Eleia 1

Meet Eleia

My toes pressed on the fabric-covered insides of my out of season boots. White flowers sprinkled down from the trees above me as I walked quietly down my street. Warm rays of the sun caressed my dark skin. The delicately soft fabric of my dress whispered against my skin as the wind ran through the vibrantly colored fibers. I walked along the curb as cars whisked past me, I listened to the sound of pebbles and dirt beneath my feet. My thick, black hair kissed my neck when the wind rocked it side to side, nearly pulling it out of the large braid I had struggled to get it into this morning.

"Eleia!" My mother's sweet voice cried to me from the top of our front stoop. She had been waiting for me to round the corner. "You're home!" She swallowed me up in her warm, brown eyes. Her red, floral skirt fell from her waist to her mid-thigh. She wore a loose, white sweater that contrasted with her dark, almost midnight colored skin.

I hurried towards our red-brick house and my mother, beaming as if she hadn't seen me in days. "Hi, Mama." I leaped up the concrete steps towards her and was immediately wrapped in her embrace.

"My baby!" She cried, "I've missed you."

"And I, you." I sighed into her shoulder.

She pushed me back to get a better look at me, "How did your father let you walk all the way over here, alone, with all those bags?" She pointed to the backpack I had slung over my shoulder and the tan suitcase I carried at my side. "A pretty, young girl like you, in this city, with goods and alone?" 

"It's fine Mama. He said your neighborhood was safe, you know he wouldn't put me in danger." 

Her lips were strung into a tight line, but a smirk soon bloomed upon them. She flew her chocolate curls over her shoulder and opened the door, taking my suitcase. "I guess, you're right, Eleia. There hasn't been a crime in my neighborhood in over six years, and even then it was a misunderstanding over two neighbors and their identical lawnmowers." She laughed as we entered, "They both spent the night in jail because the judge couldn't decide which was guilty!" She set my suitcase on the stairs and passed behind them into the large kitchen in the back of the house. 

I pulled myself into a chair at the bar while she pulled her lush, loose, curls into a ponytail. She rested her arms on the glistening countertops and leaned against the counter, looking at me. "So how was your day, sweetheart?"

"It was swell. I'm looking forward to these next two weeks." I replied. 

She kissed my forehead from over the counter, "Me too, baby."