Chameleon ✔️

Dear Aspen

When you are eight years old, your mother will die.

You will walk downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water, and in your limited, un-focused vision, you will make out two figures on the kitchen floor. One is that of a man you have never seen before — a man with salt-and-pepper hair, a sharp jaw, and eyes black as coal. He is kneeling atop the tile and looking down at the woman he holds in his arms. This woman is the second figure. She is your mother. She is not moving.

Your scream will pierce through the air and up to the second floor. Your father will awaken and run to the staircase, hurriedly asking you what is wrong. You won't be able to tell him through your everlasting scream. When you open your eyes, the man will be gone. Your mother will lay lifeless on the floor.

Your father will run to her, and he will scream, too.

The medics will pronounce her dead on the scene. They will take her away. You will sleep. You will not see her again until the funeral. The cosmetologists will make her look pasty, pale. Her lips will be sewn shut. Her eyes will not open again to look upon you; her mouth will not open again to tell you she loves you; her arms will not open again to wrap you in them.

The detectives will not catch the man that killed her. But he will follow you. And you won't know why. But you will change your name. And you will run from him to new places. And you will hide in new homes. You will shed your skin and step into new ones; you will change colors to blend into your surroundings.

At one of these new homes, you will meet a boy. He will make you feel normal. You will tell him all of your secrets. You will get comfortable. You will take risks.

Don't.

(But you will, anyway.)

...And then you will graduate high school.