Racontuier.

• Angel Tagget, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

Life may change as you age, but the memories will forever be engraved onto the etches of your soul.

I, Tula Cappello. The firstborn of my mother, once destined to spend my days doing my husband’s wishes, not knowing anything better. Living a tired and unfulfilled planned, fabricated life.

Instead, I sew words into a cascade of literature, something I once would sneer at, what my parents would cackle at. I create stories, I could once think of as just downright batty, an abnormal conjuring of imaginary circumstances that are highly unlikely. Now, I’ve made a living out of it, out of being abnormal.
I have decided to author a story to describe to you about it, my great escape. My mother and father’s breaking point.

This story starts when the moon rises its highest, the stars are out and the breeze is cool and calm. I was only fourteen when I was told. I would never expect after my birthday gathering that night. I had a monotonous time, my parents invited their friends and colleagues to the most prestigious country club in the city, the Lasserre. We all take our seats and begin to eat, I wait until the dancing begins to slip away quietly.

Ambling past the tired eyes and permanent slouch of the handmaidens, late stragglers, and drunken gentle people. The cold, unforgiving breeze is light against my fair, freckled skin, I struggle to cover my arms with my mother’s velvet fur coat in mauve, the color for royalty. Stealthily pushing the more doors, taller than any tree I’ve ever seen, as I recall.

Jaunting through the cold, white cobblestone paths. The negative thoughts flutter past me, clouds in the night sky. Once I reach my destination, my body freezes up, slowly gazing in admiration up the stairs of heaven.

“La bibliothèque américaine de paris.” I breathe, taking one step forward in anticipation. Do I really want to do this? Go against my parents wishes? I do, I do. After hearing about this place, I have planned and anticipated the perfect time to visit. Scheduling the whole party to revolve around drinking rosé and red wine, they will all be to the point of insanity over drunkenness.

Shaking myself up “fais le!” I whisper, tugging at the mauve coat, my shelter. My shelter from the truth. I take that leap, well a step. The adrenaline mixed with an empty stomach make the butterflies burst and escape through my gasp. I leap up the steps, skipping four at a time, grinning like an idiot.
Once I finally reach the large oak doors, I take a deep breath in and push them open. The rush of warmth and the creeping familiarity rushes and warms my blood, the colour burning through the isles, the sweet scent of new and used literature lingers in my mind, in that very moment.

I was free and I was welcomed, I never turned back. That was the last time my mother and father ever saw me, the night I left, to be free.