Counting Paths

Chapter 11.

Sterling's bedroom matches her personality. The walls are the same color as her door: blue, but she's covered most of them with Christmas-themed wrapping paper. The south wall is yellow, filled with drawings of monster flowers. One appears to be a snake sunflower, another is a turtle with a forest on its shell. There's a drawing of three yellow roses with arms and legs beating up a tv that makes me laugh. The north wall is purple and is covered with little scraps of paper with quotes on them. The east wall has orange wrapping paper. It's decorated with what looks like love notes, movie stubs, keychains, Polaroids of places like the woods and the beach and a house and even one of a junkyard, handmade bracelets and dolls, necklaces, and drawings of people. They're all old, coated with dust, and the papers are yellowing with age. The west wall is green. This wall is darker than the others. There are photos of anime characters that are either crying or dying or screaming in agony and fear or it's just as simple lying there dead. The anime characters along with the haunting drawings of girls crying and screaming and other things that genuinely worry me.

"Ready," Sterling sighs, closing the last box. She packed up all her books and toys she used to decorate them and stuffed characters.

I pick up the box. "Are you sure that's everything?" I ask her.

She shrugs. "Everything that I want with me."

"Let's go."

We step out of her room and find Arleen waiting by the front door. "Please, just come back," she begs Sterling. "He won't say a word to you. He only stays in his room."

Is she fucking serious?

"Let's just go," Sterling mutters. She opens the front door and walks out.

"Is she fucking serious?!" I call after her as I follow her. We walk to the car. She opens the back door for me and I put the box next to the rest of them. "Is she fucking serious?" I ask again because I genuinely want to know the answer.

She shakes her head. "Can we just go home now?"

Home. My house is her home now because her first home is no longer safe. "Let's go." I open her door and she quickly jumps in.

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I make a stop at Dairy Queen. Sterling doesn't say anything, she doesn't complain. She gets a large cup of mint chocolate chip and I get a summer blizzard drumstick with peanuts. We find a table in the window and eat there.

She plays with her ice cream for a few minutes at first, then begins to shove big spoonfuls in her mouth rapidly.

"Slow down," I tell her.

She freezes mid-bite. After a long pause, she lowers her hand. "Thank you for today."

"You don't have to thank me."

"Is it true? Does she know he hit me?"

"He brought her flowers with a note saying he was sorry and he won't do it again."

She nods, staring out the window. "I lost my favorite books when the homeless woman stole my shit. Do you think we can go today to replace them?"

She wants to get books? "Uh, yeah."

She looks at me. "Thanks...again."

"You don't have to thank me," I repeat.

The rest of the day went by surprisingly smoothly. Sterling and I went to Barnes and Nobles where a new light was added to her eyes and a sense of happiness brightened her face. We first got the books she lost then we walked around for well over an hour just looking at other books-well, she did, I just followed her around carrying her books. I watched her carefully. She seemed better, like what happened with her mother never happened. Her smiles and laughs weren't forced. When she spotted a book that made her squeal, she would excitedly give me a quick summary of it, then she laughed and apologized for geeking out.