Hello all!
Thank you so much for sticking with me for the first month of Short Story Sundays! I enjoyed hearing your feedback about the characters and the plot. This month, you'll meet Symone Curtis. This is a character who is very close to my heart. I have been developing her story for the last year for what will become a novel one day. Symone is a complicated young woman in her 20's, trying to figure out who she is while things around her are moving at fast forward.
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In and out. In and out. Symone Curtis’ breaths were shorter, quicker, faster. Her arms were pumping faster, back straight, palm sweaty. She took her right hand and gently rested it on the bar of the treadmill, perpendicular from her waist. When she felt she had a good grip on the bar, she squeezed. A few seconds later, there were two low beeps. 125 bpm. Symone smirked, satisfied, and wiped her forehead with an already wet towel also on the bar. Jay-Z was her soundtrack of choice when she ran. His music was full of offbeat anecdotes and melodious rhythms. Further, Jay-Z’s music was her safe space to be angry, thoughtful, happy, hard—to be heard; therapy in her world void of remedy. Today was no different but perhaps even more necessary.
She’d almost skipped her morning workout, opting to sleep in after her exhaustive 9 ½ hour drive from Columbus, OH to Decatur, GA. What was normally for her an eight hour drive was extended due to heavy fog in the hills of Kentucky followed by a thunderstorm when entering Georgia. She had been forced to stop twice for at least a half hour. Symone had planned on being home by 10 p.m. that evening but did not pull up in the driveway until closer to midnight. Only her father was there to greet her when she came in the door, admitting he had dozed off a few times since he was expecting her much earlier in the evening. They’d hugged and her father was gracious enough to help her with all of her bags from the car to her bedroom by himself while she showered. She’d heard him call out to her from the bathroom that he’d be downstairs after she was finished and for her to come down. But the warm water coupled with the penetrating steam and the scent of lavender soap relaxed her into a much needed period of sleep and she never made it back downstairs to talk with her him. Next thing Symone knew, her alarm was alerting her that it was 7 a.m., her normal workout time. She snoozed once but seven minutes later, duty called and she allowed the routine to commence.
The time on the treadmill now read 20:13. It was almost 7:40 a.m. Symone shook her head and used her thumb to navigate through her iPod, pausing Jay-Z’s Moment of Clarity. She wanted silence. She closed her eyes, but only for a moment, her arms still pumping feverishly. It was Sunday and she knew her Dad would want her to go to church with him. She slowed her pace then noticed the lights in the room flicker on and off. She jumped up; legs open in a wide stance on the edge of the treadmill to stop her running feet, pulled out her ear buds and turned her head to see her Dad standing at the door
"Daddy," she started. "What are you doing up?"
He rubbed his right eye ans walked towars her.
"It's not everyday I get to see my daughter," he said. "So today there is an exception to my normal routine."
Symone matched her fathers pace towards her. She blushed at his acquiesce. She wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled her head in the crook between his chest and his arm. She felt his arms around her shoulders and for the first time in a long time took a deep breathe. Even through his pajamas her fathers scent of vanilla and musk lingered enough to know what home felt like.
This is home.
Anxiousness again rose in Symone's chest when she spotted pictures she hadn’t seen in years. Her three brothers and her as children with their father. She felt her body stiffen in her father's arms when she saw a picture in the corner of her mother and her as a baby, maybe 6 months. She always loved this picture. There was joy in both our eyes, 22 years ago. Matching dimples protruding from their left cheeks. Same eyelashes, same light brown eyes. The story goes that Symone's loudest baby laugh was when her mother tickled her in just the right spot. When she did, a high-pitched laugh echoed from her mouth. And that picture captured one of those moments.
Symone laughed out loud remembering her father's voice telling this story to her and her embrace from him softened. She needed to talk to her mother.
Ten minutes later, Symone was in her car on the road to her destination. The October air was crisp, so cold it cut like a knife. She couldn’t quite remember where the burial plot was and was immediately angry at herself for not bringing a heavier coat. She paced up and down three rows of marked names and memories of the southeast quadrant of the cemetery when she stumbled upon her name.
Anita Michelle Brooks. Loving Daughter, Mother and Wife.
Symone stopped in her tracks and starred at the marker for what seemed like hours, not saying anything, her mind devoid of thoughts. Her hands were buried in her jacket pockets while she rocked back and forth attempting to keep warm. Her long dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, ears exposed to the cold elements as well. There she was, just six feet below, the closest she would ever come. Her body was gone, all bones now. Her beautiful casket was empty of the spirit and liveliness that was previously her mother. Symone knew she wasn’t there, that speaking to the wind would not carry her voice to her ears. She knew sitting with her legs crossed, facing her marker would not fully mimic her eyes looking into hers, sharing an intimate mother-daughter moment. She knew removing the leaves and sticks with her hands would do no good, that new sticks and fallen leaves would soon adorn the space. But, she did it anyway. Symone spoke to her aloud. She talked to her because she needed her. She sat buried to the ground because she felt closer to her that way. She knew it sounded weird, speaking to an empty grave was always silly to her. She saw grieving characters on television, watched her brothers do it on occasion, but always saw this act as pointless, an act that bore no fruit and only made the grieving person feel worse than before. But the circumstances as of late--round the clock headaches, the failure and humiliation of being dismissed from school and her Dad introducing a stranger as his wife were all causes of the emptiness in Symone's heart. This emptiness had her acting in ways she was not accustomed to.
Symone and her father's conversation via phone a week before she was to come home was a shock. He was in love and asked a woman to marry him. Previous weekly conversations with him had not mentioned anything about dates, flowers, family dinners or that this woman had been slowly introduced to her family for the last 6 months. The adolescent dreams of having a mother was ever-present then. And now that dream of a mother’s touch was becoming a reality. But the expectation was far greater than the reality. Her Dad was remarrying but she didn’t want her. She didn’t know Symone. She decided to marry her father without being curious about what she was like and how thye would enter into each other’s life--loving the same man in different ways for different reasons. So, today, Symone needed her mother. She was the only woman she'd ever known to want her, love her, care for her and cherish her like she was fine China, a delicate flower waiting for her full bloom.
“I can’t get over it Mom,” Symone said out loud, tears stinging at my eyes, begging to be let out.
She quickly dabbed at her lower eye lids, forcing them away. She let out a strong, heavy moan, furious at herself. She was still seated on the cold ground, her knees to her chest now, arms tightly wrapped around her legs. She stayed in that position for some time and felt she could stay there for hours. She only moved to get up at the urgency of the grumbling of my stomach, reminding herself she left the house in such haste that she had not eaten. Symone rummaged through her purse looking for her cell phone.
1 Missed Call. Dad.
She turned to look back before she got into her car, thinking for a slight moment that her mother would be there. Her father's words revisited her thoughts as she started the car, grateful for the comfort of heat.
Symone, why do you run from your hurts instead of facing the pain?
She pushed those thoughts stubbornly from her mind, stopping to grab a bite to eat before making the trek home to meet her stepmother to-be.
