جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 9

The school's art room was my favorite place in the world. It was a wonderful, glorious mess.Paint jars lay open everywhere, brushes stained in every shade were scattered across the tables, and crumpled drafts formed little mountains. The air always smelled of turpentine and creativity.Ms. Diana Stone was a plump art teacher. Whenever she smiled, her eyes narrowed into thin crescents, and even her belly jiggled with laughter. She wasn't thin like Mom. Her hugs felt warm, soft, and wonderfully reassuring."Eddie, you have an incredible sense of color," Ms. Stone always told me.After I won first place in the city's children's art competition, she presented me with a flat metal case. When I lifted the lid, I was met with a rainbow—48 watercolor markers lined up like soldiers in brilliant uniforms. They were colorful and beautiful, but to my parents, they might as well have been illegal.If I took them home, Dad would call them excessive, and Mom would dismiss them as visual clutt

The truck driver busied himself with a pile of discarded cardboard nearby.Mom and Dad had already gone back upstairs. They were probably wiping away the footprints left from carrying out the desk with disinfectant. No one was watching me.I let go of the broken desk and tried to climb onto the truck. However, the cargo bed was too high. I couldn't reach it.Then I noticed the green metal collection bin by the roadside. A label read, "Used Clothing Donation."Beneath it was a small opening. It was too narrow for an adult to squeeze through, but I could. I was petite. I had spent my whole life learning to take up as little space as possible, and now that skill had found its purpose.I fished a crumpled supermarket receipt out of my pocket. I didn't have a pen, so I bit the tip of my finger and wrote a few crooked words in my own blood on the back.It stung, but I didn't mind."Mom and Dad, I'm sorry. If I throw myself away, you won't have to throw anything else out anymore."

Dad frowned, clearly finding the driver's remarks excessive and even grating. He checked his watch, intending to interrupt. But the driver went on, pointing at the desk with the broken leg. "A kid's childhood matters. When the people they trust most throw away something they treasure, the scar stays with them for life. It's a wound that never fully heals."I'm not trying to tell you how to raise your kids. I'm just saying—be careful what you throw out. You can always buy new things, but you can't buy back a kid's trust."He loaded the last of the cardboard and climbed into the truck. The engine roared to life, and the vehicle pulled away, leaving a trail of black smoke. Mom and Dad stood in the cold wind, staring at the broken desk.At that very moment, I floated just above them. The chill of the wind no longer reached me, and the ache in my knees had vanished completely.A strange sensation took hold of me, and I felt a lightness I had never known, as though I were drifting on

My funeral was simple. I had no friends to mourn me, and both sets of grandparents had passed years ago. Only Ms. Stone came.I floated toward her, trying to wrap myself around her because her eyes were so swollen from crying. I wanted to make her feel better.She placed a brand-new box of 48 markers at the base of my headstone. My eyes lit up. I reached out eagerly, hoping to hug the box to my chest, but my hands passed straight through it. I couldn't touch it. It was the first time I'd ever thought being so light was a terrible thing.After the funeral, my parents went back to the house. It was emptier and cleaner than ever before. Every unnecessary object was gone. Nothing superfluous remained, and the silence was absolute. It was exactly the home they had always dreamed of.But soon, I noticed something was off with Mom. She stopped tidying up altogether. She simply sat on the floor, staring blankly at the corner."Did you hear that?" she suddenly asked.Dad sat acros