She is eleven years old, and sits down at the bench outside her school. She is waiting for her mother to pick her up from school. She watches the cars pass by her in the parking lot.
It had been almost three hours. The usual. She smokes a cigarette at the picnic table and watches the sun go down. The locusts always make the nastiest sound from above the trees as the sun sets.
Her white dress was dirty, The boys who gave her the cigarette started throwing rocks at her. She looks down at her breasts beneath the white dress and is disgusted with herself.
She exhales the smoke from the puny cigarette and looks back at the older boys at the junior high. Her mother still wasn't there,.
How many years worth of tim I've spent waiting on my mother to pick me up, she wonders and looks across the empty parking lot. Even the boys who had tried to touch her had left.
It was growing dark and the sun was falling. She watches the cars pass her school with some hope. None where here mother.
It's not like she has a job, she thinks. I mean I understand things aren't great with dad at home, but it'd be good for her to leave that house more.
She looks at the lonely junior high school. She exhales and sighs, lifting her head up to fight some sort of tear. Something she didn't want to feel. She looks at the bruised arm the older boy gave when he grabbed her and pushed himself up against her. It makes her sick.
Her watery eyes dry in the dying day, and the clouds darken. It's past dark and I am on a park bench in an empty parking lot, waiting for my ride. How many times have I been here before? How many hours wasted on waiting for someone....Someone who....
The girl stops thinking and smokes some more.
Well, obviously alot, she thinks quietly about her own question and stares at the grass. There was a lady bug somewhere in the grass.
She smiled a bit but it was all a loss for her that night. The rock the older kid threw at her as she ran away still burned and the bruise on her back and leg hurt.
Her face straightens. I can hear the locusts as the sun sets, she thinks a bit annoyed. And afraid.
A security guard pulls up close to her out of nowhere. The young girl brushes her cigarette against the back of the park bench quickly and straightens her blonde hair back from her sand stained face.
The officer was smiling in that worried way as she rolled down the window of the squad car. Her hair was red and cut short with highlights. She had a chubby smile as she spoke through the window. "Hey sweetie, it isn't good for you to be out so late? You got parents?"
She acts insulted. "Yes, I just spoke with my mother on the payphone and she will be here in about 10 minutes. Just a hectic day for her at work," she lies. The officer nods. "Thank you though. It's awfully kind for you to care."
Who was she kidding? Not herself. The little girl thinks about the white lie and bites her hateful lip.
"Well you be safe sweetheart. Such a young pretty girl, people get worried," the officer calls out before driving away.
The eleven year old massages her bruise on her knee from the boys earlier, then sparks another cigarette.
It's like every car I see...Is that her? No. Someone else. She watches the red cars come and pass by as the night grew darker, until finally the tears began to fall as the cigarette stuck to her lip.
The eleven year old smiles. "Yes, I just got off the phone with my mother and she will be here in ten minutes."
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