Count Me Away

Red is for lust. Red is for anger. Red is power, determination, passion, revenge. Red is for every time your boyfriend grabbed your hand, pulling you through the house just to get to the bedroom. Red is every decision you made out of spite. Red is the girl you punched when you were fifteen. Red is his mouth on yours, clawing his way down into your underwear, holding you so close it almost hurts.

More than anything else though, red was the colour of my nails when I found the little frog. I was running down my garden path in a pair of my mother’s boots. They had a thick heel, and I’d loved them ever since I was small. I spent hours clobbering around the house in them, and when I turned thirteen, she decided that I was old enough to adopt them as my own.

Among my other presents that year was a bottle of red nail varnish. I still actually have the bottle, even though it’s completely empty of varnish; full of memories instead. I had begged and whined and moaned about how much I wanted, needed, that nail varnish, and when August 7th rolled around, it was mine.

I stomped off up and down the garden in my new old boots and my blood red nail varnish. Young for my age, I would stop and bend down, stooping low to pick flowers. I searched for four-leaf clovers, and stones with holes. Greens and reds caught my attention, petals and leaves. Anything would catch my eye, and the colour of it would find a place in my mind. A locked-in memory.

There was a path down our old family garden. It ran right down the centre of the grass, and I was running right through the centre of those grey damp tiles. The garden around me was small, fit for a house near the cusp of a busy town, but my father had a small green thumb, so the space was always full of life. Daffodils in spring, sunflowers in July.

Rain drizzled down, more like a mist, filling my head with that wonderful smell. You know the smell when you wake up late to warm rain glistening down across your window. It was one of my favourites, because of that day. The colour, and the memory.

The heels clicked against the stones, quickly coming to a halt as I paused. I dropped to my knees to examine the little green lump. It croaked at me, and I giggled, pushing back my hair. It always managed to find its way across my face, a black curtain that fell into my deep brown eyes. My fringe was always too long.

There was no point to this as a memory, as far as my brain was concerned. This tiny little moment, in the sea of what would become the rest of my life meant precious little, but still it held room somewhere.

This tiny ball of a creature, I picked it up and cradled it in my hands. My red nails were protecting it, fencing it off from the outside world. It seemed so important at the time. It croaked and croaked, and in my mind it was croaking my name, calling for me.

I let myself fall backward onto the wet grass behind me, and I could’ve sworn that the little guy laughed at me and my soggy behind. Everything from that point on took me back to that frog, so no matter how small that memory may have been, it was still worth its weight in gold.