Thought Catalog - Cicada, Ladybug (Chapter 20, The Finale) lyrics

On the Greyhound stopped at a red light, the coldness from the window bleeds through my gauze, through the wound on my left cheek, and into my mouth, tingling my teeth. The cool drools me numb like Novacane. I roll the entire side of my face against the pane and whimper. Then I smack my forehead against it. The entire frame shudders. “You okay, honey?” asks the lady across the aisle. I peel my face from the window to gape at her. Noticing the swelling of my left cheek and the bandage on it the color of rust, she gulps and sits back against her bus seat. Left alone again, I drag my sight from her to the aisle seat beside me – what sits on it are our only possessions now: the bag of clothes from the Honda trunk and the backpack with Darth Vader on it. Vader makes my throat thick. Vader makes me want to shout to stop thinking. So I plop my palm onto his plastic picture and scoot the backpack forward, until the last strap slithers off the seat. Forward I stare again, and I close my thighs so Izzy, who's sitting across my lap, doesn't slip through. I check that the blanket is wrapped tight around Izzy, then squeeze Izzy against my chest. Chin snug in the cave of my collar bone, I place mine on the tufts of short hair. I close my eyes like Izzy. “Sorry, but you sure you okay?” asks the lady. I glance sideways at her. I whisper, “Got cut.” Her purple lips go “ooh.” She says, now softly, “Where your parents?” Her black hair frizzes out like a hay broom covered in soot, but her eyes glimmer for she has a friend this ride. I hush, “We're visiting our Grandpa in the banks.” “And a good thing that, honey. Charlotte too crazy to be here all the time.” I nod yeah, careful not to shift Izzy's head too much with my chin. “Little one must be tired to already be sleeping,” she whispers, then points to her watch, too pink and too flowery for a middle-aged woman. “Only six,” she mentions. I smirk yeah. Admiring the peaceful Izzy, she grins. She goes “dawww.” Then her eyes narrow. She lifts herself off her seat and leans over the aisle. I clutch Izzy tighter against me. I slit my eyes at her. She steps into the aisle of the bus then sits sideways on the armrest of our aisle seat, studying Izzy. I hug tighter and scoot both of us against the window, cornered as much as possible. She inches forward and examines Izzy. Trapped as much as possible. k** her. She reaches for Izzy, but I rotate away. She soothes, “Sorry, don't want to wake him, but he is absolutely gorgeous. Most delicate boy I've ever seen.” I twist farther away and snarl, “Leave us alone.” She jolts and furrows her eyebrows. “Sorry, honey,” she says. “It's just unusual. He's so beautiful. You don't think it's un–“ “She's my sister now leave us alone.” She gasps. “But her hair?” I tighten Izzy tighter, tighter, come back to me. “Pretends to be a boy because the world scares her.” “But if she a girl, she a girl,” she states. “People do a lot when they feel trapped. Like I will if you don't leave, us, alone.” The lady tsks and stands again in the aisle, then she scans around for anyone else, until her eyes jolt toward the back of the bus. She shuffles toward there. I cuddle Izzy closer, closer. Pull her into me so we shrink so small we're safe. “Shh, shh,” I whisper to Izzy. “He's waiting for us there. His feet ankle-deep in the sand. Chuckling as it sifts through his toes. You'll love it, too.” The Greyhound lurches forward because the light has turned green. “Or maybe waist deep in the water. Arms out toward us, eager to teach you how to swim. So shh, shh. He's been waiting for you.” Her cheek feels cold against my neck, but I appreciate the warmth she gives me, that feeling that flows down me like a gulp of belonging. Focus on how it starts at my forearms clinched around her shoulders, or at my throat where her nose is, and how that warmth snuggles down my body, gradually thawing every inch. Like Spring does when it smoothes its palms out along the cold back of the land, awakening everything with its affection, and as each flower straightens toward the warmth and each cicada flutters itself free from underground, a wave rolls across the prairie. And I think of one ladybug, bumbling ahead of the ripple.