The Girl

I was only thirteen years old the day I died. Tragic, I know. But the truth is, I didn’t feel much of anything.

I was laying high on the branches of the old oak tree behind my family home. There was a storm rolling in and I had the best view. A view so mystifying that I never saw the strike coming.

The doctors told me my heart stopped for over ten minutes. The medical team had already declared me dead.

Not only did I come back to life, but I came back to life with full brain function. “A medical miracle.” Everyone keeps telling me.

The lightning strike hit me right in the chest. A spiderweb scar now covers the region. It’s kind of neat, I suppose. A defining characteristic. A standout from the rest of the adolescent girls in my classes.

My mom picked me up from the hospital two day earlier than expected. To be honest, I think it was because I was driving the staff bonkers. Laying in the bed all day was agonizing. Even more so with doctors and nurses fretting over me. Making decisions to run more tests. Taking more blood.

I knew they would not find anything wrong with me, though. I felt more alive than ever. Just, different. Awakened.

I was bursting with energy on the ride home. I watched the subdivisions of the city began to ebb and green fields, cattle and barns appear. Home was close.

It was a few weeks before the end of the school, 1995. Summer had made an early appearance that year and temperatures were already scorching. The humidity was out of control as we entered the sleepy town. There was a permanent rain cloud that seemed to have gotten stuck over Choudrant, Louisiana. Fog and mist had plagued the terrain for weeks.

The sun was trying to grace us with its forgotten presence as we pulled into the long, winding dirt driveway to the house. There was one thing I knew certain at that moment; I had to get to the woods before the dreadful rain returned to ruin everything. I needed to run.

I bolted out of my mom’s car as she waved goodbye. She had to go back to work, as always. My mom was the hardest working woman I have ever known, and we rarely got to hang out during the week.

I entered our run-down, tattered house. It was old and smelled of mildew from the leaks in the roof. The floorboards creaked under my feet. It was only a matter of time before they gave way, and someone was bound to get injured.

I changed out of the clothes from the hospital in one fell swoop and put on some old outside clothes. Much better, I thought. I was ready to head out the door, but not before grabbing a snack.

The fridge was bare of anything snack worthy for a teenage girl. So, I grabbed a slice of processed cheese and headed towards my sacred spot in the woods behind our house. Maybe there would still be some blackberries left to snack on. If the deer had not cleaned them out. They were my favorite after all.

I took off in a sprint towards the foot trail that led into the wood line. The trail head been there for many decades. The land we lived on had been in the family for years. Generations of children had run through the same trails. Free and careless like myself.

The run was exhilarating. I loved to run. It released a sense of freedom and wildness inside me. Especially after being caged in the confinement of the hospital for the past few days. My body was sore from the lightning strike, yes, but I didn’t care. I ran so fast; I was sure I would pass out before getting to my destination.

The smell of fresh, wet leaves and pine filled my nose. The woods were dense and alive with every hue of green imaginable. Branches reached out to me. Welcoming me into the depths of the wilderness. It was like a fairy tale.

The trail went for a mile into the wilderness and thinned out along the border of a marshy basin. Fog crept off the water. The fog was thick and gave me goose bumps. An uneasy feeling swept over me. There was something eerie about the fog. I always ran a little faster through this area.

The trail came to an end at a pipeline. To get to my favorite spot, I had to follow the pipeline for another half mile until I reached the border of the abandoned field.

Marking the border was a worn-out barbed wire fence where I entered the field by sliding underneath. I headed toward the bubbling brook that cascaded over clay earth and mud and followed it until the location where it bled over into a swim hole. The hole contained the coldest water in all of Louisiana, I swear it. And it was all mine.

The field was once full of life and cows only a few years ago. The owners never caught me on their property, but if they had, they probably wouldn’t have cared. They were an elderly couple who grew old and passed a few years after I made the field a part of my childhood. Their cattle were sold, and the field was abandoned shortly after.

