‘Envy is green’, a line I’ve heard for years. I found it odd…why green? Why not red? I’d say envy should be red. After Lilith Smith. With her blue eyes like the sky, that red - red like a ruby - hair, ivory skin that gleamed in the sun…that’s Lilith Smith. The ‘it’ girl. I bet you have your own version of Lilith. Right? It can’t be just me - Can it?
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This was much before I met Lilith Smith. Much before. I was too young to know. I was four…maybe five, when my mother and I lived out in a car. I still remember it. We’d travel the area and look for a convenient store to stay at. Why? Why was I not with my father? Where was he? Mom always said, “He’s at the hospital Cleo.” - it may have been a tough subject, her voice always broke up. - “Your father will find you when he’s better.”
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She was sick herself. Always so sick…I’m amazed I didn’t get sick often as a child. Day after day I would ask that question. Up until my mother drove up to a neighborhood, then a house, and stopped. She stopped at a house. Told me to get out. And there I was, in front of this old white house that needed to be fixed. She walked me to the door, knocked, and talked to the old lady who answered. At which point I was just shoved in and mom gave the lady my identification…and left.
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That women raised me. ‘Mis. Rose’, at least that’s what she told me to call her, she put me through school. Hours with her passed and turned into days, then weeks, then months…then years…with my mother visiting less and less. Ha…a child could wish. Soon I was in the ninth, I was only fourteen when I met Lilith Smith. And now our story begins in my ninth year of school. The first class of the day and the girl I’m sat next to, Lilith.
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Oh see was beautiful…with that white dress and her grey head band…she sounded like an angel, “Heyyyyy! I’m Lilith! You?”
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I stare at her for a moment, my voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, “Cleo- Cleo Ezz..”
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“Cleo? Like Cleopatra?”
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“Like Cleopatra, Cleo.”, I laughed all so nervously. Was my name that unique to her that she had to ask about it?
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“That’s a really cool name Cleo!” - she’d so sweetly, like honey - “If I could go by a different name, it’d be Rose.”
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I tilted my head, Rose? Why a rose. Was it from the play Romeo and Juliet of the flower? “Like…a red rose?”
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“Mhm! Red is my favorite color. What’s yours?”
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