Chapter 3 Alone

Cora Lynn's POV

As the morning rays shined into the cabin, I started to wake up. I stood up, stretched and shook my hair. It was matted from sleeping on the floor. I have thick kinky hair with extremely tight coils that I couldn't grow past my shoulders no matter how hard I tried. I used my fingers to separate curls carefully without breaking the ends while wondering what next to do before I heard it. I took off running through the cabin and out into the clearing towards the forest. I stopped as I found it in front of me.

A babbling brook!

I took off my clothes and gingerly stepped into the brook. It was so tiny, I had to bend down to get enough water on me. It felt so good; the water was cold and inviting and it chilled the worry thoughts I had in my mind. Where will I live? Where will I go? What will I eat? A thousand thoughts washed over my mind as the cool water lapped over my thighs. The sun glistening on my yellow skin. I quickly got dressed into the same clothes I owned and started to walk; I had no idea where I am going but I know I can't stay here.

I walked until I found the loganberry bushes that grew close to the heart of the forest and started munching. As I sat eating, I remembered how my youngest sister, Taylor, loves loganberries. She would sit all day in the fields eating them if you let her; the wind blowing through her black hair filled beads and bubbles. She was so adorable as a baby; until I realised that her being the youngest meant she got all the love and care. My younger sister, Laura, hated fruit. She loves meat and veggies and would beg for me to make grilled broccoli. 

She was very manipulative and a liar. Being a kleptomaniac didn't help as well and we would constantly be at loggerheads. She would join the others in teasing me; calling me a demon and that other name. That name they used to taunt me to my face, and in whispers as I walked by; both adults and children. I heard my parents discussing it one night while I lay in bed, they thought I was sleeping.

"She's my first child, Rick. I can't toss her out like that!" she whispered harshly to my step father. 

"She needs to go. She will cause trouble for the men here. No one will be safe here, not even me. She's a....."

His trailed off as soon as they noticed me in the doorway. 

"Go back to sleep Cora!" my mother hissed at me. A look of conflict in her eyes, as if she was internally fighting something. Her eyes never contained love for me; anger and resentment but never love. Not like how she looked at my sisters. It all feels so bittersweet; I left an abusive situation but now I was all alone, no family at all. I recalled I asked about who my father was. I was only 9, a child wondering about my identity. She looked up from the book she was reading and she held a distant look in her eyes; it was a look of someone remembering an old crush or an unrequited love. The look lasted a moment; for she then flew into a rage, verbally and physically abusing me. I never asked again; the pain of whatever that happened left a scar, a scar that hurt when touched.

I continued to walk until the trees changed to cedar. They weren't as dense as the willows. Living in the countryside was bliss; far from the hustle and bustle of the big city and less people and pollution. Everyone in the surrounding communities know and look out for each other, until it came to me it seemed.