SerenityBy NeoUsako
Note: Serenity is *not* fanfic, do not copy or reproduce in any way, shape or form without my permission. Arigatou!
Thank you to the Sailor Moon Hideaway for "Kaze Mo Sora Mo Kitto"...
Chapter I
She was finally getting out of there. Out of the place where she had spent four years being abused, degraded and demoralized on as many levels as there were blades of grass on a field. She entered this thought with mixed feelings. She was leaving the bastard who had done all of this to her, but she was also leaving the one person who had been with her her whole life-- her mother. Her parents divorced when she was only eight, and she had not been allowed to see or talk to her father since then, so there was no relationship between them any more. He knew nothing about her and she remembered nothing about him. It was her mother, though, that had stayed with her this whole time, from the time she was born until now. She wanted to leave the situation more than anything in the world, but she didn't want to leave her mother. Sitting in the car being driven to the airport, she had this feeling within her like her heart was made of glass and it had just shattered into millions of tiny pieces, cutting her insides unrecognizably.
"Serenity," her mother said as they were driving to break the silence.
"Yes, Mom?" she said, ready to cry.
"I love you, remember that."
Serenity couldn't help it. Warm salty tears found their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She didn't want to cry! She wanted to be strong, and she definitely was not showing it. She sat up straight and looked out the window, hoping to distract herself, or at least to not make her mother cry too. She had no idea when she was ever going to see her mother again. It hurt Serenity so badly to have to leave, but she knew she would die if she didn't.
She was on her way to the local airport because she was being sent to live with her father. This for a moment raised concerns. What if he's not like he used to be? What is he like, anyway? Will I recognize him? Will I get along with him? What's my stepmom like? Will I get along with her? All these thoughts ran through her head at a million miles a second. Her father had become a stranger to her over the course of the years, and this somewhat concerned her.
At the airport, her mother told her how much she was going to miss her and how much Serenity really meant to her, all of which was not helping Serenity make the adjustment. Not to mention the fact that she was leaving every single friend she had. She would be living several states away and she knew that contact with them all would be rare, if even existent. The only ones who had really been there to support her these years were being taken away from her. That hurt Serenity just as badly as leaving all of the family she knew.
All in all, Serenity was hurting pretty badly. Tears trailed down her cheeks from her pretty green eyes, and a sigh escaped from her delicate lips. Her long auburn hair fell in front of her face as she hanged her head, hoping to hide from the world, wishing, pleading for the pain to stop. The agony of leaving everyone she knew, everyone she cared about behind was getting to be too much. Inside her mind, she was screaming, begging for it all to end. She wanted to die right then and there. But something even deeper within her told her to hang on, and that everything would be alright. This unknown feeling of security was the only thing keeping her sane. She stood strong and awaited whatever Fate had in store for her.
The car finally parked at the airport parking lot. Serenity hesitated. There was still a chance she didn’t have to leave her friends! But she knew better than that. She knew this was the opportunity to be free from pain and fear forever. She knew she had no choice than to get on that plane, flight 1247, Spirit Airlines. She took a deep breath and opened the car door. She gathered her ticket and paperwork and stepped out, going quickly to the trunk of the aged copper 1984 Chrysler LeBaron. Now, despite all of her fear of change, she wanted to get it over with. She hastily retrieved the luggage from the trunk and started walking to the airport terminal. She and her mother did not speak much; they were both too busy thinking about the difficult changes ahead.
Serenity’s mother, more than anything in the world, didn’t want her daughter to leave. She had vowed many times that her husband would change and he would no longer hurt them. Since that effort failed, she was now forced to part with her younger daughter in the same painful way that she was forced to part with her older daughter. Now she was losing both of her children to the same abusive man. Serenity, on the other hand, was more concerned with what lay ahead for her rather than the past. Right now, the past didn’t matter to her. On her mind were questions of where, and how, and who, and when. She tried thinking about the life she was going to have in three hours. She thought about how she might get along with her stepmother, what she looked like, what her dad looked like after all this time, how she would get along with the dog (she had not been around dogs much in her life), and questions about the general state her life would be in once it got to a completely different environment. Needless to say, she knew she needed some intense care, or as a friend had put it “Miracle-Gro for the soul”, and she needed it desperately. She wondered if she would be too mentally, physically and emotionally ill for her new family to handle. She wondered if her boyfriend would remain loyal to her. She wondered if she would do well in her new life, or if she would just shrivel up and die. Mostly, she wondered how to make herself shut up; she was making herself more nervous than prepared.
Once they were in the airport, they silently milled about the terminals until they got to security checkpoints. Since it was so soon after September 11th, security at this particular airport was very tight. Her bags had to go through a complete check, including her carry-on, and she had to step through the metal detector. After they passed security (although she swore that officer gave her a suspicious look), they eventually found the terminal they were looking for. They sat together in the hard plastic seats and said nothing for a few minutes, both staring out the large glass window at the darkening sky. Finally her mother spoke.
“I know this is going to be very hard for you, but this is what’s best. I wish for nothing but the best for you, and I hope you can forgive me for all the bad choices I’ve made.” She paused, wiping away tears. “I want you to know that I love you and that this is your chance to have a good life.”
“Mom…I’m going to miss you so much…”
“I know, and I’m going to miss you too, believe me I will. But you’ve…you’ve got to get out there and give it a shot at having the best life you can. Do you have the cameo I gave you?”
“Yes.” Serenity pulled the cameo out from under her shirt. It was a pink cameo set in a gold heart with the elegant profile of a beautiful young lady in it, on a delicate gold chain.
“Good. Keep that cameo near and I won’t be far by either.” She instinctively gave Serenity a big, teary hug.
The intercom broke the hug. “Now boarding, flight 1247, Spirit Airlines, Fort Myers to Chicago, now boarding flight 1247, children and seniors first. General admission will be called later.”
