stand the pressure of being offered a smoke, or some beer. I watched Mary across the clearing talk animatedly with a guy that I’d seen around school a few times. From the litter around her feet I guessed that she’d already downed a few beers and was now pretty drunk. My plan was to slide unnoticed out of the clearing, and I was about to put my plan into action. But then Mary looked up and started coming over to me, walking in the kind of way that would make a police officer crazy during one of those "walk on the yellow line and touch your nose" tests.

"Uh, yeah, that’s my name. How many beers have you had Mary?"

"Only…" Mary started to count on her fingers, she only got to about 3 before she said, "I can’t remember," after saying that, she started laughing inanely and she put her can in my hand, "Drink this, it’ll make you feel better!"

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I mean it. You don’t have to have as many as me. Just a sip or two will fix all your problems," she drew the ‘all’ out and waved her hands around.

Like I said, I wasn’t very good at avoiding peer pressure. I lifted the strong smelling beer to my lips and tilted my head back. I decided that in order to make myself fit in, I should drink the whole can. So I did. I watched, as Mary’s eyes grew wide.

"Whoa girl, I never saw anyone drink the whole thing that fast!"

I smiled at her a little. The beer was making my stomach feel funny. I could almost hear my brain cells going pop as we stood there.

As the afternoon wore on, I must’ve had a few more beers. I can’t remember. One time I tried to count on my fingers, but I only got to about 3. I know I had more than that, because when someone offered me some kind of drug, which I took immediately. I was already too drunk to care what people were giving me. I think I smoked a few cigarettes too. At least during that afternoon, I forgot all of my problems for a few hours.

The guy that had been talking to Mary earlier, when I was still sane, came up to me and wrapped his arms around me. He smelled of smoke and beer. I didn’t know what was happening. My brain was fried. It was as if someone had opened up my skull and rearranged all the wires so that the blues were with the blacks, and the reds were with the yellows, all the rest were just hanging loose.

I lifted my chin and looked into his empty eyes. At the time I could get lost in them. They were deep pools of endless affection for me, and only me. For the next five minuets at least. Right then, five minuets were more than enough.

He lowered his lips to mine. He tasted of beer. I drank him in. He was all I wanted forever and always. I never wanted to be with out him. It may have been love, or it may have been the beer and the drugs. While his lips were against mine, it was love. A fire burned within me for him. I kissed him for the rest of the evening. He brought me more beer, and also gave me drugs.

Soon people started getting up to leave. The guy, whom I later found out was Brian, grabbed my hand and pulled me roughly up off the grass. Then he went to find Mary. He motioned to her. He lead me to his car which was still parked out in front of the school. Mary was following close behind us. The moon shone down on us. Tonight, through my eyes, the moon was almost large enough to fill the whole sky. The stars were large eyes that were watching me, scolding me for my behaviour. Everything seemed so beautiful.

I was reminded of the bible. Of how Adam and Eve had been placed in a very beautiful place called Eden. This is my Eden, I thought.

Brain pushed me into the backseat of his car. Mary climbed in the front.

"Where are we going?" I questioned. My words seemed clumsy as a forgein language when I spoke them; my tongue seemed too big for my mouth.

"Just for a drive. Maybe to get more beer for the party." Brian said as he turned to face me.

His face looked like that of a king. Brian pulled out of the parking space. I didn’t even think of putting on my seatbelt, or of the fact that Brian was stoned and shouldn’t be driving. All I thought about was how all my problems had suddenly and miraculously disappeared. The thoughts of Sean and the pervious night didn’t even register in my head. If you’d asked me right then what my name was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Man, my brain was gone that night. Now I wish I’d paid more attention.

As we sped down the silent streets of the sleeping town, the road seemed to form waves under the wheels when I stuck my head out the window and watched the lines pass. The passing houses blurred into a streak of colour. That car ride felt like an amusement park ride that night.

Only the end was anything but amusing. Brian was speeding down our quiet town roads at more than 150 kilometres an hour. Eventually we left town and drove up the mountain. We rounded curve after curve. I was thrown from side to side in the back of Brian’s car. I was laughing. Mary was laughing. Brian was laughing. We were happy, we were stoned. We had no clue of the danger that approached.

The headlights caught a deer standing as still as a mannequin. Brain laughed and floored the gas pedal. Mary screamed and grabbed the wheel, turning it sharply the to the left.

I watched with horror as the car sliced through the guard rail like a swimmer through the cool water. The car fell silently through the blackness for 30 or so feet, before landing with a loud crash on a rocky ledge. Teetering on the edge of the cliff, the car creaked and groaned. I could hear Mary whimpering softly in the front seat, and Brian cursing loudly. I took the time on the edge to ask mom to forgive me. To forgive me for leaving her alone. To forgive me for letting all my morals go. To forgive me to leaving her alone in this world. For at that moment, I knew with out a doubt that I was going to die that night. I even forgave Sean for all the pain he had caused my family.

Pitch black nothingness stared up at me from the valley. I knew that in only a few seconds I would be swallowed up by that blackness. Underneath the car, the cliff suddenly gave up trying to save our worthless souls. The car plunged into the darkness.

We hit the ground and rolled for several feet. The moon now appeared to be dripping with blood. Drip. Drip. Drip. Then the moon began to dim, and fade out. I tried to lift my arm to rub my eyes. To bring the beautiful moon back into my vision. I couldn’t move my left arm, but my right arm found it’s way to my forehead. I then comprehended that the blood dripping off the moon was my own blood. And that the moon wasn’t fading out I was.

The newspapers said that Cerise, Brian and Mary had been driving along a curving mountain road. That they had all had more beer and drugs in them than was safe. The crash had been discovered approximately 6 hours after if had occurred. The newspapers said nothing about the condition the ill fated three had been found in.

Mary had been generally in good shape, except for the fact that the back of her skull had imploded. Brian was almost as good as Mary. His skull was also crushed. A few of his ribs, and other bones were broken.

Cerise got it the worst. From the police reports, she had been hanging out the window when the car originally went over the rail. Her left arm had been torn off in the fall, and thrown around enough in the car to end up in the glove compartment.

There were stranger things found on the scene though. Cerise had used her right hand to write the words "I’m sorry" on the upholstery with her own blood coming from her head. The police found no explanation for the words to have been written. Only Cerise’s mother knew the true meaning of the words. And she forgave her. She knew that it wasn’t entirely Cerise’s fault. That "I’m sorry" was enough to calm a mother’s heart.

Cerise has been forgiven. She’s been forgiven for her one night spent in Eden.