Sunday, May 6, 2012

Rowena Raven: Chapter Seven


From the moment she was brought into my home, I knew she was something different. The first few days she was distant and quiet, but after that, she was just... spicy.

She had a mental hardiness to her, a sort of armor that was useful but was also her downfall. She was hard headed and close minded, but also smart in a reasonable way. You could tell she wasn’t all that book smart, but there was something else about her, like she got what was going on in the world around her, like she really knew how to figure someone out. I’d never seen that quality in anyone but myself before, it was intriguing, but I liked to think that was why I couldn’t completely figure her out.
It was all there, her daddy problems, why she was okay with men abusing her because she thought the relationship was normal. There was how her mother didn’t love her, so she didn’t know what it was like. It explained everything, her distance, the way she didn’t let anyone in, but it didn’t explain the basic core of her personality. It didn’t explain how she was so strong, so resilient, when she should have been so weak.
I’d had patients before like her, same situation and everything, but I’d never had anyone who resisted treatment for so long.
I knew from the first time I talked to her that I would go the rest of my life completely infatuated and curious about her. When something changes your life like that, you don’t really think about how unrealistic or strange, how sudden it is. It just happens, and you’re okay with it.
But I just couldn’t figure her out, and somewhere under my caring curiosity I knew it hurt my pride that I could tell she didn’t share an ounce of my feelings, she was too busy looking at Pomme, or missing Smog, or however many other guys she’d ever thought she loved.
I had to admit that I did find her antics quite amusing, despite her utter apathy for the lives around her.
It tore at my heartstrings when she finally began changing, seeing the world from a new light.

When she walked so calmly into my office and told me of her insecurites for her child. It was like meeting a kid with cancer, you know you can help, and you’re doing your best, only it’s not very effective. I wanted to give her everything, but it really went against my values, and the most I wanted to do for her was give her a job. So I sung her praises to a friend of mine, which is when it really helps that your father had friends in high places, and you spent your life meeting them.

                                                                         ~o~

Daisy and I were sitting on her couch the night that Rowena freaked out on her. It was hard to get a personal moment with so many people in the house, but it was possible. Daisy and I always had short conversations in the evenings just before going to bed.
“She kinda freaks me out, Lemon. There’s just something about her, it’s like she just sees right through me.” She was making wide gestures with her hands, her eyes wide.

“I could see that, considering what she told you, It’s like she knew.”

“I know, it just brought me back to that moment. It was scary, how she just figured it out like that. Am I really that transparent, Lemon?” You could tell it had really gotten to her.
“I don’t think so, Daisy. She just- I don’t know. She’s just smart, I think.”
“I wouldn’t know, considering she’s never let me talk to her.” Daisy harrumphed.

it was true, that it was so freaky what she’d figured out, how our father had told Daisy she was useless. It was scary, but also a little predictable. Daisy and Rowena were more alike than they thought, they’d both had children they couldn’t keep, and could not have good relationships with men for shit.

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