Apparently, the couple had no family; or their family didn’t care enough about the property to preserve it. The once meticulously kept grass, now grew taller than me and was thick with briars and thistles. The field became a playground for me and Robert, my only friend.

It was quite odd how we met all those years ago. I was in my field, diddling around, chasing cows. What better was there to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the heat of summer? Watch baseball on TV with the rest of the family. Nah, that wasn’t for me.

I had been running around all afternoon and it was time for a good swim. It had rained the day before and the water was cool and delightful. I threw a few rocks in to scare off the spring critters that were frolicking around all crazy. Especially the snakes. I hated snakes.

I undressed down to my skivvies and jumped into the swimming hole that was over my head from the spring rains, submerging myself. I was lying on my back and looking up at the sun when a voice came out of nowhere.

“You know, if I were you, I wouldn’t be swimming in there with no clothes on. Snakes are bad this year.” The voice came from a face I had never seen before, and I knew everyone that lived in the surrounding area.

He was a tall boy, dressed in nothing but a pair of cut off blue jeans. His skin was bronze from too much sun. In his hands he held a cane pole and a bucket.

I hid myself under the water, but it made no matter. In the spring, the creek was as clear as bathtub water from all the rain. “Who are you and how long have you been standing there watching me?”

The boy smiled. It was a very mischievous but welcoming smile. “I heard some splashing, and I was hoping it was fish, but now I have to say I am glad it isn’t,” the boy’s smile grew bigger.

I was intrigued by his crooked smile and the tiny gap in his teeth. Even more so by his big doe brown eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. “You know, I suppose it is too hot for fishing. I think a dip sounds like a much better idea.” Before I could turn away, his shorts were kicked off and he was diving into the water.

That is how something magical started. I learned that day that the strange boys name was Robert. His mother had moved him and his younger brother from Mississippi. They were living in the old shack through the woods from my house.

Robert and I were inseparable that summer and have been ever since. He was eleven when I met him, two years older than me and had lived a life of a grown man. His father was a terrible drunk and had done bad things to Robert and his mother. The scars were all over Robert’s face.

Aside from the beatings, his father also made Robert work in the cotton fields to help take care of his family. Robert had been working in the fields since he was seven years old. His hands were rough and callused.

One day, after receiving a broken nose, Roberts’s mother had enough. While her husband was sleeping off a heroine bender, she packed up a small suitcase of clothes, money she had been hiding from her husband and her two children. They took off in the run down twenty-year-old family car and drove as far as a tank of gas would get them. By fate, they ended up in Choudrant, Louisiana. The quietest little town in all of northern Louisiana.

Robert’s mother changed her and her children’s last names so their father could not find them. She got a night job as a waitress at the local diner up the road and started a new life for her, Robert and his 8-year-old brother.

Robert had not been in school for a few years, but being a small community, the school allowed him to start in his prospective grade. He had trouble with school since it had been so long. But I was a natural-born nerd who did not have to try to get good grades. So, I helped him catch up.

Robert was in the grade above me, so we rarely saw one another at school, but we rode the bus together and spent the hours after school attached at the hip. We were inseparable. Robert became my best friend. The person I trusted most in the world.

I hadn’t seen him since the lightning strike. Roberts’s family car had broken down weeks ago and there was no extra money to fix it. But I didn’t care. I did not want Robert to see me in a state like that, anyway. I had tubes in me, and it was not a pretty sight.

I was bursting at the seams to see him as I entered the field. It was Saturday, so I knew he would be there waiting for me. He had probably been waiting for hours. The highlight of our weekends was to hang out with one another.

I crossed the field in more of a trot than a run. I had gassed out long before. I headed toward the water hole to look for Robert, but he was not there. I called his name. No answer. I looked around the field for a bit. No sign of him. There was only one more place to check. His house.

It’s not that his mother bothered me, she was quite nice, but there was so much grief and despair in her. She rarely smiled and the scars that covered her body were hard not to look at.

