X-Themes: 1. Break Away

Surprisingly enough, Curtis wasn't a big fan of Kelly Clarkson. She didn't dislike the American Idol, and she did admire her past and stances on things such as media pressure about her weight and beauty. But she had never gotten into her music. She never hummed ‘Behind These Hazel Eyes’ and she never sang to any song besides ‘Never Again’ at the request of a friend at a karaoke party.

So when ‘Breakaway’ came on in the car as she drove a few of the other New Recruits to the mall, she turned up the music and listened to everyone else singing for once. But her absence from the choir was heavily noticed by the others.  She brushed it off as being distracted by a woman doing her make up in the car ahead of them, and joined in for the last chorus. That seemed to be that, because nobody brought it up again.

But one day Curtis found herself underwater, watching Evelyn swim circles around other recruits on the deep end. She stayed there longer then she should have, the noise of the water echoing in her head while her lungs stretched and ached for new air. When she surfaced with a large, shuddering gasp and her eyes wrenched shut against the sun’s glare did Curtis for the first time in her life dwell on the lyrics of a Kelly Clarkson song.

Her brother slid through her mind like mercury over skin and pooled into the lyrics as she bobbed in the water, heart and head pounding from the momentary oxygen deprivation.  Her mouth half underwater, she mumbled to herself, a gurgling noise that nobody would have been able to translate had they actually heard her. “Though it’s not easy to tell you goodbye.”