Be careful what you ask for.
When digging deep, you may uncover bodies.
Maisie's life has been falling apart since her older sister went missing years ago without a trace. With a dead father and a mentally unstable mother, the teenage girl ha...
TW: Drug use (marijuana) This and future chapters will have a few mentions of eating disorder habits + anxiety. Please read with care, my DM is always open
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-MAISIE-
SLEEP DOESN'T FIND me. Not a single ounce of it. So I keep myself busy.
Noah dropped me a minute before my curfew. The twins had already left. Finlay was in his bedroom as usual. And Al waited for me in Dad's study. He wanted to talk, but I soon gave him some lame excuse and climbed the stairs up to my room.
I have tried to sleep. Which hasn't happened in the past two hours since I laid on my bed. My thoughts too loud, my body too restless.
I finally give up. I pick my outfits for the entire week, one for each dress-up day. I organize the shoe boxes inside my closet. I even fix all my rings in the jewelry box. Try to sleep again. No luck. Then, I paint my nails. I also goggle a few healthy recipes once my stomach starts to growl. When my nails are dry and my phone has no battery left, but I am still hungry, I binge some—okay, all—the chocolate stash under my bed. Only to drop in front of the toilet a few minutes later and taste the fresh nail polish at the back of my throat.
Not even after that do I manage to sleep. I climb out of the covers for a third time and get my hands full. Anything to keep my mind away from the cliff's edge that are the thoughts regarding my missing sister.
Speaking of which, I redecorate our entire room, throwing all her stuff to the corner and gaining more space for my things. I also take all her pictures off of her walls—well, my walls now. And I put all the things I don't want to ever touch again—the pictures and Dad's investigation into her disappearance, her truth list and even all of her necklaces that I once had wanted so bad—inside the wooden box that I previously had kept the chocolates in.
I shove it back under my bed, throwing the endless chocolate wrappings in my bathroom bin. The only things I am not able to push away are some of the photographs. Not the ones that had been on the walls—Isla and her friends, Isla and Felipe, Isla and our family, only Isla, all Isla. But the ones that had been with the rest of our father's investigation on her case. The same ones I believe my sister took.
A deserted road. Lingeries on a messy bed. A faceless girl eating a spoon of alphabet soup. One ripped teddy bear falling mid-air. An empty seat at a large table. Irises composed of several tiny images. All beautiful. All haunted somehow.
I fully understand how she got accepted into the Art Institute of Chicago. Probably she even sent them these pictures as part of her portfolio. But why would she build a portfolio only to leave after?
