[ti]Invite[/ti]I Knew From The Song That You Sang

By the time Terra was finished with her song, she had a few bills inside the hat. Enough for lunch and dinner. Her uncle sent her money once a month and a birthday present, she assumed this would be a yearly thing. There were never any notes, just money. For her birthday this year, he sent the guitar. She wasn't sure if he knew she had no idea how to play. Having a guitar seemed so normal. Far too normal for a girl who had been in prison almost half her life.

The people continued to walk past her as she packed up her guitar, pocketing the money, and flipping her hat onto her head. She heaved the strap onto her shoulder and was about to walk down the pathway when she saw a boy looking in her general direction. He looked distressed, but she hadn't heard him say anything. Terra looked around at the people around her, but no one was going towards the boy. She looked at him again, there was definitely something wrong with him.

Moving from the sidewalk to the sand, she walked slowly towards him. The sand kicked up the back of her legs as she sunk slightly with each step. "Are you hurt?" she asked once she was close enough to talk to him, but still far enough away that he couldn't reach out and grab her.

WC: 234
TAG: Sloan Ios

"Ouch!" Terra winced, scrunching her nose. Putting her guitar down on the sand, she knelt down beside him.

"Stay still, I'll pee on your leg," she grinned, a playful twinkle in her eyes. Peeing on a jellyfish sting was always something someone said would help, but she knew they were wrong. They were on the right track of course, but still wrong. Terra opened her bag and stuck her hand inside, her arm going deeper than what the bag appeared to allow.

"I'm just kidding, that's actually a myth. Did you know?" Terra spoke, recounting the memory of her first time getting stung by a jellyfish. "My fos--, uh, family and I were at the beach last year and I got stung. My, uh, dad peed on my leg. It was gross and... traumatizing. It also didn't help. Thankfully, there was a doctor here at the time. He knew right away what was happening. It's pretty weird seeing a grown man peeing on a girl's leg in public. Anyways, he had..." Terra pulled out the tiny spray bottle she was looking for. "This."

"I don't know what it's called," she said noting the lack of labels on the clear blue bottle, "but it helped." Terra sprayed his leg. "He made it himself, he's some kind of scientist I think. He has a lab, so I guess that qualifies him for a scientist." Terra didn't usually talk this much to people she'd just met, but she could tell the boy was in a lot of pain. When she was stung, she could hardly speak it hurt so much. She didn't want to move or have anyone touch her leg. She would have paid someone to cut her leg off if that's what it took.

She smiled, "you should be good now, just rinse it off in the water and the tentacles will wash away by themselves."

WC: 319
TAG: Sloan Ios

Terra put away the spray as she stood up, adjusting the bag strap on her shoulder. Her guitar was still on the sand beside them. When the boy walked to the water, she looked around, unsure of what to do. She could just leave. There really was no other reason to stay. The guitar felt even lighter when she picked it up again, she wiped off the sand from the bottom before putting the strap over her head. It was right when she halfway turning around when the boy came back.

She shrugged, "yeah, no problem. Just be glad it was me and not some weird guy who thinks it's a good idea to pee on your leg." There was an awkward silence, Terra filled it up by nodding, giving him a small smile, and fidgeting with her fingers. "Riiiiight. So. Yeah. Good," she chuckled nervously. Terra had no problem talking to him earlier when she needed to help him. But now that the adrenaline of it all had faded, she was left vulnerable and open.

"Well, see ya. I guess." Terra turned and walked towards the sidewalk. Guys never talked to her, not unless they wanted something. They found her odd and her oddness, intimidating. It was clear this boy had no interest in her, either in trying to hook up or anything else. She was already a burden at her foster family's house. Terra bit her lip, going over the entire conversation with the boy in her head. There were a million other things she could say, could have said. She hated feeling like she wasn't wanted.

WC: 270
TAG: Sloan Ios

It was like a jolt of electricity. How one word could do so much, she didn't know. But as soon as she heard it, she quickly turned around, "Yeah?"

She was smiling far too wide for him to not have said anything else, yet. But the thought of perhaps actually connecting with someone here in District 4 was exciting and so badly needed. Aside from the scientist, she hadn't met anyone worth talking to or anyone who even paid her any attention. She was much too painfully shy to speak to people. She could play guitar in front of them, but to speak to them was a completely different story. Her fingers worked magic, her mouth, not so much.

She nodded, a little to eagerly, her heel bouncing her body up and down slightly.

"Thanks, yeah that was me. I can't believe you heard that from all the way over there. This is actually not great of a spot to sing because someone the wind will carry my voice the opposite way and people can't hear me unless they're standing right there," she was speaking much too fast now. It was when she took a break that she decided she had to stop while she was ahead. It was always like this with her. She had bursts. Either she was very quiet and awkward or very talkative and awkward. She was acting like a spaz and she knew it. But he had talked to her, even after she'd already started to leave. So maybe, just maybe, this would be okay.

