Visions Of Us

1 | A Burning Red Fire

JULIA

I'm just as unsurprised as the next person.

I hear the quiet noise of the front door opening and closing and the soft thud of shoes as they make their way upstairs. I'm not alarmed by this at all because I know this was dad. He's been coming home late at night and downright lying to mom and I about why he's been acting so strange. I've always had a rocky relationship with dad, for a variety of reasons. One really good one though is that he's an asshole to mom. She likes to believe in the lies dad tells us. Mom doesn't want the raw truth. They fight alot, almost everyday. Especially, on the dinner table I think that's their favorite place to fight. That is if he even comes home for dinner.

I try to shut my eyes to fall asleep because tomorrow I need all the power I can muster up for basketball practice tomorrow. Basketball makes me feel like fire, a hot burning red fire, I love the breathlessness I feel as I glide and run on the ground of the school court. All the shit I put myself through in the week is worth it when I get to run and hoop like a cheetah on the court with such ease. It's embarrassing and depressing to say this but whenever I'm playing basketball I think of dad and mom I think about how much I want to just run away from that place I call "home", how much I wanna run away from myself. By the end of the game, I'm almost nauseated but by the time I get that sensation I'm with my friends celebrating at some party and I'll push it down because I want to fit in and be normal. I want to forget about every little argument they had whether it's about me or them.

"Julia honey get up" a voice which I'm pretty sure is my nanny's.

I groaned and slowly opened my eyes to look at the time on my alarm clock. Today is the first day of senior year and for some reason I'm not excited as I wish I could be.

"Fine just give me two minutes" I raise my two fingers up in an almost peace sign to my her.

My eyes flutter shut again and when I wake up my legs feel cold and bare and the sheets are drawn away from me. The bright sunlight peeks from the blinds of the bedroom windows, casting light on my eyes. I got up from bed and went downstairs with my slippers on, my lips are drawn to a frown when I realize dad is not at the breakfast table. When I was younger, dad and I would do crosswords and read the little comic strips on the newspaper but as I got older we stopped doing that. We stopped doing activities together in general. I'm not sure if it was because of my maturity or if dad just stopped caring about even interacting with me.

I plopped down on a sturdy brown chair of the dining table and helped myself to some eggs and toast. As I'm swallowing the murky and sweet yolk of the egg, I catch a glimpse of my mother in her light pink nightgown that stops at her knees, her eyes are dull and she looks so tired as she passes through the hallway. She probably stayed up at night waiting for dad to come home that would explain the tiredness. I don't understand how mom deals with my dad's odd behavior. These thoughts swarm in my head as I get my yellow backpack from my nanny. Her name is Amelia. She's been my nanny since I could walk.

"Have a good day at school Julia baby", Amelia squeezes my cheek so hard it turns a soft pink "Remember to drink enough water to keep the baby like skin of yours"

"Thanks nanny I'll see you after school" I wrap my arms around her neck for a brief moment before I basically jog my way to our Mercedes in the driveway.

I'm fully clothed in my uniform which consists of a long sleeve basic white button up shirt with a breast pocket that has the school logo printed on it, covered up with the school's dark red and yellow colored senior girls basketball team jacket. I actually was allowed to have a say in the design choices of this year's senior team uniform. The design team sadly didn't hear me out on anything that I said, which was very dissapointing because I do consider myself stylish or atleast able to dress myself properly.