Your story turns into a mix of crippling fear, disgusting panic, and bitter desperation as you lose control of who you are.
No one knows how to fight this grotesque monster called fear, or how to tame it or destroy it.
You play it by ear, since you’re still small, fresh, frightened, with not a pinch of wisdom in your body, and don’t know what to do.
And then you make a friend.
A good, loyal, kooky buddy who takes you places, and before you know it, your new friend––aka your unhingedimagination––rearranges things in your head, lending you a sense of power.
And that’s when real life begins.
LEILANI
Later that day
Sicily throbsin my blood with the force of Etna, the sweetness of plumeria, and the hypnotic movements of the breeze lifting off the Mediterranean sea.
Sicily has become the sister I’ve never had, the wild story I’ve fostered inside me, the beginning and the end of everything I’ve known over these two long years.
She’s quietly held my hand as I have grown into myself and watched me run up the dirt footpaths to the olive trees, where the birds, kittens, and butterflies miraculously live. Swallowtails, blues, whites, coppers, hairstreaks, and above all, Aurora dell’Etna, the one I treasure the most every time I see.
It must’ve been named after Rory––I always joke, because I love to see that beautiful girl laughing.
Aurora, my only real friend and sole respite I get from time to time, knows some of my secrets, my pains, my dilemmas, and my impossible quandaries.
She doesn’t have it in her to blink in resentment or pass judgment on me.She’s pure, flawless, and untarnished by the crazy life.
She’s also smart, accessible, and supportive.
A saint.
I may be as clever as she is, but every one of her other traits has skipped me entirely.
How does she do it? Putting up with me and never giving up?
The answer to that question is impossible to grasp.Honestly, I’d run for the hills if I had a friend like myself.
She says I’m fine, and she genuinely believes it.
Coming from her, it doesn’t sound like mockery or flattery, but in my world, it is the ultimate lie.
Fine is the last thing that I am.
I’m hard on a world that’s shaped me into a puzzling woman of sensual mysteries and dangerous excesses.
I’m depraved and irretrievable, knowing no limits and having no qualms with doing immoral things. Nothing is too maddening, unlikely, or extravagant for me.
I live outside the lines more than inside them, and my vile nature matches my ferocity.
I’m like a butterfly, a flower, a dream with only a few seconds, hours, or maybe a long night ahead of me to live before the summoning of death comes.
I’mthatvolatile and intense. And then I’mworse.
My life is like the sea. Broad, limitless, hugging the sky and punishing those souls who dare to sail my waters while wrestling with my moods.
Moving from silent and comforting at one moment to seething with fury and hungry for revenge at the next.
Carving out nooks in my shallow conscience to bury the ghosts of their wrecked ships without remorse.
