Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 24: Daddy Please Don't Cry

24
Daddy Please Don't Cry

==========MARY===========

"I love you," he said.

The words still rang in my ears, and like a shockwave in my heart, when I finally sat down. Danny and his mom dropped the phrase so often that its declaration had lost meaning.

Before he had said I love you, he'd also said, "I need you."

I wasn't expecting to hear that either.

He had also said, "Don't worry 'bout it."

But my eye throbbed, reminding me that it was swollen and sensitive on my face when he mumbled that. And before he'd mumbled that, I had told him: "I'm here to get my things."

The wet and muddy pant legs swayed against my ankles as I walked from Danny's car to my house. Danny had just screamed out the car window, "I'll be waiting!" But I pretended not to hear.

The rain had only napped last night, and it re-awoke that morning as the sky started to lighten. The rain tacking against the tin of the drain pipe was what had awoken me. Danny slept on through though, and unlike throughout most of the night, breathed silently. Despite the cold air slipping in through the screen, I was warm beneath his shoulder huddled over mine and with his bare arms wrapping around my body.

But out on the street, walking to my house, the rain soaked in through the sweater of his I wore, seeming to seep right through my skin, drenching my bones.

As I walked down Bayview, on the street splodged with mud and dead leaves, I kept my head down, watching my steps to avoid the worms that stretched out along the pavement. My neighborhood smelled of mud and the scent of salt from the ocean, and the crash of the surf below the bay sounded stronger than ever. As I walked by the homes of all my neighbors, I forgot about being drenched and wondered about all of their lives on this anomaly of an August day, which seemed to forecast what the oncoming autumn would feel like.

Most of the homes in Danae's Bay were built for idyllic beach life. Adorned with tall windows that served as walls, providing each room with a perfect view, and also openly exposing their lives for me to observe.

My neighbors were all huddled in for the day, cozy in their living rooms with lamps turned on to cast out the gloom of the afternoon, sipping on tea, watching the rainfall from within. All of them eager to wear the layers that summer made obsolete, and grateful, feeling deserving, for their break from the heat.

My hair mopped the back of my neck as I looked over at my favorite house from which blue smoke arose out of the chimney, floating out above the roofs, seeming to thicken the gray haze in the sky. On the lawn, birds squeaked as they played from tree to tree, shaking the rain off the leaves as they shuddered their wings and flew away. And from inside my favorite house, I heard the chime of a piano melody. I had imagined that a little blonde girl was learning how to read music on a white piano.

You see, after all those years of walking those same streets, to and from school or work, I had gotten to know my neighbors in a way they'd never gotten to know me. From the outside, I always peered in through their windows, learning about their entire lives within.

A flock of blackbirds fluttered in the treetops, rattling the leaves hung with tears.

I pulled at the ankles of the sweatpants I'd borrowed from Danny, now completely caked in mud and rain, and walked up the porch steps to my house. The doormat erupted in a mini flood, further soaking my feet. As I walked towards my front door, I could feel the blisters brewing.