Looking at Terra, most people wouldn't assume she was the way she was. But she'd spent most of her childhood in a prison hearing her parents and her brother's screams in the next cells. For 10 years, this was her life. Cements and bars and sounds of torture. She had no idea how to speak to other people, she'd lost all of that at the prison. She also didn't know how to be normal, how could she when her parents were shot in front of her by a firing squad?

"Sorry. Talking too fast..." she bit her lip and adjusted the strap on her shoulder again.

WC: 370
TAG: Sloan Ios

Her withering smile turned bright again. He had reacted to her so differently than most everyone she knew. They always told her to calm down, sit down, lay down, shut up, stay still. And when they weren't saying those things, they were saying, why so gloomy? What's wrong? Cat got your tongue? Are you deaf? Are you mute? Are you just plain stupid? They treated her like a child that needed to be controlled. And now, she had no idea how to control herself because everyone else had been doing it for her.

She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked down at her shoes, slightly sunk into the sand. She was still looking down when she began to speak.

"When I play, it's like I become someone else and no one at the same time. I'm not really good at anything, but it's like all of the sudden I can do this thing. It's like a spark on my finger tips. And people just walk by, sometimes they stop and listen. But when they look at me or hear me, it's not me they're seeing and hearing. I'm not Terra to them. I'm a girl who sings and plays guitar. I'm a girl who fits in the picture. Do you know what I mean?" She looked up at him now.

"You know those street paintings you see? Sometimes there's two people holding hands or a person with an umbrella. Or a person waking their dog. Or people having lunch at an outdoor restaurant. They're no one in particular. But they fit. Well, one time as I was walking down Main Street, I saw a painting of a street and there was a girl sitting on the sidewalk playing a guitar."

The sun was behind his head and she couldn't see the color of his eyes, but she didn't need to know the color. Those eyes were looking at her and that was all that mattered. Did he see her? Did he truly see her?

"Do you ever feel like that sometimes?" She asked. "Like you don't fit in the picture?"

WC: idk ...phone
Tag: Sloan Ios

So far, she'd met only two types of people in the world. Those who lashed out with their annoyance of her, and those who ignored her all together. This boy didn't fit into either of those two categories. She didn't know what category he fit in, which made her nervous. She wasn't sure how to act around him, but then again she'd just met him not more than ten minutes ago. She'd deviated from her normal routine and now she was talking to a boy about odd things that she wouldn't normally be talking about with anyone else.

Her body made her uneasy as she became painfully aware of herself. Aware of touching her calloused fingers against her knuckles. Aware of an inch on her side, right below her rib. Aware of the way her flip flops sank into the sand and bits of sand beneath her toes. She was aware of the heat, beating down on her skin like she was standing too close to fire. Aware of the way her eyes hurt when moved from under his shadow and the sun behind him beamed into her eyes. He made her so aware of her own self, like she was looking at the smallest pieces of her under a microscope lens, like the ones from the scientists's lab.

Change was something she didn't like. Not knowing was another thing she didn't like. As chaotic as her mind was, there was a method to it, there was a sort of organization inside her mind of truths and untruths. And this boy did not belong inside any truths or untruths. Her heart didn't beat quicker, instead it beat louder as if it were struggling to pump at a normal pace and it made up for it by sucking in and pumping out more blood with each pulse.

"I..." she needed an out, an exit. "Don't know what you mean. All I see is life in art." Music was art and music was her life. She poured her heart and soul into it, she poured her life into her songs. And when she saw paintings, she saw life in them. Mundane, boring, ordinary, sad, miserable, lonely, joyful, content life.

Her eyes moved away from him and at the people around them. Workers walking down the road carrying equipment. A woman with two children. Two boys throwing a flat disk to each other. These were all mundane things about life and she saw these in pictures. Or at least, she thought she did.

"Maybe," her lips closed and then opened before closing again, trying to gather her thoughts, "maybe we only see what we want to see, or what we expect to see."

Was it possible that this boy saw pictures in a different way that she did? Was it possible that her blue was not his blue? That her sky was not his sky? She still couldn't see his eyes, though she could feel them looking back at her. His eyes moving from left to right of her face, just as hers were moving from left to right of his. Perhaps different was good. Perhaps not belonging was good. Perhaps, she didn't need an out.



"I've been looking for you everywhere! You weren't in your apartment, I waited almost an hour," a voice called from behind Terra. The voice belonged to Hailey, her foster sister. "Mom and dad are pissed! Come on!" The girl pulled at Terra's arm.

Terra's eyes widened when she saw Hailey, her face frozen in shock. How did Hailey find her? What was she even doing here? Her gaze shot to the boy and her face flushed with embarrassment. Her insides melted and she wished more than anything that she could just disappear right now, but she also didn't want to leave just yet. They'd just met. But Hailey was already pulling her away. Terra took one last look at the boy before they disappeared behind a crowd of people.

WC: 668
TAG: Sloan Ios
NOTES: exit