[ANASTASIA BONES CAVELLIER]

[googlefont=Allura]

I'd never given much though to how I would die. But dying in place of someone I love, seems like a good way to go.

Anastasia Cavellier felt a little baffled as to how she ended up here - only a week into living into Hickstead and she had already gotten in trouble. She had tried hanging out with some girls downtown, attempting to make friends, but then they insulted her, and the only reaction Ana had was to sock one right in the face. Apparently, you're not allowed to do that. Or express your feelings that way. Ana tried to reason with Beth, her mother, that it was perfectly normal, but it wasn't. Even deep down in her bones, the teenager knew that the fictional girls of her imagination and books didn't do that, they just merely fought with their words.

Perhaps she should have fought with her words now too. If she had, she wouldn't have been standing outside some horse barn while her mother was inside talking to some important person about the possibility of starting there to 'heal'. Ana thought that was a bunch of bull, no, horse crap. She didn't need to heal. She was fine. So what if she had been kidnapped. So what if the father she had known had turned out to be a kidnaper. So what if he had touched her in ways that he shouldn't have? Those were a bunch of loaded thoughts, yet Ana stubbornly informed herself out loud of three simple words: "I. Am. Fine." And with that, she took an extra good kick at the ground, clocking some gravel and sending it scattering, unaware that she had an audience.

april 2024 • JULIA PEYTON NURSE

thanks aofie!