Secrets

Ducks

The sound of rain trickling and tapping against the windows of Kaylee's bedroom window resonated the walls of the apartment complex. As the blonde teen rested on her small bed, headphones on, soft jazz playing as she wrote in her diary, she reminisced over her long week; difficult exams, long and boring classes, hating her single lifestyle, her parents arguing... It was too much for her. She sat up in her bed and looked at the time on her digital rectangular clock on her small bedside table. 7:30 PM. The girl sighed and lied down. Her mom had stated earlier that morning that she would be there for a while. Her parents had been trying to arrange a divorce, fighting over who would have custody over what.

A message popped up on her screen. Kaylee grabbed her phone and looked at it. Michelle was texting her again.

Hey, the text read. You wanna come with Justin and me? We're heading over to the bar a couple blocks from school.

She hesitated. Yes, she wanted to go out, but not with people, especially in a crowd. The thought of having eyes on her or around her, people surrounding and squeezing, suffocating her, seemed... like a bad idea.

After a couple minutes, she replied with a: No, sorry, I'm busy.

Michelle sent an Okay, leaving her be.

Time went by. She stopped listening to music and had left her room for a snack at 8:27 PM, returned with some cheese nachos and popcorn and a couple sodas at 8:36 PM, ate most of the junk food by 9:50 PM, and for the remainder of the time until 11:03 PM had been scrolling on her phone through socials, watching people, whether it's with their partners or friends or family. Kaylee stopped afterwards, putting her phone down. She looked outside from her bedroom window, hoping to see her mom's old navy-blue minivan, only to see there wasn't anything in the parking lot, aside from some trash the neighbors had left. She texted her mom to ask what she was up to, the woman only reading her message and replying with a Busy.

The girl sighed and tossed her phone across the room, the object hitting the wall, luckily leaving no dent. She curled up on her bed, in long baggy gray sweatpants and a loose hoodie, biting her lip as she pulled at the fabric of her sweats, trying to fight back tears. A few minutes later, Kaylee recollected herself and stood up. She picked up her phone and roamed down the halls of her home, or what she supposed was home, hearing nothing but the sound of the storm outside and her footsteps, softened by her cushioned blue and red and gray snake-like striped socks. As Kaylee entered the kitchen, small pictures of her childhood and drawings she had created from a younger age that were magnified to the fridge with little souvenirs greeted her. She grimaced at the poor attempts Little Kaylee had done.

Thunder rumbled, Kaylee turning away to look out the large windows, showing the dark evening, little streetlights showing the drops of water the size of basketballs bouncing on the pavement, accumulating together to form streams and rivers and floods of water on the road. Despite it looking cold and lonely... she had a sense of comfort from the sight of it.

It was currently 0:15 AM. She'd pulled out her small silver Apple laptop and started to try to watch a show on Netflix as a distraction, upset when she realized it only made her feel worse. She looked outside. The rain had stopped, a low and barely noticeable mist loomed, bunching up by the bushes and sidewalks of the road. Kaylee looked at her phone and messaged her mom again, only to see that it had only been delivered and not read.

That's it, she thought.

Without a second thought, Kaylee stood up, pulling off her socks, placing them and her phone messily on her bedside table. She grabbed a sheet of yellow paper from her desk on the other side of her long, monochromatic, dull, empty room ("I'm going for a walk, I'll be back later. Don't worry about me. — Kaylee"), grabbing an extra layer, put on a fresh pair or thin gray ankle socks, black sneakers and a dark purple puffer jacket with lighter purple polka dots and hues on the sleeves and hood, leaving the vest open, grabbing her set of keys to the apartment, locking the mahogany bronze door behind her, stuffing the keys into her jacket. Kaylee went in the metallic elevator, watching after she'd pressed the ground floor as the numbers slowly went down and down.