Beginnings - Lightning from Heaven

Heaven sat cross-legged on the floor of her closet. Her long brown loosely cured hair hung in a relaxed ponytail across one shoulder. She wore an old, frayed and torn oversize gray sweat shirt with “Kiss Me!!!” written in bold crimson letters over tight slate blue jeans. Her bare feet, with toenails painted dark blue, tapped to Motley Crue throbbing from an enormous stereo which covered most of the surface area of an oak dresser in the corner of the expansive bedroom.

Heaven leaned back against the wall of the closet and dropped another page of the letter that she was reading into a pile of papers being created on the oatmeal colored carpet beside her. She giggled as her eyes absorbed each word of the final page.

“He is so sweet!” She whispered. With a broad smile, she dropped the last page to the floor, closed here eyes and sighed. Heaven’s heart was light. He loved her. He finally said as much in his letter. She knew that her parents had been wrong about him. They didn’t know him at all. They didn’t know how sweet he was. How he treated her like a woman instead of a little girl.

Her parents would never understand him or their love. They just made judgments. They condemned him for his clothes, his language and the lack of a job or sufficient education. They told her that he was no good and that she was worth more. She had turned sixteen, three months earlier and her parents had dared to threaten to take away her drivers license if she saw him again. He was right about her parents. He had always been right. They didn’t love her like he did. They didn’t care about her happiness.

Her parents were intoxicated with self righteousness when they found out about his arrest. They had known that it would happen sooner or later. Trash, he was filth, a subhuman individual. They had smiled at each other smugly and looked down at her with those “see, we knew best” eyes. She had screamed at them then, the first time that she had dared to raise her voice, to that degree, to her parents. They, of course, blamed her actions and attitudes on his influence. He was gone and they knew that Heaven would see how right they were. Because, of course, they were right!

Michael promised in his letter, which he had written from the county jail and sent to her friend Julia, that they would be together. He said that he missed her. She hung on his every word. He finally wrote that he loved her. She read the words over and over again. Electricity pulsed through her. She knew that this was the real thing. This was love!

She pulled herself to her feet and searched for socks in the pile of washed and folded clothes which had been placed on the floor outside her bedroom door. She didn’t have much time. Michael wanted her to be ready to go with him.

“It’s the only way that we can be together.” He would whisper.