FIND ME
1066 Words
AUGUST
I tried moving around the house, avoiding the spots Levi warned me about. I cleaned, tried new Mexican dishes I saw online, danced and sang to background songs from the video, and placed them.
I kept myself busy for the whole day, trying not to think about either man.
The house was big, so it took me many hours to clean up.
Some dishes turned out good, some burnt, some hurt my stomach, but it was worth the try.
I cleaned up the entire kitchen after cooking, snapping the dishes to send to Ama.
She called on video call, eager to watch my expression as I tasted the food. We laughed, talked. The most actual fun I'd had in a while.
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment I was staring at the faint glow of my phone screen as the call ended.
Next, I was on my bed, my apron still on, filled with stains of flour and cream.
The air in my dream felt warm, familiar, like the way summers used to feel before everything in my life came crashing down.
I stood in a very familiar narrow hallway I recognized instantly—not because it still existed, but because it was once the center of my world.
The Faded wallpaper with cartoon astronauts, bookshelf. The door with the knob too low because we were small when we used it, and cartoon characters splattered on it.
Atticus stood at the other end of the hall, smiling, his missing teeth on display.
Atticus.
Barefoot, messy-haired, in that old oversized T-shirt he always slept in. The one with the peeling stars, and people staring from beneath.
He didn’t look at me at first. He stared past me, toward something I couldn’t see—something pulling him away again.
No.
The look in his eyes was similar to the one he had the day the social worker showed up, ready to take him and leave.
The day everything shattered.
After our parents died, everyone including the social workers wanted a share of our properties, because we were too little to inherit them or take care of them.
I remember the smudge look on their face the day our parents died.
We stood outside, our balls in our hands, watching the fire burn.
I tried shouting, tried calling for help but nothing.
The fire increased, sticks from the tree behind our house falling down.
One stick landed on my back, giving me a straight scar.
I didn't have time to process it because I wanted our parents out.
Atticus Aunties came shortly after the fire, my mother's brother came after the fire as well.
They stood there, consoling us, trying to be nice, but I knew they were not.
I tried to move toward Atticus, but my legs felt like they were sinking in the water.
The floor under my feet, stretching farther and farther, like the hallway was trying to swallow the distance between us.
My heart was pounding. I still couldn't understand what was happening.
He finally turned, my eyes meeting his again.
His eyes weren’t the same ones I remembered—not fully. They flickered with adulthood, glooms, something older. Like all the spark he once had was dead.
But the expression was the same one he had when we were ten years old, when they tried to take him:
Fear, stubbornness, and something worse—resignation.
“Don’t,” I whispered to him although my voice felt muffled, like it was trapped behind glass.
Atticus stepped back anyway, my hands trembled.
Then I saw it again. A gloved hand—too large, too pale, pressed onto his wrist dragging him away.
The social worker’s hand, a distant and faceless memory, just like it lived in my memory.
My chest tightened, it felt too real.
“Wait—” I screamed, choking as the hallway stretched further between us.
“Don’t leave. Don’t leave me. Take me too. Take us both, don't please—” I screamed.
My own voice broke. I hated that it broke. I couldn't find words, my throat tightened.
Atticus tried to reach back. His small hand brushed mine for a moment—one impossible moment where everything felt like it could be fixed. I tried to touch his, intertwine our fingers so he wouldn't let go.
But then, he was ripped away again, and Everything went white.
I woke sitting upright, my breathing sharp and uneven, heart clawing at my ribs.
The dark room loomed around me, foreign enough that it took a second to remember where I was.
Lucien’s mansion.
The glass house.
My pillow was damp. My hands were shaking.
And worse of it all—my throat hurt.
Because I had been speaking out loud. It was more than a dream.
A dream that felt too real.
“Please don’t leave me…” the words slipped out again. My voice cracked, turning shaky and unsteady. I swallowed them. Hard.
I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes.
It wasn’t the first time I dreamed about Atticus.
But it was the first time the dream felt like a warning.
Like something was waking up in my memory.
Or someone. Trying to trigger the past.
What was I even doing?
I picked my phone, checking the time.
9:30am. Levi must have gone.
I set the phone face down.
But even in the dark, even with my eyes closed, the echo of that childhood promise clung to me like invisible hands:
“Find me. I’ll find you.”
But before the social worker came, he said “If I don't find you, perhaps I’ll be dead. But I promise to find you.” he sniffed.
The room felt colder suddenly. Like someone, a familiar presence had walked through it moments before I woke.
I lay back down, staring at the ceiling.
Part of me hated that I still dreamed of him. It's been twelve years.
Twelve years were enough for him to find me. Rich or poor, I'll accept him. Sick or disabled, I'll accept him.
No one could fill the void in my heart, not even Nightshade or Levi.
Another part whispered—quiet, desperate—that maybe the dream wasn’t a dream at all. Maybe he was closer than I thought.
Maybe it was a memory trying to claw its way out.
Maybe, just maybe.
- Writer
