Stagnant

Disappointment

Home isn't where the heart is. For me it was where the devil was.

It was like a switch, my mood plummeting as soon as the train pulled in to the small station of my town, an overcast blocking out the sun and halting any happiness that might have tried to enter.

Every step, every glance at my familiar surroundings Elliot is there, his ghost haunts this town; his ghost haunts me.

When my feet hit the carpet of my living room as soon as I open the door, I didn't expect to see my parents on the sofa reading newspapers. They both look up as soon as the door opens, confusion appearing on their faces.

It's my father who folds the newspaper and sits up on the cushion. "Where were you?"

His voice hasn't changed. I don't know why I thought it would have but it didn't. It's been months since I've heard him speak to me, directly to me as if I was a person.

"I went out with a friend." I shrug, moving my feet forward to the kitchen. I wanted to avoid my room as much as possible, not wanting the chance to be tainted again by the depression that lingers and the darkness. I wasn't fixed, I wasn't healed, that would take time and a lot of self improvement but I didn't want to risk anything, I didn't want to be sucked back in to the vortex and numbness that I had once been stuck in.

I want to get better. I want to live.

"You went out for a month?"

"I'm surprised you noticed." I roll my eyes, slipping off my trainers. I ignore their frowns.

My mother folds down her newspaper now, crossing her fingers together on her lap. "That Jackson Ryder's parents told us you had gone on a road trip together."

His face contorts with disappointment. "You could have told us, it wouldn't have hurt to inform us of your whereabouts."

I hum, not feeling the motivation to talk to me. There it is, the depression seeping through me like I was paper in the sea. It tears me up.

I couldn't live like this, I couldn't go back in to my old ways and let the depression win. I wouldn't be skin, bones and depression again. I wouldn't. But it's so hard talking to the people who raised me, who didn't check up on my after Elliot died, who forget about their other child while they mourned the loss of their first. It hurt to try and act like the last time we spoke wasn't over eight months ago.

"You should have told us Elizabeth!" She exclaims, glaring at me. "What if you were just lying in a ditch somewhere?"

Now that's low... even for her.

"Would you have cared?" I retort, frustration starting to pool in my stomach.

Disappointment forms on their faces at my tone. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you don't care, it means you forgot about your daughter, it means I've been depressed for a whole year under your roof and you haven't noticed. You forgot about me and you don't care." I glare at the two of them, anger pulsing through my bloodstream.

She rolls her eyes. "Don't be so dramatic. We know you've been leaving the house at night. You're okay."

"I'm telling you I'm depressed and you're saying that I'm okay?" I ask incredulously, my heart beating louder than anything I've ever heard in my life.

"You're okay!"

"If I'm so okay then what are these?" I shout and in my moment of anger, all my sense is tossed out the window. I pull up my sleeves, showing my wrists. The wrists that are littered with scars that I did to myself.