Sunny Walker…Short story

Sunny Walker was a slight girl.  Fair, with a tendency to burn quickly under the direct rays of the sun.  She thought it was ironic that her parents named her Sunny when she usually had to sit in the shade, but her mother said that exposure to the sun had absolutely nothing to do with her name.  She was named Sunny because she lit up their lives when she was born and because she was as radiant as the earth’s star.  Sunny though her parents needed medication, a nice long nap or, at the very least, someone to talk to who was licensed to work with delusional people, because she felt absolutely normal and as unlike the sun as any girl could possibly be. It could have been much worse, however, since her mother once told her that she actually considered naming her Licorice, after a beautiful black cat she had as a child.

Sunny had short, straight, strawberry blond hair and gray eyes.  She was a bit smaller than some of the girls in her age group but not by much.   She had friends but none of them were special, in the best friends forever, kind of way.  She liked people but she liked books and her privacy a lot more.

Her father taught philosophy at the local university and her mother worked at, WHAT’S YOUR POISON, an Occult Bookstore in the city.  She gave Tarot Card readings and ordered books in her favorite subjects. She had three degrees in Archeology but she hadn’t been on a dig since forever.  Sunny had an older brother but he died before she was born. Her mother said no one talked about him because it hurt too much.  His name had been Dillion.  Secretly, Sunny thought his name was still Dillion because she believed that
names never went away, but stayed with a person until the end of time and probably after that as well.

Her days were spent in Ms. Sun’s seventh grade class, her nights were spent at her desk reading or doing homework.  On weekends she volunteered at the local pet store, cleaning cages and walking dogs.  Sunny was a dedicated vegetarian who refused to eat with her parents, “…if there were going to be dead friends on the table.”

“You’re just like everyone else,” she said into the mirror over her dresser.  “No different at all.  Exactly like everyone else,” she added, pulling on the neck of her, ‘hell isn’t a place you go to, it’s a place we’re all trying to leave,’ t-shirt.  But even as the words passed her lips, she knew it wasn’t true.