“Go on. I’ve already cleared it with the ticket people; you can board now. I told her you are on your first flight alone and are nervous and she understood.”
Serenity managed a weak “thank you” as she stood up and gathered her bags. This was the moment of truth. This was the moment she’d been waiting for: when she’d no longer have to come to a house filled with fear and control. She walked down the red carpet heading toward the terminal, got her ticket cleared, and took one final look back at her mother as she headed into the airplane terminal. She felt like she was being ripped into pieces, painfully, bit by bit. Her eyes filled with tears as she continued walking down the terminal that seemed like it would never end. She had to stop and wipe her tears occasionally, since there were so many of them she couldn’t see to walk. She hated to leave, especially under these circumstances. It was so hard leaving the only one who had been with her for her whole life. But now she was, finally. She was now going to live in a totally different place with a totally different family. She could not get out of it now.
She found the seat mentioned on her ticket and placed her carry-on bag under the seat, making sure to grab a book before she did so. She settled down and thought of all the changes she was about to face as she watched the lights of the Fort Myers Airport go by underneath the plane. No more abuse, no more rape, no more lies, no more control, no more paranoia. She was free of all that. Now she had to free herself from the uncertainty of the future—ah, how she hated uncertainty! Serenity was the kind of person who needed stability and security in order to feel at peace. Right now, she was hovering in mid-air—how stable is that? As soon as she got to her new home, she would feel much better, she concluded. In the meantime, she theorized, she would probably drive herself crazy thinking about it, so she decided to finish reading a book that had been given to her by the Department of Children and Families when the latest incidents had arisen. She’d been meaning to finish it, and to take her mind off everything, then seemed the perfect time. She read of unicorns and vampire bats and fanciful tales of a faraway land. It was perfect—pure fantasy reading to get her mind totally away from reality.
Three hours later, the plane landed in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Serenity gathered her carry-on bag and waited patiently for the others to leave. Following the other passengers out of the terminal, she was simply awed by how big and beautiful it was. She had never seen an airport that actually took some concern of its appearance before. Serenity started to become worried again. What if they’re not there? What if they don’t find me? What if I don’t recognize them? What if I get lost? She nervously stepped on the escalator down, unsure that she was even going the right way. Suddenly, she saw her sister, Jennifer, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Relief! Serenity knew her sister very well and the newly discovered fact that she was there comforted Serenity immensely. She gave Jennifer a big hug and looked to her right… to see her father again for the first time in seven years. Time had certainly gotten to him, but he still looked basically the same. The question was, did he recognize her? Her father had been gone during the most physically formative years of her life. The expression on his face was one of both gratefulness and shock. He apparently hadn’t realized how much she had grown up until just then. Serenity looked back at Jennifer, gave her and her father a hug, and went with them to collect the rest of her luggage. She found this a rather odd experience, being as she was walking with a total stranger she was supposed to live with, a stranger who she had not talked to in many years. She remembered nothing about him except his face. I guess I’ll have to learn, she thought. She silently walked with them to the luggage claim area, gathered her scattered bags, and walked out with them to the car.
The moment she got outside, she noticed that it wasn’t that cold, despite the warnings from her family. There’s snow on the ground! Cool! she thought as she looked around at the small piles of snow laying on the ground in icy patches. She was certainly not used to snow, having lived for nine years in southwest Florida and never experiencing temperatures lower than 40 F. Yet another thing to get used to, she added mentally. She continued walking with her family until they got to the car, a small black two-door that blended in with the night. One more thing to get used to! She had never used a two-door for any length of time. Her father opened the trunk for her, and as he did so she noticed that the trunk was disproportionately large, which came in handy tonight with all her baggage. She didn’t carry just physical baggage, but emotional baggage as well, although that was locked up deep inside of her, hoping never to escape. She often denied it was even there. What had happened to her was something that just happened and she shouldn’t try to make sense of it or feel emotion related to it because there were simply too many other things to take care of, in her rationale. She felt she should focus on surviving, and think about the horrors of her past at a later time. Right now, for her, there were too many other things to adjust to to even begin to process the events which sent her here.
The drive was long and uneventful. She could not see much outside, since it was nearing ten o’clock, and since she didn’t know her father that well any more, she didn’t have a whole lot to talk to him and her sister about at the moment. She sat in the cramped back seat and thought the whole time, thinking about her mother and her future, how uncertain it was. She had no idea what the house she would be living in was like. This left room in her terrified little mind for all sorts of possibilities. Does he still drink? What’s my stepmom like? Will I get along with her? What will happen if I don’t? Will I get kicked out of here too? Who or what else is living there? What if I don’t like dogs? How am I going to tolerate Shadow if that is the case? What if the cat hates me? What if I hate the c…no, that can’t happen. I love cats. Are they strict or lenient? Will I make new friends? What about all my old ones? What am I going to do? Too much can go wrong; I’m worried.
They finally arrived, at least an hour later, at the apartment complex where her father and stepmother lived—her new home. Serenity’s sister simply came along to help their father spot Serenity and to give Serenity comfort, since it had been so long since they saw each other and Serenity had certainly physically, mentally, and emotionally changed since then. At the parking lot, Serenity and Jennifer parted with a long hug, and Serenity followed her father to the building where they lived. He opened the outer door which led into the hall and motioned for her to turn to her right. He unlocked the door to Apartment 1B and Serenity was the first to enter. Cautiously, she stepped in.
Chapter II
She was immediately greeted by the dog, Shadow, who was wagging her tail in sheer delight at a visitor. Somehow, Shadow seemed to know Serenity was going to be a permanent addition, and immediately started treating Serenity as one of the pack, letting Serenity rub her belly before she had even put her luggage down.
