Laughing on the Outside

Startled, Ruth awoke from her dream. She could feel the cold sweat rundown her back as she sat up in her bed.
The room was in complete darkness, only a faint light shined in from the drawing curtain.

The ray of light, though small, illuminated the objects it fell upon.
Ruth’s messenger bag, art books, and a shelf of toys from yester-year looked almost unreal.
As if she had seen them from a setting in a book or magazine.

She rose from her bedside and walked towards the window. She gently pulled the curtain away so that she could peek out into the world.

Everything had remained the same, like it had before.
Right down to the moths fluttering around the light of a nearby street lamp.

Ruth brushes the loose strands of hair from her face and glances into the night.

Fading quickly, the stars slowly become unnoticeable with the morning sky approaching.

“So, it was just a dream.”

She releases the curtain and takes a few steps back.

“Now begins the nightmare.”

She turns her view from the window to face the clothes her mother laid out yesterday.
A white button-up shirt with cufflinks, plaid skirt, high knee socks, and a gray vest.

At least the school doesn’t rule against what shoes to wear

She slips on her black converses over her pale socks.

Better not tell mom that or she'll petition it towards the school board

She grabs her sketchbook and heads downstairs.
Ruth’s father, Joseph, is quietly reading the paper at the dinner table before he heads to work.

“Hey Dad, I‘m going to school, where’s mom?”

Silence hangs in the air as the question goes unanswered. Six minutes pass before he even realizes she’s been in the same room.

He looks casually from the paper, only moving his eyes to take a glance, then returns to the columns.

“Your mother left thirty minutes ago. She said she couldn’t wait any longer or she’d be late.”

"Oh....Ok, I'll take the bus." Ruth mumbles as she closes the front door.

I go to the school she wanted me to go to and on my first day she fucking blows me of.

She walks down the cement walkway towards the bus station.

“For as long I live, she‘ll never give me a break.”