Adam - A Novella

6

The ringing was louder than my father, for once. I felt my head whipping around, and my entire body felt hot and cold simultaneously. Oddly enough, the only pain I felt was a slight sting where hot blood flowed out of my head and sizzled in my hair. I felt my body hit the ground again, I'm glad. I'm so tired. Maybe that melatonin was finally kicking in.

I had one of the best naps of my life, but the light when I opened my eyes was outrageously bright. So bright, I didn't feel like opening them anymore, but I was too intrigued to know where I was. For a second, I couldn't even remember my name. Until, of course, I heard it dripping off a scorched-sounding voice of a nurse. The beeping of my heart monitor slowly became more prominent than my newfound tinnitus, and the bustling hallway of the ICU sparked my senses to life.

Life. I'm alive. I went to look around the room, but my head burned with intense pain when I lifted it off my pillow. My eyes tried glancing from their position, but I couldn't see anything but cords dangling off my body and words that I didn't even bother trying to read. I'm still tired. I went to go back to sleep, but my mother clutching her pearl necklace while walking into my view peaked my best interest. "Mom?" I whispered. I haven't called her my mom since she burned "Maria" into my arm with her cigarette, a scar that was still there in a faint white. "Adam." She whispered, and she was much less joyed to see me up and well than I thought she would be. Or, at least, hoped she would be. In reality, I didn't expect anyone to come to my rescue at all, exactly like I had planned.

"Good news!" Said a peppy nurse, who sounded nothing like the other girl who was in the room hours ago. "Once we get your blood results back, you can leave when social work clears you." How long had I been here that I'm healed from a gunshot to the head wound? I checked the date, and it was February 27th. Almost two weeks. I remember the day I chose to kill myself, the day before Valentine's Day, because I was not about to force myself to pretend to love Avalin any longer. On a day I wanted to spend with a cute guy, like Lin or even Caleb, the world wanted me to cut pregnancy close in bed with someone I admittedly wish I never met. Avalin is stuck up and egotistical. Conventionally pretty, with platinum blonde hair that's (almost) completely natural, hazelnut eyes (Born with them, where her Canadian parents got her name) and a model body. Perfect for cool Adam, but not for me.

I don't remember the rest of the hospital trip, but it wasn't the most entertaining couple of days of my life. Blood results came back fast, but the social workers were very busy, so I didn't bother them with details. After lies and half-truths spritzed out of my mouth like Febreze, I was clear to go—with a safety plan that I have no clue what it contains. Waiting for someone to pick me up was the hardest part, because my mom never came back to visit once she saw me wake up. Even when she finally arrived, she refused to look me in the eyes, and until I climbed slowly into the car, I had no idea why she would be so strongly indifferent with me.

"Adam." She began, her eyes filling with tears as soon as she put the car in reverse. "Your father, he'd read your letter." My blood, freshly made by my strong-minded cells, instantly ran cold. I'd put my heart and soul into that letter. I knew when I died, not only I'd die, but the idea of Cool Adam would die, and be completely unable to ever return. I looked at her in the rearview mirror, and as soon as she was able to, she looked at me too. Her eyes held so much emotion that I couldn't begin to tell what she was going to say. Or maybe because Cool Adam was gone, my body language calculations were forever gone too. Or maybe it's just the overwhelming migraine.

"He was so angry. He was going to kill you, Adam. And I know you... well, you wouldn't have cared." One hand came off the steering wheel and covered her mouth. I resisted ugly crying as her mascara began to drip. "But I couldn't let him. I knew he wasn't in the right mind. Neither of you. I stopped him, and I called the ambulance." There was no gospel songs today. Just the silence of the engine whirring and the wind rushing past our car, and her failure to mute her sniffling. A part of me was angry at her for saving me, a big part, but another wanted to wrap my arms around her and cry into her shoulder, like I did when my father would break a bottle on my abdomen side. But I couldn't, so I bent my knees and let them sink into my chest. My heart began aching again, but it felt different.

When my mom pulled the car into the gravel patch next to our porch, I instantly noticed something was off. There wasn't a case of beer outside for my father's use. The light in the living room was off, and his blue pickup truck had its hood up, finally receiving service for the first time since I was born. "Your father... I mean, Augustus. He's going to leave for a bit." Even though he put her through so much shit, her voice still tinged with heartbreak at the prospect of separating from him. "We might get a divorce." She added quietly, wiping the mascara tears off her cheeks at last, leaving a stained streak and smudge.

"I'm sorry." She looked out the window without saying a word. I hopped out of the car miserably. I never wanted to return here. I never wanted to see this damn lot again, this family again, my mother's tears again. Yet I got all of it. I stepped up the porch stairs without watching where I was walking, but the screen door swung open without me reaching out.

"So, you're alive." Augustus growled. I buried the corners of my eyebrows into the bridge of my nose, even though all I wanted to do was cry. "Figures." A brown bottle flew straight for my nose, but my managed to dodge the short distance attack.

"What the fuck is your problem?!" I screamed, and I saw Mavia's head pop out of our bedroom in my peripheral.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" Gus roared, and his bud light saliva splashed in my face. But I had nothing to lose anymore.

"I'll talk to you however I want, piece of shit." I inched toward him and puffed up my chest, bracing for pain.

"I'll put my own bullet through your skull, fucker!" The whiplash from the strong chest punch made my head injury sting like hell. He came towards me quickly, and my fight or flight kicked in. I rolled to dodge as he kicked with all his might, and as his beer-belly body's balance got thrown off, I stood and sent the back of my foot flying into the back of his knee, causing him to fall away from the steps I had flew down and hit the ground with a smack. Finally, a healthy anger vent, I thought, as I wound up my arm.

School sucks for regular Adam. I don't know what people are thinking and feeling by their body language. That skill went out the window with Cool Adam. The people around me no longer were intimidated by my presence, and instead, I was intimidated by theirs. The sympathetic looks from staff have been unbearable as well. I knew life would be miserable if I lived, but I was counting on not. Now I have to count seconds on the clock until I get back to my bed, to sleep this shit away.

"Hey, you good man?" Gabriel, the cute Mexican boy, asked quietly. I'm sure he's heard the rumors, just like everyone else. I looked into his eyes, and also like everyone else, I couldn't read them. "Screw off." I whispered quieter than even I could hear. He asked what I said, and the kind tone which I could easily read, even without Cool Adam, made me inch towards a breakdown. I felt my legs stand, and the heart ache that drove me insane began to pulse again. I ignored my teacher's voice echoing around the classroom as I walked steadily down the hall, away from the new hierarchy tiers.

It had only been a week and I was already over everything again. Nothing was improving. Caleb wasn't here. People know now, or think they know half of it. My mother knows. My father knows. I can't sleep, knowing if he gets just a little too angry, my life can slip away at the most arbitrary moment. Cool Adam was the only thing keeping me afloat, and now he's gone. My life is gone. I'm a walking zombie.

I've lost everything.