One Year

It was too soon to return to her apartment. Too soon to be greeted to her graying kitchen and her tousled bed, probably with blankets still strewn on the floor from the last sleepy morning she'd awoken there, one year ago.
One year ago when her father had knocked on the door, crisp and professional as always, face revealing nothing. But his fist clenched around a rolled up newspaper does.

LOCAL GIRL REVEALS STAGED MURDER

a gulp, a slammed door, and clothes hastily shoved in a bag. And then goodbye. 

One year wasn't enough time to distance herself from that apartment and those girls. 

But the shady, green forrest that stretches its trunks and branches tall into the sky is shelter enough from that town.

There's nothing here but the rhythm of wind and leaves falling and sticks cracking apart. And the smell of a retreating spring shower.

And then, suddenly, a rainbow is raining across the woods to an unknown spot behind boulder. It whispers something unknown.
She knows she should go back to see those she left behind. Timma, Noel. 

But, one year isn't enough time to return to a town that sees your hands covered in blood. But one year is enough time to realize its time for something new.

sprint past the forrest

see that rainbow? it calls you

to journey forward