The Silent Treatment

At first, the dead body in the woods was disconcerting. After all, I wasn't expecting to find a 12 year old girl propped up against an oak tree like a stuffed animal at a tea party. Her eyes were wide open and stagnant with a permanent and disappointing stillness in the jaw. But this girl was blue in the mouth from the morning freeze.

It was six am and like most mornings, I took to the woods for a stroll. This was the only time I could get away from the anxiousness of being in the house. There was a lot of noise without a lot of reason and sometimes I just needed to clear my head. Especially since, if we're being honest, I hadn't many friends at the time. Any friends to be exact. The only children I knew were the rambunctious classmates I had nothing in common with and before that, my deceased older sibling who made my life a living hell, pointing out that no one would ever love me unless I found a way to be a little less 'rotund.' And in those days, during those insults, I went to the woods to be by myself--not for a walk--but just to cry alone.

While staring at this little girl, I realized something. Most of the kids who talked at school were talking about me or talking at me. They were never talking to me. I really was the black sheep of it all. Maybe, just maybe, if I got my teacups and my plastic shortbread biscuits, and my chairs and my baby blanket, she and I could have high tea. In silence. And it would be there against the tree that we could enjoy each other's company. After all, she would never say anything hurtful. And our talks would never end in tears because there was never the danger of us speaking out of turn--or having any conversation at all, for that matter.

I would call her Rosalita, after my favorite song by The Boss. And I would put pastel and pistachio colored makeup on her each morning to keep up appearances. I would keep her there for our tea parties. Our parties of two. And everyone out there would be none the wiser.

Rosalita and I would be the blue sheep duo, talking about sinking battleships, and kissing boys that once bullied us, and staring out the looking glass--

without so much as a single apprehension.