forenote → // the year was 2013 and I had no friends. I wrote constantly, my fingers never resting. The amount of research I did would never be enough. The amount of words I wrote would be never be counted.

// This is a story I wrote at the age of 11 — filling up an entire notebook front and back with 185 pages of one whole story.

. . . this is Inner Armor . . . //

• I N N E R • A R M O R •

   • pg • 50 • If I would've known how my father would react, I might've not come home at all. His face reddened, lips pursing, suppressing what I knew to be rage. I shut the front door without looking.

“Where have you been?” he asked, arms crossed.

I shrugged. “School.”

My father's lip twitched — his mustache nearly as colorful as his face. I could see the fury and tension building in his shoulders.

He let out a breath. “Your second period teacher called me to inform that you didn't show up to any other period after her class. Care to inform where the hell you've been, Carmen?”

A flash of agitation crossed my features. “Apparently people like to get in my business.”

“Your business is mine, young lady!” he shouted.

My eyebrows lifted in disbelief. After years of him moping around — from drinking, to unemployment and rage — he still felt as if he had the right to speak to me that way. My lower lip trembled with suppressed anger, my breathing gaining labour as I tried my hardest to control it. He hasn't cared about me since I was seven. My face must've showed my thoughts, because a crack popped in his angry man shield.

“Don't look at me like that, Carmen,” he said.

I groaned. “Dad I was in the hospital! You didn't even come to see me. I was passed out and you were too worried about your stupid fucking girlfriend to come and see me. How dare you.”

I stomped away. My fingers shook and I could feel a rage inside of me pushing against the seal on my heart. A pang hit my chest. As I reached my bedroom door, color and words flashed across my vision. Dark. Blood, so much. Mommy, please! Don't leave me. Don't leave me with Sapphire. Stop. Blue. Blue. Green and yellow. Purple. Grey and black and blue and yellow and white . . .

And then I was out the window, crawling through the open entry of my neighbors.

“Zack? Are you here?” I asked shakily.

Within a moment, a head popped out from their closet. I watched as Zack wildly pulled himself out of his dirty and wrecked closet space, his eyes zeroed in on the slight quiver of my fingers and clench of my jaw. Without any words, his large hands placed themselves on my cheek — the tension in my shoulders relaxed as he smoothed the frown lines and temple. Dark, brooding spheres stared back at me. From those small holes I could see a million things. A hundred emotions. A thousand songs.

But only one boy.

“Tell me.”

The left corner of my mouth lifted in a horrible half smile, oozing false happiness.

“You've always been so rough around the edges,” I chuckled. “You never change.”

Zack apparently didn't find my joke funny. He wasn't an ordinary person — but then again, neither was I. We were well loved by most. At school our names were well know. We were another king and queen to our high school, and yet there was something behind closed doors that no one but us could see. Each of us were broken — shattered in some way. But when we were alone there was no way to mask anything in the others eyes.

It was as if our souls were bare naked to one another.

“What happened?” he asked, gentler this time. As if I were glass.

I let out a breath in the silence after. “Avin. My dad.”

Zack nodded, as if to tell me to go on.

“When we skipped class, he found out. And now he's suddenly acting like he cares. You and I know he doesn't, Zack. He's pretending. But I don't know why!” I groaned and buried my face in my hands. Two larger hands grasped my tiny palms, pulling them to the space above his heart.

As I felt the blood pulsating under his skin, his clothing, my lips closed and I was pulled into an embrace. His hair prickled my chin, but I ignored this in place of feeling the soft touch of his hands rubbing my lower back, or his steady breathing that synced with my own laboured lungs. Zack was the only one who could help me when I started to become that way. Just a whisper from his lips and I'd be enticed like mad. Our relationship went above and beyond any human comprehension. We were something far more complex and otherly.

But still the only tangible thing was our human bodies, anchoring us to this earth.

•   •   •

   “It keeps happening,” I murmured.

There was a distinct silence between Zackary and I. As my palms buzzed with energy, his eyes shut in defeat. No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, it would reach down into my soul and force itself out of my body.

“Carmen . . .you can't let her win.”

I let out a deep breath. “I don't know,” I whispered.

Zackary let go of me, his fingers lingering on my hips. I watched his dry lips press together into a thin line — he was preparing himself to see her. It was something that haunted me since my accident. After I fainted, I woke up with the power of fire. My hands could bring a flame. My eyes could blaze an entire forest. But in exchange for me to use my abilities, I had to sacrifice my conscious and let her control me.

“Don't let her take over,” he mumbled. “You are in control.”

I stood up from the bed and felt my chest expand — I cleared my thoughts and closed my eyes. A chill raked my spine, a bony cold finger seemingly pluck my arteries.

My eyes flashed open.

“Release!”

•  •  •

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