First lines given – #8

Welcome to First Lines Given! If that sentence confuses you, here’s a link to where I explain what this is.

Today’s first line is by Raising Adults! She said:

Such a…timely one. Here’s the result:

---

The clock is ticking; each second no more. If I could go back, I know where I’d go.

Home.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But time has passed, and we have experienced too much to go back to the beginning.

I haven’t moved either. I still sit in the same living room, watching my old grandfather clock tick away. It’s much easier to dream about how the past was rather than accept the fact I could never go back.

As a kid, life was simpler. My biggest worry was if I had a math test on Friday, because math and I were never friends. A girl in my class, Lilith, had a crush on me, but she never said anything, and I couldn’t tell. I didn’t realize a girl could fall for me: the girl with bruises covering her legs and arms.

As time went on, so did the faraway war. Most of us never knew where some parents were or if they would come back. We just continued our lessons and played on playgrounds.

Lilith didn’t have any parents though. Instead, we tossed her between friends’ houses. She would stay at mine for a few days about once every five weeks. Those were the best sleepovers. She never seemed to mind how much she never had a physical home; we were all a home to her.

Home to me was back then. Before the bombs fell. Before everything turned into rubble. Before I saw the horror. Before I slowly lost my mind to the screams at night and freights throughout the day.

Before I found Lilith dead with our initials in a heart on her arm. Sharpie.

The world was simpler then. Before the world decided to slap me in the face and show me what being an adult was like.

I’d like to go back. Maybe if I do, something will change.

Until then, I’ll watch this grandfather clock.

Copyright © Robin LeeAnn