Drown- Chapter Three

Sorry again for the delay on this everyone. This chapter isn't too exciting, but the next one shall be! I pinky swear! :O

Also, in my honest opinion, I don't think this chapter is as well written as the others, so if you agree with me, I'm sorry.

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The number of days before the trip started getting smaller and smaller, but Blossom continued to pretend like it wasn’t even going to happen. She didn’t stop drawing or playing video games to pack or ready herself, much to her mother’s disliking. She finally thought about packing three days before she left, but got distracted by her art.

She finished the last small details of the cat picture and held it up to the window to look at it. The shading had taken a long time and had been relatively boring, but Blossom was really happy with the outcome. The black cat sat at the top of a flight of old and broken stairs that led down from the front porch of an equally old looking house that backed right onto a creepy graveyard. When she had it pinned up onto the wall above her drawing desk, it was hard not to stare. Blossom was forced to notice that it might have even been her best drawing yet.

Pulling her eyes away from the masterpiece, Blossom quickly grabbed a pad of Sticky notes and quickly made a note on the top one. Buy more poster paper. She stuck it on her tabletop calendar under the “Notes” section, but stopped and looked at her watch. She had time to run to Staples and do that right away. She grabbed her purse and left her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

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Noon was far past and the sun was low in the sky, making it a slight bit chilly outside. The wind was picking up a bit, dragging dark rain clouds in from the mountains. Blossom shivered and shoved her hands deep into her jeans pockets, wishing that she had grabbed a sweater. She picked up her pace, wanting to make it to her destination and back home before the rain hit.

It didn’t take too long to get to Staples- only five minutes. Blossom hurried into the heated building, quickly found a package of five pieces of poster paper, and hurried back out. The clouds had advanced on the city very quickly and the wind speeds were still growing. Blossom hurried past the cemetery near her house, but stopped and went back. She pushed her face against the cold metal gate and peered inside. It was a very hilly graveyard and many of the gravestones were falling over down the hill. At the top of the highest point was an old leaning tree- the perfect picture.

Blossom held up the poster paper in her hands and imagined a drawing of the tree and gravestones, and then imagined that picture in her room beside the cat. She smiled to herself, realizing the perfectness of it all. She looked up at the sky and thunder boomed in the distance, as if on cue. Blossom decided she would go back the next day, provided the weather was better. She ran home and was just running up her driveway when raindrops started falling.

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Blossom found a nice flat gravestone a small distance from the front gate. She had a clear view of the tree without the sun burning her eyes, and no one would be able to see her from outside the graveyard. She checked to make sure the sky was still blue in all directions before starting. Originally, Blossom was only going to do the outline, and then come back later to finish it, but she got so consumed by her work that she ended up staying there all day. She didn’t notice the pain in her bottom from sitting for so long- the only things that existed were the tree and the lines on her paper. She was working quickly and even managed to finish the drawing before it got dark.

Blossom walked home, holding the picture and her case of drawing materials tight against her chest. She didn’t stop by the kitchen to let her mom know she was home. She just went straight to her room, put everything down, and hung the newest drawing a few spaces over from the cat. She stepped back to admire her hard work.

The picture was a black and white of the tree standing alone on the top of the hill with falling-over gravestones scattered around. It was simple and not quite as good as the cat picture, but it was still amazing. Blossom was still smiling at the pictures when her mom opened her door and stepped inside.

“Have you even started packing yet?” She asked, peering into Blossom’s closet. She looked back at Blossom, and then at the drawings. Blossom expected her mother to be proud of her because of her amazing drawings, but her mother was quite the opposite.

She looked back at Blossom, a scowl on her face. “When did you do that new one?”

“Today.” Blossom said, noticing her mother’s angry tone.

“Is that where you were all day? In the graveyard?” Blossom nodded and her mother’s scowl just deepened. “So instead of doing something that needs to be done like packing for the trip we’re leaving on in two days, you spent the entire day sitting in the graveyard with the dead people doing something useless?”

Blossom didn’t know what to say, but she could feel anger rising inside herself. She had worked so hard on the drawing, and her mom wouldn’t even acknowledge anything good about it. Blossom’s hands curled into fists at her side and she turned to face her mother.

“Excuse me? I’m sorry that I ‘wasted’ my own time doing something as useless as drawing one of the better pictures I’ve ever done. I can pack tomorrow and I thought my room needed some decorating. You always tell me that my walls are so bare, and now, when I try to change that, you get mad at me!”

“When I said that you needed something to liven up your room, it’s because your room looks like a graveyard, not a bedroom! Look at this, black, black, black, and some white! When I said to decorate a bit, I meant to add some colour, not make it look more like a cemetery!”

“Yeah? Well maybe I like it like this! I don’t go into your room to tell you how to decorate! Let me do what I want to do to my personal space and mind your own business.”

Her mother’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “I will not be spoken to in that kind of a voice! You made me do this- you aren’t allowed to leave this property until we go to Miami in two days!”

“Fine! It’s not like there was anything I wanted to go and do anyway!” Blossom pushed past her mother and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She let out an angry cry and hit a bar of soap off the counter, which hit the wall with a loud thud! Blossom leaned over the sink and gripped the edges so hard that her knuckles turned white.

Sometimes she was angry at everyone in the world at once. It was an odd feeling, like there was no one she could trust or love. Her reflection stared back at her- red and puffy eyes, tear stained cheeks, and Blossom could just make out blonde roots poking their way through her dyed black hair.

Blossom picked up the soap bar off the floor and used it, with water, to wash her face well. She looked down at the sink which now had black dripping down it. Blossom looked back at her reflection. Thick black eyeliner dripped down her face like poisonous tears.

Somehow she felt like she was better than everyone else, but not in an egotistical way. She just felt that she had been born into a high class on the social structure, except she was alone in that class. Her mood changed again and her face pulled tight into a look of anger. Why did everyone reject her? All she did was wear a lot of black. She didn’t cut, nor do anything to anyone that would make them hate her. She kept to herself. The social rules of society were so stupid, and Blossom almost wished that she didn’t have to call herself part of it at all, like she was still human, just not part of society.

Alright, Blossom thought to herself, Mother can keep me in the house during the day, but she can’t keep me indoors during night. It’s what I love most. Blossom dried her hands and looked out the window at the sun that was just barely peeking over the mountains. She looked over her shoulder once again at the bathroom door, then unlatched the window and opened it gently. She inhaled the damp evening air before crawling out of the window onto the garage roof, closing it softly behind her.

She sat on the edge of the roof and stared out at the city before her, then at the driveway below. She wasn’t sure if she should jump down and go for a walk, or stay on the roof. She had snuck out many times before using that method, but in the end she decided that she didn’t need any more fighting that night and settled in. Slowly the light in the houses around her blinked out, and it was dark except the streetlights. She sat there for half an hour, enjoying the fresh air, before going back inside and into bed.