Taking Laura by Vi Carter

Author:Vi Carter [Carter, Vi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LAURA

I LOVE MATH. Trying to figure out the equation keeps me busy for hours. It didn’t make me good at it, but I love it. The puzzle of x and y, trying to see it from different angles, it gave me a thrill.

“Laura, look at my hair.” I turned to Violet, who stood in my bedroom, her white dress scuffed from grass stains. Her face stained with mascara from the tears that still fell. Her hair, a mass of long brown curls, hung around her shoulders. White splotches in her hair had me standing up and walking towards my sister. She held a strand out to me. “Look what he did,” her sobs poured into her hands now.

I took her in my arms. She held on tight. “Who did this?” I asked. But I knew. When she didn’t answer, I spoke, “Dad?” She nodded while crying. My fingers went to the clump of chewing gum buried in her curls. I took her hand and she let me lead her to my desk where she sat.

My fingers pulled strands of sticky, clumpy mess. It didn’t take long to see how useless this was. She had seven different areas that he had put chewing gum in, all on the right side of her head. The stains on her dress and the red marks on her arms told me she had fought him. She would; Violet was so strong, yet like now, at these horrible moments, I could see he was breaking her over and over again. I feared that one day I might not be able to fix my sister. I swallowed my own emotions.

“What did you do?” I asked as I searched for my comb, needing something to distract me briefly. She had stopped crying now as anger took over.

“I spat chewing gum out on the tarmac the other night.”

I wasn’t surprised at his brutal punishment. It was how things happened in our home. I returned with the comb. This wasn’t going to work, she knew it, and I knew it. But I had to try and save her hair. It was her trademark. It’s what made Violet, Violet.

“Violet,” I said softly, meeting her eyes in the mirror that hung on the wall. She nodded as a tear fell. The first lock floated to the ground; it was the beginning of the end. I just didn’t know it then.

I had to cut close to her head. I didn’t mention the chunk that he had pressed firmly into her skull. I cried silently as the last curl fell.

“You’re still beautiful, Vi.” I told my sister. She sobbed into her hands. A shaky hand ran across her tight hair and she cried louder as she felt the chunk that was stuck to her skull. Her eyes met mine, hers bloodshot, but a fire still burned there and that’s what counted. No matter how painful this was, she couldn’t give up. It was selfish of me, but I couldn’t’ do this without her. She was the one who made me laugh when I wanted to cry.

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