Everything Fragile✔

Chapter Twenty - The Shadow That Remains

   My brain is split in two. Which sucks because I need myself to be whole again, but I can't stop it. I can't stop myself from falling apart. As the days go by, I find it more difficult to keep my gaze up. I'm always in my head going over the past; going over events that I can no longer change.

   I think about the time mom and I used to dance in the middle of the living room when I was in the sixth grade. I remember how she'd take my hand and twirl me around until I was dizzy. Then freshman year of high school, I told her dancing with her was lame; embarrassing. I remember the hurt in her eyes even now.

   Then my brain takes me to her funeral. It was just dad and I there. Mom ran from her family when she was young to start a life with my dad. She was wildly in love. Stupidly, blindly in love. No one from her past came to see what was left of her. Dad held a flask to his lip the whole time. A tear never shed. Just anger boiling inside him, building up for some inevitable fate.

   I see Mateo at the hospital next. His face was hard and emotionless; pale even under the lights of the hospital room. But his eyes held a pain unlike anything else. A pain that I'm familiar with. He lost someone during the shooting at Marina's. I barely even remember Andrew. His face is merely blank in my eyes and I find myself feeling grateful for that. The last thing I want is another ghost to haunt my dreams.

   Finally, it always ends with me drowning, weighed down by the burdens of life, gasping for air that'll never come, the burning from my lungs as I suffocate on an abundance of water, and then death. Always death. Never anyone to save me. A merciful ending from all the pain that surfaces in mortality. Still, I need to get all this baggage off me, but there's no one I can talk to and that fact makes my heart hurt.

   I hate being so alone.

   And then I'm not. At least not physically. I'm back in the present moment. I'm in my high school seated in the cafeteria with an untouched turkey sandwich in front of me. Willow is next to me. The smell of her sweet perfume engulfs my senses, grounding me. Good. I need to be grounded.

   "Carter's back," she says.

   Her words shock me. I didn't even notice. My life has been relatively peaceful if you don't count my depressive episodes and social reclusiveness. As far as I'm aware, Carter has been staying out of my radar. And even as I glance around, he's nowhere in sight.

   Willow chuckles softly next to me, drawing my eyes back to her. "He's not back at school yet. Next week, I think, is when he's set to come back on campus."

   I nod my head slowly. "That's good."

   "Yeah. We're really grateful for what you did. Especially after… everything that we put you through. Sorry for that by the way. Looking back, I can see how unfair it was to hang my mom's words over your head as if you didn't lose someone. I was just scared and--"

   "It's okay."

   Willow looks as shocked as I should feel about my words. It's not okay. Not one bit. Willow, Carter, Jennifer,  and Alex were all my friends at some point. We were a force to be reckoned with at Kingston High. The untouchables. My lack of money didn't deter our relationship. It only amplified it and dissipated whatever insecurity tried to rise between the gaps of happiness. Then, that all changed where their future's were threatened. It all changed where their family images were at risk of being corrupted by a girl who lost her mother one stupid night. An unforeseen turn of events. No legitimate investigation. The whole town silenced. I was silenced. Even now.

   "You're acting so unlike yourself." Willow says. She stares at me, worried. "It's weird."

   "It's been a long week." I say, rubbing my eyes. My fingers find my sandwich and I take a bite. My mouth salivates and my stomach grumbles. I didn't realize I was this hungry.