Sweet Dandelion

by Micalea Smeltzer

He laces his fingers together, laying them on the wooden table in front of him. The gesture disturbs the perfect straight line a stack of folders was in. I itch to perfect it once more.

My voice is soft, deeper than it used to be. There’s something missing from it and I haven’t been able to figure out what it is. Perhaps it’s innocence.

I find myself retreating more and more into my head. It feels safer here, but it’s not. It’s not safe anywhere. My brain is full of terrible memories, while the world is full of terrible people who do horrible things, every single day.

I’ve often wondered what he thought when he got the call I was in the hospital and our mom had been killed. She died protecting me and other students, doing what she could to save lives. She was a teacher and in her final moments she went above and beyond what a teacher is supposed to do.

We lost our father when we were young to pancreatic cancer.

We grew up in Portland, Oregon and I had plans to stay there, until someone else with a gun decided my fate for me. Now I’m the girl who survived a school shooting. Who walks with a limp. Who barely speaks.

But running? I think running is out of the question for me. Once upon a time it had been my life. I thought I’d go to college with a scholarship. But things change and now I walk with a limp. I try not to let it bother me, after all I’m very lucky to be on my own two feet, but sometimes I feel like a bird with a broken wing, destined to never fly and it hurts all over again.

My big brother has had to keep his shit together, to be the rock to protect me against the storm, and the wear of it is beginning to show.

“You could’ve died, Dani.” His gruff whisper tears at my heart, especially when my thoughts spear through me. Sometimes I still wish I had.

Sorry. Such a useless word, but somehow always feels necessary all the same.

“Life clips our wings,” I murmur softly, wiping condensation from the side of the water glass. “Everyone tells you to dream big, but then society does everything it can to keep you grounded.”

He doesn’t say he’s sorry. There’s no point to the word sorry, not in this situation at least.

Grief comes and goes forever. It’s like a wave.”