Cagebird
Chapter One
When I was fourteen I got the scarlet fever, at least that's what I
called it and that's how I think of it still. It's not really the
scarlet fever, not the one you read about in history files. Mine is
just this feeling, and scarlet is its color. Red. You get so hot you
have to release it, but it's the heat of a cold sweat. The fever
eats you up inside and you shake like you're winter, like your blood
is made of ice water and you need to see it run. You need to touch
it and feel its warmth-because it has to be warm. Nobody is this
dead inside.
When it comes out along your skin there isn't any pain. Just relief.
Just the tiny red rivers of life. And you can breathe again, seeing
that. You can look up. You can spread your arms and touch the edges
of your emotions and maybe they touch back, like something new and
curious. Or something old and almost forgotten.
And you think, This is who you are, Yurochka. This is what you're
made of.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from
Cagebird
by
Karin Lowac ... read full excerpt from: Cagebird ebook
