#seraph evans

[irp-graphics]

[augszamora-blog]

Freedom Fluttering ♦ August + Seraph

It was time. Eight years was too long a period to be sitting down and doing nothing. August realized this too late, of course—and even then, she still doubted. Her meeting with her little brother last Father’s Day had certainly reopened some wounds—though she doubted they had ever closed—and brought some questions to resurface. It took one conversation, one tiny question, to get August to ponder about the last eight years. Aiden’s words had broken her down to her tiniest entity. Whether he was aware of it or not, he sent her down a spinning spool of self doubt and insecurities—the same way she had been when she was seventeen. Then again, she never really outgrew that phase; maybe it was time to start learning.

Even as she sat in a room full of women who might have gone through the same things and probably understood her, August couldn’t help but feel fear creep down her back, attach itself to her spine and cripple her. Granted, she had always been afraid—even she herself knew that—and while this was a different kind of fear, it was fear just the same and she learned to cling to it. The thought of a future without her sister terrified her, and being here, in a seminar that taught women to deal with abusive pasts and somehow wanted to empower them, was a step towards that. August knew that, in a way, this was a good thing; but a part of her said otherwise.

The woman speaking up front brought her encouraging speech to a close and announced the start of their new activity. For the next part of the program, the women were to proceed to their assigned groups—the one written on their name tags—and discuss certain issues and learn to protect themselves. August was reluctant to stand, feeling fine just where she sat, but as the others began to group themselves, she was forced to move as well. In the buzz of the commotion and the crowd, she managed to find a woman about two heads taller than her, with bright red hair and an overly enthusiastic smile, holding a banner with her designated group number. Upon seeing August and the number three on her name tag, the woman widened her smile—an act the blonde didn’t think possible— and introduced herself. Her name was Suzie, and she was to be their group leader.

August smiled—though it was really nothing compared to the other woman’s—at the given information and took a seat on the carefully arranged chairs prepared for their group. With a heavy burden, August looked around their group in an attempt to decipher some of these women and check if they were here to judge her. Then again, she had never been good at reading people, but she was not one to forget a face. As her eyes scanned the group of women before her, she couldn’t help but get the sinking feeling she already had an encounter with one of them and that it had not been pretty.