Rainbow Fish

The bellowing of the creature outside my window wakes me from the pale faces of my dreams. My eyes slide open slowly to a lightening sky, the water around my head swirling silently. The bellow sounds louder now, dragging me to the window across my clothes littered floor. My curtains drift away from my fingertips as I swirl them through the water.

  There's a blue whale swimming between the apartment buildings, her powerful tail arching up and down smoothly and elegantly. Following her closely is a single calf, his movements sporadic and hyper as he swims around and around his mother's body. I watch the pair until they are out of sight, then I watch the schools of colorful fish as they swarm behind the mother and her baby's receding forms. 

Their colorful scales reflex rainbows onto my walls. I silently sway and spin under the casted lights, my soul shimmers in my heart and I smile quietly. My father used to hold me up and spin me around and around and we would dance together every time these fish cast their glow through the living room window.

I hear my mother leave for work, her heels clicking on the tile and the soft groan of the front door shutting. 

This makes me stop, my knees hit the carpet softly as I sink to the ground and just stare, tears blurring the colors into muddy stains in my eyes. Sadness weighing down my previously leaping soul.

The sun has finally cleared the horizon by the time I tear myself from the floor by my window and slip a t-shirt over my head and jeans onto my cold legs. My vans are worn and paint-splattered, but I still wear them every day despite my mother's begs to wear the cute little booties she bought months ago. Over it all, I slip on a black hoodie and with a swipe of mascara, I'm racing down the stairs to shovel a bowl of cereal into my stomach. 

Next comes the fun part, a race to the barnacle-covered school bus that ships me off to 8 hours of prison. 

With just enough time to make it, I run by my best friend apartment door and knock aggressively.

"Sadie! Sadie! Get down here now you barnacle butt!" I scream as I continue to beat at the door. Both of our parents have work much earlier so through the years it's become my responsibility, as the early riser, to wake her lazy butt up.

"Gosh Savy! I'm coming! Chill out! You're actin like a Bull Shark in a china cabinet!" She snaps as she sashays out the door, book bag in one hand and makeup bag in the other. 

We have... Exactly 5 minutes to run half-way across town now!" I begin panicking. 

"Well, Mrs. Track Star, you better start running! Cause I've got a ride with Benny, and so do you, if you wanna join us." She pairs this with a hair flip and a wink. My eyes roll back into my head subconsciously. My choices limited I pick the lesser of two evils.

Benny's bruise blue 1972 Chevrolet Nova rolls up outside the front door as we sit there shivering in the cold water. With a squeak and a hiss, it comes to a halt and he steps out of the car. 

Just looking at him you can tell Sadie and him are the perfect contrast to one another. Her waist-length black hair and his blonde curls, his warm brown eyes and her sharp blue, his dark shirt and jeans and her starfish pink skirt and white blouse.

"Come on clownfish! We're gonna be late!" Sadie yells from the car as I stand frozen, my limbs cold as ice. Sadie cuddles into Benny with a content sigh, he smiles and kisses her head. Bleh, I suddenly remember why I wanted to go on the bus instead. But then I see the fish again, their light cast down right at my feet, turning my vans into every shade imaginable and my clattering teeth stop, filling me with a kind of warmth. I step under their magnificent light and take a deep breath before trudging towards the car. 

I duck to slip into the back seat, the leather seats making me yelp, they're cold!

Benny and Sadie slip into the front and his car sputters to life, the radio blasting Benny and the Jets, the song he and Sadie met to and pushing hot water out of the vents into my awaiting blue-tinged hands. The heavy feelings are back, dragging my soul down into the dark depth of my heart. 

Benny's jokes, Sadie's laughter, and my quiet giggling fill the space not surrounded by the radio as his car moves smoothly down the road. 

Then, it happens again. But this time the swarm is double the size from earlier and casts it's glow as far as my eye can see in their rainbow glow. The picture of my mother in her wedding dress and my father in his suit, holding hands held up to the sky, eyes closed, cast under this rainbow glow fills my mind and brings tears to my eyes. Sadie gasps in awe and Benny's eyes widen in the rearview mirror. 

I push his sunroof open and stand, and with my arms wide, face upturned, water swishing past my ears tugging at my hair, and rainbows behind my eyelids, I laugh aloud, tears dripping from my eyes into the awaiting sky. Sadie looks shocked but laughs with me, then clamoring into the back seat she stands as well, weaving her fingers through mine. Then together we raise our arms, now entwined and laugh in unison. Benny drives down the road slowly, letting us savor this feeling. This feeling that overwhelms and drowns you in warmth, hits like a train yet cradles you as you fall into its welcoming arms, and kisses the tears off your face and tells you everything will be alright.

I miss you papa, but now I know you're here with me, and you didn't leave me to drown in my misery and despair. You left me to soar high above the raging seas of life and thrive.