Graffiti Gone Bad

“Will you please pass the syrup?”
Silence.
“Ella, wee ooo! Pass the dang syrup!”
I sucked in a quick breath and came back to reality.
“Oh my gosh! Pass the dang syrup! It’s the little clear bottle in the shape of a creepy little lady and its full of this brown sticky stuff that comes from trees! Pass it danget!”
“Okay, okay!” I said.
“Thank you!” My sister said as if she’d been waiting for hours. As I picked up the bottle of syrup and handed it to my cranky sister, it slipped and fell into the pile of French toast in the middle of the table, spluttering syrup covered toast every were. Next there was a small puff of powdered sugar that landed as a small dusting on everything around us. I froze.
“What is wrong with you today? You are acting like your going to just blow up into millions of pieces any second!”
The flash back of last night popped into my head like a disease returning to a supposedly cured patient. I was as stiff as a statue. The blur of colors invaded my thoughts. I nearly fell over, I was so nervous.
Last night I had gone to the truck stop close to my house with my friend Sasha. We’d brought spray paint in a variety of colors. Sasha said every one did this and that no one would catch us, and of course I had listened to her. We found a bright red truck, which had reminded me of a lobster, and began to smother the paint all over it. While I was making simple smiley faces and hearts, Sasha was making impressive murals and realistic faces. Compared to her artwork, mine seemed like a toddlers. To me this was graffiti; to Sasha it wasn’t graffiti at all. She said it was just one way of venting your feeling in the form of paint. And once again, to my dismay, I had listened to her. Looking back on that right now with all my family’s curious eyes glued to me, I felt above and beyond stupid for listening to her. Now I was sitting at breakfast with my family, feeling like I was going to explode from the tension. I was on the edge of my chair, wondering if they knew or if they were as clueless as I was on how to make good friends. I could not take it! I burst into hysterics and screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Alright! I did it! Feel better now?” They just stared at me while I sobbed and screamed. Finally my mom asked,

“Okay honey, what did you do? It’s all right. I’m here! Calm down now.” She said it like she no idea as to what ‘it’ was. I knew it! She just wanted to torture me! Make me feel horrible about my already ruined life. She didn’t love me! No one did! Every one just acted like it! I sprinted to my room as fast as I could. I felt like some ridiculed freak that had no place in the world. After about 15 minutes of tears and throat throbbing screams some one knocked on my door and asked sweetly if they could come in. I just whimpered in return. The door slowly creaked open, and there appeared my sister with a look of terror in her eyes. She looked scared and concerned. I just stared at her in confusion. Then a fresh batch of tears came on and she become more of a distorted blob than a human. She hesitated then quietly asked me,

“Ella, what’s wrong? You’ve been acting so weird lately. You’re really starting to scare me. Do you need some ones help? Cause you know I’m here for you if you need any one!” All I could do was stare. I could not, would not, believe this was the girl from this morning. My sister had never exactly been the sensitive one in the family, let alone nice to me at all. I broke down into another set of tears and hysterics. I told her everything. The words just tumbled out in a slur. After a long pause of silence she said,
“Well you know you’re going to have to tell mom and dad about this, right?” I quietly chuckled.
“Ya, I know.” And I meant it. Now I had that off my chest, I felt like I could finally get on with my life. I’d been stuck in a rut of fear and confusion for a while, and finally my sister had helped me out. I know knew my life juristically needed to change, starting with this. I slowly pushed my self off my bed and headed for the door. My sister followed. I headed down stairs to start off my new life.