Desolate ▿ Teen Wolf

Trying to Breathe

This isn't the first time I've felt this way. It always happens, no matter how hard I try. I try to become unattached, ignore them all together, and it still happens. It's even worse when I actually care for the people or want to stay.

It's unenviable.

It may happen in a week- sometimes longer. Sometimes it's them that send me back, leaving me alone and abandoning me. I've become so accustomed to it that it became comforting. It became part of my routine.

And now? It feels like it snuck up on me out of nowhere. I hadn't even realized how long I have stayed here until the cold grasp of the unknown and loneliness wrapped around me like a warm blanket on a blistering day. It's only been a day since the feeling reappeared and it already feels like I'm drowning.

The urge to run, to move, to leave is overwhelming. Keeping me up at night, keeping me emotionless as the day rolls on.

It's like an itchy scarf stapled to your neck. Painful and uncomfortable.

I should have known this would happen when I realized that I have been here before. It never really registered until now. I lived here, my life ended here. I close my eyes tightly the sound of screeching tires and sirens filling my ears, the past mocking me.

"Terra?" A voice snaps me out of my trance. The suffocating feeling lingering in the background as I try to return to the world. My eyes slowly focus on Stiles crouching in front of me.

I slowly turn my head my eyes landing on each of his friends. Their stares lingering as they inspect me wondering where I went while they were talking. I grunt slightly in response.

"We were just talking about Derek."

"Yeah, mhm, Derek."

My eyes carelessly wander around the room until they land on the open window again. The trees beckoning me to join them, to run through them and get lost. To emerge from the forest in another town, new people, new places, new everything.

The hand wraps tighter around my throat, another weight added to my chest as the feeling emerges from the background. It's never been this bad before, that is, except for once. But that was different. That was a long time ago.

My mind aimlessly wanders as my chest constricts under the mental weight. My "friends" muttering in the background, their faces blurring out of focus.

Not being able to take it any more at the moment, I rise from my seat on Scott's bed and exit the room. Ignoring Stiles' and Scott's protests I journey through the house. From the corner of my eye I witness Stiles bolt out of the room, hesitating by the door when he realizes that I'm not actually leaving the house.

I guess they already think I'm going to bolt. Maybe it won't matter to them when I actually do. Or maybe they hope I do follow my instinct.

Stiles returns to the room, a solemn expression etched onto his face. I study the family pictures that line the walls. Few of them include a male figure. I vaguely recognize the man but cannot recall from where. My fingers trace the outlines of their smiles, their glimmering teeth mocking me from the past.

The arms carelessly wrapped around each other remind me of a past that I do not have. A future that will never be possible. A photo near the bottom of the stairs captures Scott mid-laugh as his mother's arms wrap around him, her nimble fingers tickling his stomach.

I try to recall the last time I laughed like that, the last time I was held like that. But my mind draws a blank.

I crouch down by a dent in the wooden floor. My fingers graze over the imperfection, history and a story hidden in the slight hole.