The Lives We Lead | tmr/tw • tw/tmr |

(26) Just Blame It On The Neighbor's Dog

(Guys, I promise Stiles is in the next chapter. Just hold on for a little longer! I'm double updating so you don't even have to wait for it!)

Overwhelm and exhaustion do not mix well. To have fatigue pulling at every muscle in your body, your limbs feeling heavier with every step and your eyelids struggling to open with every blink. Yet, sleep does not come. The relief of your toils is denied by your own mind as thoughts refuse to stop wandering, continuously attempting to make sense of whatever worries you.

Abbie finally stood in the entryway to her parents' house, sighing as she dropped her bag down beside her. What a long day she just had. As exhausted as she felt on the two plane rides it took to get home, she hadn't slept a wink, too consumed by everything she had learned about her biological parents and her supernatural heritage--not to mention the overwhelming realization of the existence of the supernatural itself.

In all reality, she didn't know how to feel about it all. Should she have felt angry? At who, though? Her mother had hidden everything about her past and the supernatural from her, but it was for their safety and Abbie couldn't deny that, if she were placed in the same position, she might have done the same thing. Should she be angry at her great grandmother? But why? It wasn't Sima Ai's fault that Huli Jing had been hunted down for hundreds of years, nor was it her fault that she would outlive every loved one she ever gained. Mrs. Yukimura made it sound like her great grandmother had many husbands and children and grandchildren over the years and she had to leave them all behind eventually. She couldn't blame even her ancient Huli Jing of an ancestor for the misfortune to befall their family at the hands of the Shao Warriors.

Who then could she blame? A faceless, ominous group of Chinese hunters? Even she didn't have the energy to be angry with another heinous organization--WICKED took up all the room she had in her heart for bitterness already. And what good would it do her to blame yet another system beyond her reach? Hating WICKED helped her accomplish nothing but still feeling rooted in the past.

Walking in the kitchen, she noted the lingering stench from before she and Isaac had departed to Oregon just four days before. In her haste for answers, Abbie didn't bother cleaning up more than absolutely necessary. Most of the bloody rags were thrown away and there were no pools of dried blood, but it had rained that night and trails of mud and streaks of blood ran through from the front door to the kitchen. In hindsight, Abbie was really lucky the floors were faux-wood instead of real wood or--perish the thought--carpet.

There were other things that would most certainly worry her parents if they saw. Like the bullet she had extracted from Isaac's shoulder, sitting in a bloody coffee mug on the counter. It didn't take much for her to conclude that the state of the house was reason enough for her parents to never let her out of their sight again--and double (perhaps triple) her number of therapy sessions.

Abbie turned and grabbed the stupid coffee mug, throwing away the bullet and rinsing out the cup--three washes would probably suffice, but she had half the mind to just throw out the dish altogether. With a shiver of discomfort, she stopped washing the mug and just threw it away, moved to action at the mere mental image of one of her parents drinking from it in the future.

Needing something less disturbing to occupy her mind, Abbie started thinking about what Isaac had asked of her before they parted. Though she was sick of therapy, she knew he was right; she still needed help because she was most certainly not okay. Her visits with Tonya were putting her on edge and it was far past time for her to fire the psychologist. Tonya meant well, but Abbie knew that it was just a matter of time before she referred Abbie to a psychiatrist so she could be put on a daily regimen of anti-psychotics. Abbie wouldn't deny that she had issues--major issues, at that--but no matter what Tonya thought, she wasn't Schizophrenic.