Rosie Coloured Glasses. Brianna Wolfson
8
Willow Thorpe knew friction. The heat it created when one thing rubbed against another. When one world rubbed against another.
Willow felt it every time she got into the back seat of her mother’s car, buckled her seat belt, grabbed her brother’s hand and prepared to return to her father’s house. Every time she stared out the window of her mother’s car, and traced the familiar turns of the street on her way to her father’s. Every time her father opened the big heavy front door and grumbled, “Late again, Rosie.” Every time her mother casually responded with a smirk and a “Catch you later, Rex.”
Every time she looked up at her father and became self-conscious of the way her knees knocked together. Every time she went from art-covered walls to plain white ones. Every time she went from Mango Tango crayons to yellow #2 pencils.
Willow had a sense that the children of other divorced parents fantasized about what it might be like for their mother and father to be in love again. For their mother to tighten their father’s tie in the morning before work. For their father to zip up their mother’s dress in the evening before dinner. For their mother and father to share a casual kiss on the lips when they thought their children weren’t looking. For every picture frame around the house to display an image of a whole family: mother, father, and brother and sister tangled around one another.
But Willow didn’t think about any of that.
She