I had only been around her a handful of times. Robert avoided her too. Most of the time we were outside or at my house. Robert loved his mother, but she rarely spoke to or played with her children. Most days she slept until it was time for her to work.

The lawn to the old shack looked worse than ever. The grass was tall. The garden area was overgrown. Robert plants vegetables every year and they always turn out perfect. He would bring tomatoes, cucumbers, and salt to our meeting place during the summers. There was nothing better than fresh vegetables on a hot, summer day.

The garden bed was overgrown as though nothing had been planted in years. This was odd. Also, the family car had vines crawling up the sides and onto the roof. How long had it been parked there? A couple of weeks? Nothing made sense.

I made my way up the rickety stairs onto the front porch. The wood planks were rotted with termites, Robert really needed to fix that. He had been talking about it for months.

I put my ear to the door to make sure I was not interrupting anything, but there was only silence. Were they all sleeping? Sick maybe? I gave the door a quiet tap and waited patiently. I could hear someone walk across the floor towards the door. Roberts’s mother answered in a bath robe. She looked years older since I had seen her only last month. There were dark bags under her eyes, and she seemed worse off than ever. Immediately I knew something was wrong.

“Good afternoon Mrs. Dawson.”

“Natalie?” She seemed surprised to see me, almost startled. She covered her mouth and tears filled her eyes. Weird. Maybe she was just glad to see I survived.

“I just got back from the hospital, and I was looking for Robert, he wasn’t in our usual meeting place. Is he home?”

Was it anger or confusion that crossed her face? It was hard to tell. I had clearly offended her. She sat in the doorway staring at me. A silence that lingered for far too long before I finally broke it.

“Miss Dawson? Is everything alright?” I was confused. Had something happened to Robert, and she was dodging telling me? I started to panic. When I panic, I fidget. I pulled on my fingernails. Say something! I wanted to yell at her.

“Is Robert ok?” I blurted. That's not what I meant to say. Clearly, she was in distress, but I had to know.

Her face grew angry. Revulsed. “Are you playing games with me girl? Is this a sick joke?”

“What? No. I am sorry to disturb you. I just hadn’t seen Robert since before my accident and I missed him. I will come back tomorrow.” I turned to make my exit off the porch. For a second, I thought about running. Had she lost all her marbles? Finally gone crazy. What was she capable of doing?

“Wait,” she called to me. I cringed before turning around. Crap. I turned to face her. “You are serious, aren’t you? You really have no idea what happened.”

What in the hell was going on? Now I was really confused. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Robert and his brother died the same night you got struck by lightning, Natalie.”

“What?” No. How come no one told me? I was at a loss of words. How was this possible? We were invincible. Weren’t we just running wild through the woods only last week? How could he be dead?

I felt limp, like I could crawl under a rock and never come out. I tried to fight back the tears, but that is next to impossible for a thirteen-year-old girl who just discovered the one person she loved more than anything would never take another breath.

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. Will there be a funeral or memorial?”

“Natalie, you were at the funeral with your mom. Don’t you remember? It’s been 4 years.” Mrs. Dawson moved closer. She reached for me. Now concerned.

No. I didn’t remember. I slowly backed away off the porch watching Robert’s mother cautiously. Avoiding her touch. What kind of game was she playing with me?

I took off in a sprint. The run back through the woods was a blur. My heart was pounding. The bright vivid colors had turned into a dull gray. I ran and ran. As though running would cure the sickness that I felt. There was a loud ringing in my head. I had to get home. A wave of dizziness was coming over me.

My house appeared on the horizon, and I just ran. Within feet of the front porch, I collapsed. Everything around me seemed to be dancing in circles.

I was yelling for my mom who was pulling into the drive from work, but she didn’t seem to hear me. The door was so close. I got back to my feet and took a few more steps when I saw her.

The girl at the table doing her homework in my home. The stranger who dressed like me. Looked like me.

The stranger was no stranger at all. It was me. Only, around 4 years older.

Everything went black.